Total Factor Productivity Growth, Technical Efficiency Change and Energy Input. An International Frontier Analysis.

The main objective of this paper is to clarify the controversial role of energy in productivity growth. This is done by reconciling conventional approaches to the measurement of aggregated productivity growth with the microeconomic foundations provided by the energy economics and frontier productivity measurement literature. The use of Malmquist productivity indices allows us to broaden previous research by decomposing productivity growth into technological progress and technical efficiency change as well as analysing the relationship between energy and both sources of productivity change. By doing so, our findings are that energy indeed matters and that the consideration of technical efficiency contributes to a better understanding of both the temporal evolution and cross-country variability of aggregated productivity growth.