We analyze a large stratified random sample of firms that provide us with measures ofperformance and each firm’s top manager’s perception of the severity of businessenvironment constraints faced by his/her firm. Unlike most existing studies that rely onexternal and aggregated proxy measures of...

Mirroring the railroad industry of the 1940’s and 1950’s, the trucking industry today appearsto be achieving impressive productivity gains. But it is easy to confuse true productivityadvances in transportation industries with changes in ton-miles per unit of input that are duesimply to changes...

Government policy emphasises five ‘drivers’ of productivity: competition, enterprise, innovation, investment and skillsand each of these has been the subject of major programmes of reform (HM Treasury, 2006). Despite this, andnotwithstanding some improvement, UK productivity in terms of output...

Mit Arbeitssystemen von gestern sind die Herausforderungen von morgen nicht zu bewältigen. Im RKW-Arbeitskreis „Weiterentwicklungkompetenter Arbeitssysteme“ diskutieren Experten aus Unternehmen aktuelle Themen und Herausforderungen für dieGestaltung von Arbeit und Arbeitsorganisation. Im...

Although empirical evidence available suggests that information and communication technologies (ICT) have positively contributed to important sectors of the Mexican economy, it is still unknown to which extent ICT have truly contributed to productivity among these sectors. The increasing...

Using micro-level panel data of about 35,000 firms from the German Cost StructureCensus, we analyze the differences of technical efficiency across industries. Technicalefficiency is estimated by firms’ fixed effects. One striking result is that the distribution oftechnical efficiency across...

Internal communication has become an important factor in today's business world. The increased use of electronic media can, despite their obvious advantages, cause communication problems, i.e. information overload. By avoiding communication problems, the productivity of a company can be...

Using panel data from Spain Farinas and Ruano (IJIO 2005) test three hypotheses from a model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992): (H1) Firms that exit in year t were in t-1 less productive than firms that continue to produce in t. (H2) Firms that enter in year t are less productive than incumbent...

A recent survey of 54 micro-econometric studies reveals that exporting firms are more productive than non-exporters. On the other hand, previous empirical studies show that exporting does not necessarily improve productivity. One possible reason for this result is that most previous studies are...

This paper contributes to the flourishing literature on exports and productivity by using a unique newly available panel of exporting establishments from the manufac-turing sector of Germany from 1995 to 2004 to test three hypotheses derived from a theoretical model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica...