Using the Malmquist productivity index and panel data methods, we study the role of total human capital and its composition in the technological "catch-up" process and productivity growth via the channels of innovation and adoption of technology in a panel of 19 sub -Saharan African countries...

Persistently rising energy prices have revived interest in the economic impact of changing energy costs. We explore the effects of these costs on sectoral change, particularly in relation to the rise and future prospects of the service economy. Following Baumol's cost disease hypothesis,...

To what extent has input reallocation contributed to aggregate productivity growth in the banking sectors of Europe and the United States? Interestingly, under-performing banks capture market share, while more productive banks lose market share, in particular in the US. The pattern of...

The aim of this report is to foster a better understanding of past trends in, and drivers of, productivity growth in the countries of the European Union (EU) and of the interplay between productivity and monetary policy. To this end, a group of experts from 15 national central banks and the...

Productivity growth in Indian manufacturing is an important driver of overall growth, yet the issues related to its measurement have still not been resolved. The issue of how to compute an aggregate productivity measure holds significance for two reasons: one, the productivity of a firm should...

The paper investigates the determinants of productivity growth in China. It also analyses the sustainability of the country's industrial growth by estimating sectoral productivity, accounting for energy usage and emission since the start of the market-oriented reforms in the late 1970s. The...

For more than fifty years, the Solow decomposition (Solow 1957) has served as the standard measurement of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in economics and management, yet little is known about its precision, especially when the capital stock is poorly measured. Using synthetic data...

In a cross section of OECD countries we replace the macroeconomic production function by a production possibility frontier, TFP being the composite effect of efficiency scores and possibility frontier changes. We consider, for the periods 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, one output: GDP per worker; three...

The economic effects of environmental policies are of central interest to policymakers. The traditional approach sees environmental policies as a burden on economic activity, at least in the short to medium term, as they raise costs without increasing output and restrict the set of production...

Traditional measures of multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth generally do not recognise natural capital as inputs into the production process. Since productivity growth is measured as the residual between output and input growth, it will pick up the growth in unmeasured inputs, which can lead...