Crescita della produttività, progresso tecnico e impiego del lavoro nelle imprese manifatturiere italiane: 1996-2006

The article analyses the productivity dynamics of a sample of Italian manufacturing firms in the period 1996-2006. The first part computes Malmquist measures of productivity using non parametric techniques. Our measures show that the low rate of growth in productivity is due to the different models used to adapt to the changes in the competitive environment. Up to 2000, all the firms attempted to improve efficiency, whereas technical progress is absent. After 2000, there is evidence that a group of firms advance the technical frontier, while many firms lag behind and increase the frontier gap. The second part of the article correlates the observed measures of productivity to some characteristics of the employed labor. The hypothesis that productive performances could be put in relation to the two tiers of the labor markets resulting from the reforms adopted at the end of the century is supported. Highly productive firms use a higher share of skilled labor and fewer part-time workers. The reverse is true for less efficient firms. Jel classification: