Unit labor cost (ULC) is defined as labor compensation per value added. It captures the cost competitiveness of industries and countries. As labor compensation is wage multiplied by hours worked or number of people employed, it is easy to show that ULC is wage divided by labor productivity....

We compare the productivity performances of 15 matched manufacturing sectors in Korea and Taiwan, using the Malmquist productivity indexes, based on category-wise meta frontiers, 1978-1996. Comparisons at the sector levels are made using sequential multiplicative products of the indexes. The...

Studies on Indian manufacturing have been unable to provide consistent estimates of productivity and its growth rates. This paper performs detailed and exhaustive set of accounting exercises for the period 1970-2003 using production function, index number and envelopment analysis methods. TFP...

This paper estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) change of the private and public sectors in the Turkish manufacturing industry in the selected provinces for 1990-98. It uses data envelopment analysis to compute Malmquist productivity indices decomposed into two components, namely...

This paper presents a multidimensional empirical analysis of firm growth. Exploiting census data on Italian manufacturing firms, 1989-1997, we estimate a reduced-form VAR to analyze the co-evolution of employment growth, sales growth, growth of profits and labour productivity growth. Our main...

Empirical factor demand analysis typically involves making a choice from among several competing non-nested functional forms. Each of the commonly used factor demand systems, such as Translog, Generalized Leontief, Quadratic, and Generalized McFadden, can provide a valid and useful empirical...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ability of market ratios to predict stock prices of Jordanian manufacturing companies. While stock prices tend to be a strong indicator of healthy economy, scholars identified financial ratios among the factors that can explain movements of stock...

The paper explores the question whether the relationship between corporate governance and innovation is affected by the extent to which the firm is exposed to agency problems and asset specificity issues. In particular, we argue that different combinations of asset specificity and agency costs...

This paper presents a multidimensional empirical analysis of firm growth. Exploiting censusdata on Italian manufacturing firms, 1989–1997, we estimate a reduced-form VAR toanalyze the co-evolution of employment growth, sales growth, growth of profits and labourproductivity growth. Our main...

The paper explores the business sector and firm age effects on firm performance mediated by foreign ownership levels in domestic firms and financial leverage by examining 146 Medium Enterprises (MEs). The results show that except for ownership, the business sector, firm age, foreign ownership...