This note provides an introduction to two prominent econometric benchmarking methods: Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis. It discusses the econometric techniques, provides a practical example using the World Bank's Enterprise Survey data, and offers conclusions for...

This paper aims to examine the productivity change of the Japanese economy using the data pertaining to the 47 prefectures during the period 1981-2000. The decomposition analysis of the Hicks-Moorsteen-Bjurek productivity index is conducted to explore the sources of the productivity change. In...

Consider two heterogenous populations of agents who, when matched, jointly produce an output, `Y`. For example, teachers and classrooms of students together produce achievement, parents raise children, whose life outcomes vary in adulthood, assembly plant managers and workers produce a certain...

We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s- 1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the...

We build up from the plant level an "aggregate(d)" Solow residual by estimating every U.S. manufacturing plant's contribution to the change in aggregate final demand between 1976 and 1996. Our framework uses the Petrin and Levinsohn (2010) definition of aggregate productivity growth, which...

This paper examines micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey...

We construct a model where the equilibrium organization of firms changes as an economy approaches the world technology frontier. In vertically integrated firms, owners (managers) have to spend time both on production and innovation activities, and this creates managerial overload, and...

We define a country's technology as a triple of efficiencies: one for unskilled labor, one for skilled labor, and one for capital. We find a negative cross-country correlation between the efficiency of unskilled labor and the efficiencies of skilled labor and capital. We interpret this finding...

This paper discusses efficiency considerations underlying the widespread exemption of food from sales and value added taxes, in contrast to the distributional considerations usually used to justify them, analyzing the implications for tax policy. Although there are increasing returns in both...