As it takes time and effort to learn how to fully utilise new technology and realise its maximum potential productivity gain, adoption of new technology tends to reduce productivity temporarily, even though the potential productivity gain in the long run outweighs this short run loss. This paper...

In this report we review the literature on the relationship between ICT and productivity. In Sect. 1 we discuss in broad terms the theoretical relationship between ICT and productivity, while in Sect. 2 we present the growth accounting methodology, which tries to measure the contributions to...

The paper presents a decomposition of a production unit’s cost ratio over two periods into explanatory factors. The explanatory factors are growth in the unit’s cost efficiency, output growth, changes in input prices and technical progress. In order to implement the decomposition, an...

The article summarises the scientific contributions and discussions at the 2014 conference organised by the NBB on “Total factor productivity : measurement, determinants and impacts”. At this conference, six original contributions were presented and discussed. They addressed the following...

Cognitive skills are robustly associated with good national economic performance. How much of this is due to high-skill countries doing a better job of absorbing total factor productivity from the world's technology leader? Following Benhabib and Spiegel (Handbook of Economic Growth, 2005), who...

This paper applies the growth accounting model to Chinese economy at region and province levels from 1978 to 2009. We measure the components in the growth accounting model such as capital services, labour inputs and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) using various data sources. The economic growth...

The Canadian service sector has performed well in recent years in terms of labour and multifactor productivity growth, both in absolute terms and relative to the United States, offsetting much of the poorer performance of the manufacturing sector. Service sector labour productivity growth has...

In this article, as part of the symposium on total factor productivity, Erwin Diewert of the University of British Columbia provides a comprehensive discussion of what is needed to develop reliable measures of total factor productivity in terms of output and the different classes of inputs. He...

We develop a multi-sector general equilibrium model in which productivity growth is driven by the generation of knowledge. In the model, firms allocate resources towards the production of goods and the production of new knowledge, in response to industry-specific factors of demand and...

This paper uses the EU KLEMS industry growth accounting database to explore the determinants of the EU-US total factor productivity (TFP) growth gap which started to emerge in the mid-1990's.