Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Productivity'

Profiter des avantages d’un monde de plus en plus mondialisé et plus accessible n’est pas un résultat évident pour tous les acteurs économiques. Les disparités entre les régions, les entreprises et les professions se sont creusées, entraînant des inégalités croissantes entre les personnes. Cette thèse examine comment les entreprises, qui sont l'un des canaux de la mondialisation qui transmettent leurs impacts entre pays, réagissent, s'adaptent et divergent en termes de performances. L’investigation empirique présentée dans cette thèse a pour objectif de comprendre les futures propositions de politique publique en expliquant comment les entreprises réagissent à la mondialisation et à la concurrence, comment elles choisissent leur main-d’œuvre et comment les politiques et les chocs influent sur leur performance sur le marché étranger. L’objectif est de comprendre, dans quatre chapitres, comment les entreprises réagissent à la présence multinationale ou à la présence d’entreprises très productives et « frontalières 2», et comment les entreprises choisissent leurs employés, en particulier la main-d’œuvre immigrée face à une demande étrangère accrue, et enfin, fournir une évaluation de l’évolution du coût du travail sur les résultats à l’exportation des entreprises.Bien que les résultats agrégés importent, il n’est pas suffisant d’examiner le comportement d’une entreprise moyenne. La répartition des entreprises selon leurs caractéristiques est très asymétrique et le respect de l'hétérogénéité des entreprises peut également permettre une meilleure compréhension de la compétitivité. Les petites entreprises manufacturières ont tendance à souffrir de plus de concurrence et leur productivité est associée à un déclin lorsque les industries manufacturières étrangères s'installent dans la même région. Les grandes et moyennes entreprises ont généralement tendance à accroître leur productivité grâce aux effets de contagion intersectoriels de la présence étrangère, ce qui montre bien que les entreprises plus productives et bien établies sont plus susceptibles de tirer parti des relations possibles avec leurs fournisseurs ou d'un marché plus vaste. Les entreprises plus proches de la frontière technologique sont plus productives. Toutefois, subissant le choc de l’entrée d’une nouvelle entreprise productive, la productivité d’une entreprise moyenne chute, ce qui est conforme à la littérature théorique qui prédit que les entreprises les moins productives quittent le marché et que les ressources sont ensuite réaffectées à des entreprises plus productives. Les entreprises ont également tendance à faire des choix en ce qui concerne leurs effectifs, ce qui leur permettra finalement de mieux performer. En particulier, les entreprises choisissent d'embaucher un employé immigré lorsqu'elles ont la possibilité d'accroître leurs exportations. Cela est dû principalement au fait que les immigrants peuvent fournir des connaissances sur les marchés étrangers qui sont autrement difficiles à obtenir. Enfin, l’augmentation des coûts de main-d’œuvre se traduit par une valeur à l’exportation inférieure aux entreprises, comme le montre l’expérience naturelle d’une politique d’avantages fiscaux sur les heures supplémentaires des entreprises.Dans l’ensemble, les petites entreprises et les enterprises moins productives sont promptes à subir les chocs négatifs des pratiques d’entreprises mondialisées ou sont les moins susceptibles de tirer un bénéfice positif de l’exposition aux réseaux mondiaux. Cependant, les entreprises sont des entités dynamiques et ont la capacité de progresser et de modifier ou d’améliorer leurs pratiques, y compris la composition de leurs effectifs. Le gouvernement contribue à la dynamique des entreprises et les politiques axées sur la compétitivité des entreprises peuvent avoir un impact, en particulier si l'entreprise est de petite taille
Reaping benefits from increasingly globalized and more accessible world is not an evident outcome for all economic actors. Heterogeneous consequences of globalization have become apparent within countries over past two decades. Disparities have expanded between regions, firms, and occupations, implying growing inequalities among people. This thesis investigates how firms, being one of the channels of globalization transmitting its impacts across countries, react, adjust, and diverge in terms of performance. The empirical investigation of micro-level data on a firm and a worker level aims to provide understanding for future public policy suggestions by giving insights into how firms respond to globalized and competitive environment, how they choose their labor force, and how the policies and shocks influence their performance on the foreign market. The objective is to give some understanding, in four chapters, on how firms react to multinational presence or presence of very productive, “frontier” firms in their vicinity, and how firms choose their employees, especially immigrant workforce when facing higher foreign demand, and lastly, to provide an evaluation of change in labor cost on export performance of the firms. While aggregated outcomes matter, looking at the behavior of an average firm is insufficient. The distribution of the firms by their characteristics is highly skewed, and respecting heterogeneity of firms can also lead to better understanding of competitiveness. Productivity and employment of small firms in services is associated with small, but statistically significant increases when more foreign firms locate in the firm’s vicinity, implying positive knowledge and technological spillovers from foreign presence. However, small manufacturing firms tend to suffer from more competition, and their productivity is associated with a decline when foreign manufacturing locates in the same region. Mainly medium-sized and large firms tend to increase productivity from cross-sector spillovers of foreign presence, which points out to the fact that more productive and established firms are more likely to benefit from possible supplier relationships or larger market. The firms closer to the technological frontier are more productive. However, experiencing a shock of entry of a new productive firm, the productivity drops for an average firm, which is in line with theoretical literature that predicts that the least productive firms leave the market and resources are then reallocated towards more productive firms. Firms also tend to make choices with respect to their workforce that will ultimately make them perform better. In particular, firms choose to hire an immigrant employee when facing a possibility to increase their exports. Both skilled and unskilled immigrants are hired, while firms do not deviate from their standard trends of hiring low-skilled native employees, and only slightly increase their population of skilled native employees. This happens mainly because immigrants can supply knowledge about foreign markets that is otherwise difficult to obtain. Lastly, increasing labor costs translates into lower export value of firms as shown using a natural policy experiment of fiscal advantages on overtime hours of firms. Yet, an opposite shock of lowering the labor cost has no significant impact on exports of large firms, while small firms are sensitive to the shock and export more.All in all, small and less productive firms are prompt to experience negative shocks from practices of globalized firms or are the least likely to benefit positively from exposure to global networks. However, firms are dynamic entities and have capacity to progress and change or improve their practices, including workforce composition. The government plays role in helping the dynamics of firms, and the policies focused on competitiveness of firms can have impact especially if the firm is of small size

Cette thèse étudie différents aspects de la dynamique des firmes, à la fois de manière théoriqueet empirique. Tous les chapitres utilisent largement différentes bases de données microéconomiquespour tester les prédictions théoriques. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse au premiumde l’innovation, c’est à dire la réaction du salaire des employés d’une entreprise qui augmenteson intensité de R&D et qui devient ainsi plus proche de la frontière technologique. L’évaluationde cette réponse se fait en utilisant une base de donnée sur le salaire de 1% de des travailleursbasés au Royaume-Uni. Le second chapitre s’intéresse à la réponse de l’innovation et de laproductivité des firmes à un choc de demande à l’export, considérant les entreprises françaisesayant au moins un brevet, et utilisant pour cela des bases de données à la fois d’origine fiscaleou provenant des douanes. Enfin le troisième chapitre étudie le rôle des coûts d’ajustementdes facteurs de production, et en particulier de l’immobilier des entreprises, sur la dynamiquede l’emploi des entreprises à la suite d’un choc de productivité. Ce chapitre utilise un largeéchantillon d’entreprise mono établissement française.Pris tous les trois, ces chapitres étudient différentes dimensions de la réponse des firmes à unchoc de demande ou de productivité, que ce soit une réponse en termes d’emploi, de salaire,d’innovation ou de taille
This thesis studies different aspects of firm dynamics both theoretically and empirically. All chapters extensively rely to large microeconomic dataset that are used to test theoretical predictions.First chapter looks at the innovation premium, that is the response to workers’ wage when their firm increases its R&D intensity and therefore becomes closer to the technological frontier. This response is evaluated using matched employers-employees data with information on the wage of 1% of all UK based workers. Second chapter focuses on the response to an export demand shock to a firm’s innovation and productivity looking at all French firms with at least one patent and using both fiscal and customs micro data. Finally, the third chapter considers the role of factor adjustment costs, especially on corporate real-estate, on firms employment dynamism following a productivity shock. This chapter uses a large sample of single-establishment French firms. Taken together, these three chapters explore different dimension of the response to firms to a demand and/or a productivity shock, either in terms of employment and wage, or in terms of innovation and size

Software project management is one of the most critical activities in modern software development projects. Without realistic and objective management, the software development process cannot be managed in an effective way. There are three general problems in project management: effort estimation is not accurate, actual status is difficult to understand, and projects are often geographically dispersed. Estimating software development effort is one of the most challenging problems in project management. Various attempts have been made to solve the problem; so far, however, it remains a complex problem. The error rate of a renowned effort estimation model can be higher than 30% of the actual productivity. Therefore, inaccurate estimation results in poor planning and defies effective control of time and budgets in project management. In this research, we have built a productivity prediction model which uses productivity data from an ongoing project to reevaluate the initial productivity estimate and provides managers a better productivity estimate for project management. The actual status of the software project is not easy to understand due to problems inherent in software project attributes. The project attributes are dispersed across the various CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tools and are difficult to measure because they are not hard material like building blocks. In this research, we have created a productivity console which incorporates an expert system to measure project attributes objectively and provides graphical charts to visualize project status. The productivity console uses project attributes gathered in KB (Knowledge Base) of PAMPA II (Project Attributes Monitoring and Prediction Associate) that works with CASE tools and collects project attributes from the databases of the tools. The productivity console and PAMPA II work on a network, so geographically dispersed projects can be managed via the Internet without difficulty.

Cette thèse contribue à la littérature théorique et empirique concernant l’hétérogénéité des entreprises et le commerce international. La partie théorique analyse les conséquences de la libéralisation du commerce lorsque les entreprises sont hétérogènes et les pays asymétriques. La partie empirique discute le sens de causalité de la relation entre la performance des entreprises et leur statut international. Les entreprises sont-elles plus performantes parce qu’elles exportent et/ou importent ? Ou sont-ce les entreprises les plus performantes qui s’auto-sélectionnent sur le marché international ? Les deux hypothèses ne s’excluent pas mutuellement et ce travail les accrédite toutes deux
This thesis contributes to both theoretical and empirical aspects of the literature on firm heterogeneity in international trade. On the theoretical side, I provide insights of the consequences of trade liberalisation when firms are heterogeneous and countries are asymmetric. On the empirical side, I discuss the causality of the relationship between performances and trading status of firms. Do more productive firms self-select into international markets? Do firms become more productive because they enter international markets? These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive and my work provides support for both of them

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This research establishes methodology to measure morale as a function of productivity. Relationships between morale, ability, training, and experience are linked to productivity so that managers can incentivize employee productivity more precisely. The data from this survey are effective at the individual level, but are more useful on an aggregate scale, using a theoretical regression. The survey and regression are theoretical, and provide managers valuable information about employees’ productivity and factors that affect it over time. Follow-on research should test the survey’s viability, adjust data collection procedures and the regression equation, and examine the cost-benefit analysis of modeling morale.

Corporate leaders are expected to engage in corporate social responsibility by some stakeholders, but there is no consistent evidence that corporate social performance relates to financial performance. Grounded in instrumental stakeholder theory, the purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship among energy productivity, greenhouse gas productivity, and return on equity. The 2016 Newsweek Green Ranking U.S. 500 was the population for this study, which consisted of the largest companies in the United States with the highest corporate social performance scores. The secondary data were collected from Newsweek.com and Morningstar.com for this study. The multiple linear regression was used in the data analysis for the study. This study's model was F(2,104) = 1.028, p = .361, Adjusted R2 = .001 and represented that there was not a statistically significant relationship among energy productivity, greenhouse gas productivity, and return on equity. The implications for positive social change include the potential to provide corporate leaders with additional evidence to inform fact-based decisions related to the strategic allocation of resources to manage corporate energy productivity and greenhouse productivity. Effectively managing energy productivity and greenhouse gas productivity could contribute to reducing global warming, which would improve the quality of lives of U.S residents.

Aquesta tesis tracta sobre les diferències en la productivitat agregada del treball entre diferents economies. Gran part de la diversitat en rendes que observem entre països té a veure amb les diferències en productivitat. Per tant, sembla clar que part del patiment humà podria ser alleugerit augmentant l'eficiència en la producció. Aquest objectiu requereix tenir una idea qualitativa i quantitativa de les barreres que ens separen del seu assoliment. Evidentment, la productivitat ha sigut quelcom estudiat pels economistes d'ençà l'Economia inicià el seus passos. No obstant, malgrat la seva importància, o potser precisament per a la seva importància, aquesta àrea de recerca encara ofereix un gran marge d'exploració. En els següents capítols tractaré aquest tema des de diversos angles i utilitzant diferents tècniques però sempre amb el mateix objectiu. El primer capítol, titulat Comptabilitat en el Desenvolupament i Béns Intermedis, gira entorn a la pregunta de si els béns intermedis són part important en explicar les diferències, relatives i agregades, en la productivitat entre països. Tres observacions suggereixen que així és: (i) els béns intermedis són relativament més cars en els països pobres; (ii) les indústries productores de béns demanden béns intermedis amb més intensitat que aquelles que produeixen serveis; (iii) les indústries productores de béns són més prominents com a oferents de béns intermedis en els països pobres. Construeixo un model de creixement multisectorial estàndard que té en compte els tres fets anomenats anteriorment per mostrar que la producció ineficient de béns intermedis afecta negativament la productivitat agregada i augmenta la ràtio de preus entre béns i serveis. Aplicant el model a les dades dels països de renda mitjana i alta, trobo que aquells països més pobres tan sols són una mica més ineficients produint béns que serveis però, en canvi, són molt ineficients produint béns intermedis respecte béns finals i serveis. Si tots els països tinguessin la mateixa eficiència produint béns intermedis que té l'economia d'EE.UU., el model prediu que la diferencia de productivitat entre entre els països de renda més baixa i els de renda més alta, de la mostra, es reduiria en gairebé dos terços mentre les diferencies en el ràtio de preus finals entre països pràcticament desapareixeria. El segon capítol, titulat Delegació de Gestió i Productivitat Agregada, proposa un nou mecanisme per explicar perquè les empreses dels països de renda baixa estan mal gestionades, i quantifica la pèrdua de productivitat resultant. Primer, presento evidència empírica sobre la significativa correlació entre la proporció de treballadors dedicats a la gestió i les garanties de compliment de contractes entre països. En segon lloc, construeixo un model tractable que captura els avantatges de delegar tasques en grans organitzacions. En el model també té lloc un problema de risc moral entre el propietari de la companyia i els gestors de la mateixa. Quan les garanties contractuals no son efectives, és a dir, quan els gestors poden apoderar-se de rendes empresarials, això limita la capacitat de la companyia per créixer i arribar al nivell òptim de gestors. En tercer lloc, utilitzo una versió calibrada del model per a mesurar l'efecte de reduir les garanties per al compliment de contractes. Comparat amb la referència en el nivell de garanties contractuals d'EE.UU., cap tipus de garantia redueix la proporció agregada de gestors en 10 punts percentuals, caracteristic de països amb un nivell de renda d'un desè respecte EE.UU. La pèrdua associada en productivitat es, aproximadament, de 18 punts percentuals. Estadístics addicionals sobre la mida mitjana de les empreses, l'autoocupació i la dispersió de la productivitat ofereixen validació addicional dels resultats. El tercer capítol, titulat Imposició Progresiva i Productivitat Agregada i escrit conjuntament amb en Tomaz Cajner, ofereix una teoria sobre com la imposició progressiva del treball pot afectar la decisió individual d'esdevenir emprenedors o ser treballadors assalariats. Els emprenedors viuen en un entorn amb friccions per a la recerca d'empreses. Un cop fet l'emparellament, s'assumeix una negociació sobre els beneficis del mateix. Quan els impostos són més progressius, aquells projectes més arriscats esdevenen menys lucratius i, per tant, la cua dreta de la distribució dels ingressos es redueix. S'utilitza el model per entrellaçar tres fenòmens macroeconomics importants que han tingut lloc les ultimes dues o tres dècades en els països desenvolupats: el descens de la imposició marginal del treball per les rendes més altes, l'augment de la desigualtat i la reobertura de l'escletxa de productivitat entre EE.UU. i Europa. Una versió parametritzada del model és capaç de generar els dos últims fets com a resultat d'un descens de la imposició sobre el treball de les rendes més altes. No obstant, els resultats quantitatius del model no estan d'acord amb les dades observades.
This thesis is concerned with differences in aggregate labor productivity across economies. Much of the income disparities that we observe across countries today are related to productivity differences. It follows that much human suffering could be alleviated by raising the efficiency of production. This requires an idea of the qualitative and quantitative significance of potential barriers. Unsurprisingly, productivity has been studied by economists for as long as economics has been around but despite its importance - or perhaps rather because of it - this research area applied to the aggregate economy still offers a huge field open to exploration. In the following chapters I tackle the issue at hand from several distinct angles and using a variety of techniques, but always with the same aim. The first chapter, entitled Development Accounting with Intermediate Goods, asks whether intermediate goods help explain relative and aggregate productivity differences across countries. Three observations suggest they do: (i) intermediates are relatively expensive in poor countries; (ii) goods industries demand intermediates more intensively than service industries; (iii) goods industries are more prominent intermediate suppliers in poor countries. I build a standard multisector growth model accommodating these features to show that inefficient intermediate production strongly depresses aggregate productivity and increases the price ratio of final goods to services. Applying the model to data for middle and high income countries, I find that poorer countries are only modestly less efficient at producing goods than services, but substantially less efficient at producing intermediate relative to final goods and services. If all countries had the intermediate production efficiency of the US, the aggregate productivity gap between the lowest and highest income countries in the sample is predicted to shrink by roughly two thirds while cross-country differences in the final price ratio would virtually vanish. The second chapter, entitled Managerial Delegation and Aggregate Productivity, proposes a novel mechanism to answer why firms in low income countries are badly managed, and quantifies the resulting productivity loss. First, I present empirical evidence on a significant positive correlation between the share of managerial workers and contract enforcement across countries. Second, I construct a tractable model that captures benefits to managerial delegation in large organizations. The model also features an agency problem between the owner of a firm and its middle management. Ineffective contract enforcement, allowing middle managers to steal from the firm, constrains firm size by limiting the efficient delegation of managerial authority. Third, I use a calibrated version of the model to measure the effect of lowering contract enforcement. Compared to the benchmark of US contract enforcement, no enforcement decreases the aggregate share of managerial workers by about 10 percentage points, typical of countries with income levels of about one-tenth of the US. The associated loss in aggregate labor productivity is roughly 18 percentage points. Auxiliary statistics on the mean firm size, self-employment and productivity dispersion offer additional empirical validation of these results. The third chapter, entitled Progressive Income Taxation and Aggregate Productivity and co-authored with Tomaz Cajner, offers a theory on how the progressivity of the labor tax may affect individuals’ decision to manage firms or work as production workers. Managers must be matched to firms in an environment featuring search frictions and the pair bargain over the surplus from the match. A higher tax progressivity makes it less lucrative to create and improve risky projects as it compresses the right tail of outcomes. The model is used to link three prominent macroeconomic phenomena occurring over the last two to three decades in the developed world: the lowering of the top marginal labor taxes, the rise in inequality and the renewed opening of the aggregate labor productivity gap between Europe and the US. A parameterized version of the model is capable of delivering the concomitant occurrence of the latter two phenomena as a result of the lowering of top labor income taxes. The quantitative effects predicted by the model, however, cannot match the data.

The objective of this paper is to analyze methods of measurement of labor productivity and introduce them to real business. The object of this paper is to investigate methods of measuring performance. The subject of this paper is the process of implementing methods to increase productivity. Methods (procedures) of the study. Pattern during the writing of this work was used by scientists articles information about the measurement and implementation of systems productivity. Recommendations for the use of this work. Since this work was written with the use of different methods and examples, not all of them before writing the work was known to me, I want to present a certain part to improve the productivity of some companies in my country.

Bibliography: leaves 129-131.
This dissertation attempts to explore productivity measurement theory and lifting out those aspects which are important to manufacturing operations. The discussion of theory culminates in a list of criteria which can be applied to the development of any productivity measurement system. All the key concepts are demonstrated by way of example.

Questa tesi ha l’obiettivo di misurare la produttività totale dei fattori in agricoltura in Italia nel periodo 2008-2014 e di capirne i caratteri salienti. Attraverso l’utilizzo di micro dati delle aziende agricole commerciali campionate dalla RICA (Rete di Informazione Contabile Agricola) e dei numeri indice, si derivano indici di produttività a livello nazionale, regionale, provinciale, e a livello di specializzazione produttiva e di dimensione economica. Gli indici di produttività sono generati attraverso la procedura del minimum spanning tree (Hill, 1999; Hill 2004) e sono quindi comparabili tra le varie unità nel tempo. I risultati mostrano una performance decrescente nell’arco dei sette anni considerati. Sia a livello nazionale che a livello di specializzazione produttiva e di dimensione economica, gli indici mostrano un andamento decrescente. A livello di dimensione si registra una relazione positiva tra produttività e dimensione economica delle aziende con ampi differenziali tra le classi dimensionali esaminate. Per quanto riguarda le specializzazioni produttive, livelli maggiori di produttività si registrano per quelle specializzazioni che possono essere considerate di carattere maggiormente professionale. In particolare i bovini da latte, l’ortofloricoltura, la frutticoltura e la viticoltura sono le specializzazioni produttive a più alta performance. I granivori, gli erbivori, la cerealicoltura, i seminativi e le aziende miste mostrano invece una performance inferiore rispetto alle prime. A livello regionale si evidenziano due cluster di regioni ad alta produttività. Uno è composto da Emilia-Romagna, Lombardia, Trentino, Alto Adige, Veneto e Friuli Venezia Giulia e l’altro al Sud è composto da Calabria e Basilicata. La produttività sembra essere legata alla composizione delle singole agricolture regionali in termini di tipologia di produzione e di dimensione economica. Ulteriori analisi saranno comunque necessarie al fine di stabilire una relazione tra la composizione agricola regionale e la performance economic. Nella seconda parte della ricerca gli indici a livello provinciale vengono utilizzati per capire i differenziali di produttività tenendo in considerazione il più possibile la variabilità territoriale italiana. La TFP a livello provinciale mostra una lieve tendenza alla clusterizzazione spaziale. Il grado di dipendenza spaziale viene quantificato in un modello lineare che assume dipendenza spaziale, dipendenza temporale e la presenza di una serie di variabili esogene. Il modello viene stimato con lo stimatore BCLSDV (Bias Corrected Least Squares Dummy Variable). Le stime mostrano un basso grado di dipendenza temporale e un alto grado di dipendenza spaziale assumendo però una struttura di correlazione spaziale limitata a 50-70 chilometri. I risultati delle stime vengono utilizzati per quantificare gli effetti di diffusione a seguito di uno shock esogeno di produttività nelle varie province. Ciò che emerge è che, data la struttura di correlazione spaziale assunta e data la bassa dipendenza temporale, gli effetti di uno shock di produttività sono limitati nel tempo e nello spazio. Questi si estendono anche a province lontane dall’epicentro dello shock ma con caratteri diversi rispetto a quelle vicine. In particolare, l’effetto spillover di lungo periodo è maggiore nelle regioni limitrofe allo shock e viene raggiunto in un tempo decisamente inferiore rispetto alle province più lontane. Questi risultati vengono interpretati come evidenza dello stretto legame tra territorio e produzione agricola. Questo legame è in grado di influenzare i caratteri e lo sviluppo delle agricolture locali.
The research aims at measuring agricultural total factor productivity in Italy over the period 2008-2014 and at understanding its main features. It leverages farm-level information from the FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) database e the index number methodology to derive indexes at either geographical level and at the level of farm types. At geographical level, indexes are derived at national level, at the level of FADN regions and at NUTS3 level. Then, indexes are derived at the level of farm typology and of economic size. Indexes are derived using the minimum spanning tree method and are comparable across spatial units over time. Results point to a decline in aggregate productivity over time. Indexes at national level, at the level of economic size and at the level of farm typologies all exhibit general downward trends. A positive relationship between TFP and economic size is found with large productivity differentials across size classes. Large differentials are also found across types of farms. The types associated to a more entrepreneurial nature, such as dairy, horticulture, fruit production and grapes and wine production, are all associated with higher productive performance with respect to the others. At the level of FADN regions, there seem to be two clusters of highly productive regions. One is in the North and is composed of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardia, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino and Alto Adige. The other is in the South and is composed of Calabria and Basilicata. TFP seems to be linked to the structure of the regional agricultures in terms of types of farming and size of farms. However, further analyses would be required to establish a relationship between productivity and agricultural composition of geographical regions. In the second part of the research, measurements at NUTS3 level are used to inspect productivity differentials considering the spatial variability of the Italian territory. A limited degree of productivity clustering is found at NUTS3 level. Spatial dependence is quantified in a linear model that assumes also temporal dependence of TFP and controls for covariates. The model is estimated with the BCLSDV (Bias Corrected Least Squares Dummy Variable) estimator. Assuming a narrow spatial correlation structure, estimates show a limited degree of temporal dependence and a high degree of spatial dependence. Coefficient estimates are then used to model the diffusion process of a productivity shock hitting specific NUTS3. Evidences from the exercise show that, due to the narrow spatial correlation structure assumed and the limited temporal dependence, the effects of a shock are limited in space and over time. Effects of a shock differ depending on the distance of NUTS3 from the epicenter of the shock. Neighboring NUTS3 receive, in a shorter time frame, a larger long-run spillover effect with respect to NUTS3 that are further away. This results is an evidence of the site-specificity of agricultural production. The close link that exists between locations and agriculture influence production practices and their development.

Pour faire face à une croissance continue de la population et maintenir un haut niveau de développement économique, les activités de production font porter un fardeau de plus en plus lourd à l'environnement naturel. Aujourd’hui, l’enjeu est clairement de se tourner vers un développement économique durable. Par conséquent, l’analyse de la relation entre les activités de production et leur impact environnemental attire beaucoup d'attention. Cette thèse a pour objectif de prendre en compte les externalités négatives liées aux outputs indésirables dans l’estimation d’une technologie de production et cherche à étudier leur impact sur la performance économique en général et sur la mesure des gains de productivité en particulier. L’intégration des externalités négatives comme les émissions de carbone dans la mesure de la productivité globale des facteurs fait référence à la notion de « productivité durable » ou de « green productivity ». Ce travail de thèse s’appuie sur une définition et une estimation non paramétrique des technologies de production pour lesquelles les fonctions distance directionnelles sont des outils appropriés pour définir et mesurer des indicateurs de productivité incluant une notion d’efficacité environnementale. Grâce à quelques développements méthodologiques originaux, nous parvenons à de nouveaux indicateurs de productivité totale des facteurs et à l’estimation de prix implicites des émissions de carbone pour les différents pays développés et en développement. Sur la base des résultats de nos analyses empiriques, nous tentons ainsi d’apporter des informations utiles aux décideurs et aux pouvoirs publics pour l’évaluation des réglementations environnementales entre pays et pour la définition de nouvelles politiques économiques respectueuses de l’environnement
As economic development and population growth, human’s production activity lays a heavy burden on the natural environment. In order to maintain sustainable development, investigating the relationship between economic development and environmental impact has received much attention. This thesis takes into account undesirable factors in production technology and tries to integrate the negative externality of carbon emissions into the measurement of economic performance, referred to as green productivity. This thesis employs a nonparametric estimation approach with directional distance function to analyze environmental efficiency, total factor productivity, and carbon shadow prices among different developed and developing countries at the macro level. We propose new contributions to the measurement and decomposition of productivity indices which capture environmental efficiency. Based on empirical results, we discuss the current environmental regulations and economic policies among countries, to provide useful information for decision and policy makers from an economic point of view

Pour faire face à une croissance continue de la population et maintenir un haut niveau de développement économique, les activités de production font porter un fardeau de plus en plus lourd à l'environnement naturel. Aujourd’hui, l’enjeu est clairement de se tourner vers un développement économique durable. Par conséquent, l’analyse de la relation entre les activités de production et leur impact environnemental attire beaucoup d'attention. Cette thèse a pour objectif de prendre en compte les externalités négatives liées aux outputs indésirables dans l’estimation d’une technologie de production et cherche à étudier leur impact sur la performance économique en général et sur la mesure des gains de productivité en particulier. L’intégration des externalités négatives comme les émissions de carbone dans la mesure de la productivité globale des facteurs fait référence à la notion de « productivité durable » ou de « green productivity ». Ce travail de thèse s’appuie sur une définition et une estimation non paramétrique des technologies de production pour lesquelles les fonctions distance directionnelles sont des outils appropriés pour définir et mesurer des indicateurs de productivité incluant une notion d’efficacité environnementale. Grâce à quelques développements méthodologiques originaux, nous parvenons à de nouveaux indicateurs de productivité totale des facteurs et à l’estimation de prix implicites des émissions de carbone pour les différents pays développés et en développement. Sur la base des résultats de nos analyses empiriques, nous tentons ainsi d’apporter des informations utiles aux décideurs et aux pouvoirs publics pour l’évaluation des réglementations environnementales entre pays et pour la définition de nouvelles politiques économiques respectueuses de l’environnement
As economic development and population growth, human’s production activity lays a heavy burden on the natural environment. In order to maintain sustainable development, investigating the relationship between economic development and environmental impact has received much attention. This thesis takes into account undesirable factors in production technology and tries to integrate the negative externality of carbon emissions into the measurement of economic performance, referred to as green productivity. This thesis employs a nonparametric estimation approach with directional distance function to analyze environmental efficiency, total factor productivity, and carbon shadow prices among different developed and developing countries at the macro level. We propose new contributions to the measurement and decomposition of productivity indices which capture environmental efficiency. Based on empirical results, we discuss the current environmental regulations and economic policies among countries, to provide useful information for decision and policy makers from an economic point of view

Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2012.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-154).
The institutional reform of Japan National Railway (JNR) in 1987 has been considered as a great success. After the Japanese railway reform, European countries introduced vertical separation management. However, the question whether the new companies' railway business has been improved by the privatization and vertical separation is still not well known. To evaluate the effect of the privatization and vertical separation, this thesis applied "productivity analysis". First, we set Tokaido Shinkansen and the Paris-Lyon line as our research object because that these lines introduced the latest technology when it had been constructed. This means the technological development which increases the productivity has been very limited. Second, these lines have been profitable railway lines for a long time. This thesis used multi-factor productivity (MFP). We set passenger-km and revenue as output separately, and personnel, non-personnel, and capital related expenses as input data. As a result, this thesis found that the JNR privatization has contributed to increase MFP of Tokaido Shinkansen after 1987. This thesis reviewed the previous research. As a result, we figured out that their research model has difficulties showing the effect of introducing the vertical separation. From the Swedish railway data, we judged even the small market competition has more relationship with increased productivity than the style of vertical separation. We believed that the future NEC HSR should introduce private sector's funds, and be operated by private sectors with competition within operators.
by Ryusuke Sakamoto.
S.M.in Transportation

The United Kingdom's postwar economic recovery and the usefulness of Marshall Plan aid depended heavily on a rapid increase in exports by the country's manufacturing industries. American aid administrators, however, shocked to discover the British industry's inability to respond to the country's urgent need, insisted on aggressive action to improve productivity. In partial response, a joint venture, called the Anglo-American Council on Productivity (AACP), arranged for sixty-six teams involving nearly one thousand people to visit U.S. factories and bring back productivity improvement ideas. Analyses of team recommendations, and a brief review of the country's industrial history, offer compelling insights into the problems of relative industrial decline. This dissertation attempts to assess the reasons for British industry's inability to respond to the country's economic emergency or to maintain its competitive position faced with the challenge of newer industrializing countries.

Faculty research productivity studies typically focus on the scholarly performance of the individual researcher, although environmental and organizational conditions that are largely outside of the researcher’s control can significantly impact that performance. From an institutional effectiveness perspective, it is imperative for the higher education administrators and leaders who share the responsibility of managing and supporting their university’s research enterprise to understand how the institutional environment itself impacts the productivity of its research community. In this sequential mixed methods study, a quantitative framework was tested for assessing institutional effectiveness in research administration based on the assertion that this concept can be measured indirectly, at the departmental level, based on the calculation of a program’s residual scholarly output. This is the difference between the actual amount of scholarly output a program produces compared to the predicted amount of scholarly output that its resources suggest it is capable of producing. The assumption is that the institution’s effectiveness in supporting research is largely reflected by the extent to which a program over- or under-produces scholarship based on its level of resources. The residual scholarly output was calculated for each Ph.D.-granting biomedical engineering program in doctoral universities with a Carnegie classification of “highest research activity” for the period of 2014 through 2016. A sampling of those programs that achieved among the highest and lowest residual productivity levels then became the subject of a qualitative inquiry where researchers and administrators were interviewed with two goals in mind. The more ostensive goal was to reveal what factors, characteristics, resources, and conditions distinguish under- and over-producing programs for the purpose of informing best and worst practices in research administration. Equally important, the second goal was to determine if the quantitative framework was actually successful in distinguishing institutional effectiveness in supporting research. The study concludes that the quantitative framework proved to be a successful method for detecting institutional effectiveness in supporting research, and that the primary distinguishing characteristic between high and low-functioning environments was how well programs were able to reduce the general administrative burdens that researchers face, particularly in grant management and the operation of research laboratories.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 106 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-106).

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2006.
Thesis research directed by: Economics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

A hierarchical procedure is developed to determine maximum overall yield of a process and optimize process changes to achieve such a yield. First, a targeting procedure is developed to identify an upper bound of the overall yield ahead of detailed design. Several mass integration strategies are proposed to attain maximum yield. These strategies include rerouting of raw materials, optimization of reaction yield, rerouting of product from undesirable outlets to desirable outlets, and recycling of unreacted raw materials. Path equations are tailored to provide the appropriate level of detail for modeling process performance as a function of the optimization variables pertaining to design and operating variables. Interval analysis is used as an inclusion technique that provides rigorous bounds regardless of the process nonlinearities and without enumeration. Then, a new approach for identification of cost-effective implementation of maximum attainable targets for yield is presented. In this approach, a mathematical program was developed to identify the maximum feasible yield using a combination of iterative additions of constraints and problem reformulation. Next, cost objectives were employed to identify a cost-effective solution with the details of design and operating variables. Constraint convexification was used to improve the quality of the solution towards globability. A trade-off procedure between the saving and expenses for yield maximization problem is presented. The proposed procedure is systematic, rigorous, and computationally efficient. A case study was solved to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the developed procedure.

Cette thèse étudie comment le taux de change effectif réel (TCER) et ses mesures associées (volatilité du TCER et désalignement du TCER) affectent la croissance de la productivité totale des facteurs (CPTF). Elle analyse également les canaux par lesquels le TCER et ses mesures associées agissent sur la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF). La première partie étudie comment le TCER lui-même, d'une part, et la volatilité du TCER, d'autre part, influencent la productivité. Une analyse du lien entre le niveau du TCER et la PTF dans le chapitre 1 indique qu'une appréciation de taux de change cause une augmentation de la PTF. Mais cet impact est également non-linéaire: en-dessous du seuil, le TCER influence négativement la productivité tandis qu'au-dessus du seuil il agit positivement. Les résultats du chapitre 2 illustrent que la volatilité du TCER affecte négativement la CPTF. Nous avons également constaté que la volatilité du TCER agit sur PTF selon le niveau du développement financier. Pour les pays modérément financièrement développés, la volatilité du TCER réagit négativement sur la productivité et n'a aucun effet sur la productivité pour les niveaux très bas et très élevés du développement financier. La deuxième partie examine les canaux par lesquels le TCER et ses mesures associées influencent la productivité. Les résultats du chapitre 3 illustrent que la volatilité du TCER a un impact négatif élevé sur l'investissement. Ces résultats sont robustes dans les pays à faible revenu et les pays à revenu moyens, et en employant une mesure alternative de volatilité du TCER. Le chapitre 4 montre que le désalignement du taux de change réel et la volatilité du taux de change réel affectent négativement les exportations. Il démontre également que la volatilité du taux de change réel est plus nocive aux exportations que le désalignement. Ces résultats sont corroborés par des résultats sur des sous-échantillons de pays à bas revenu et à revenu moyen.

Testing statistics state that testing consumes more than half of a programmer's professional life, although few programmers like testing, fewer like test design and only 5% of their education will be devoted to testing. The main goal of this research is to test the efficiency of two software testing tools. Two experiments were conducted in the Computer Science Department at Ball State University. The first experiment compares two conditions - testing software using no tool and testing software using a command-line based testing tool - to the length of time and number of test cases needed to achieve an 80% statement coverage for 22 graduate students in the Computer Science Department. The second experiment compares three conditions - testing software using no tool, testing software using a command-line based testing tool, and testing software using a GUI interactive tool with added functionality - to the length of time and number of test cases needed to achieve 95% statement coverage for 39 graduate and undergraduate students in the same department.
Department of Computer Science

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
This study examined the productivity of the Standard Army Automated Contracting System (SAACONS) and the Standard Automated Contracting Systems for Federal Agencies (SACONS-FEDERAL). Both systems were analyzed in a beforeafter quasi experimental design using archival data that measured inputs, outputs, and social effects. The inputs measurements used were staff size, grade structure, and overtime usage. Output measurements included workload and quality of service as represented by Procurement Administrative Lead Time (PALT). The social effects (morale, teamwork, and professionalism) were represented by sick leave usage. While there was no statistically significant increase in workload, the quality of work measure - PALT - decreased by 24 percent for SAACONS and 3 percent for SACONS-FEDERAL after automation. This result was obtained as the staff size for each activity was reduced (the SACONS-FEDERAL staff size had to be adjusted to reflect an increase in the pre-automation authorized manning levels). Overtime usage for SAACONS reduced sharply while it increased for SACONS-FEDERAL.

This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 aims to understand how performance-based ranking affect productivity of workers. While providing such ranking may induce workers to increase effort because of status concerns, such information may also demotivate them or make them wary of outperforming peers. This chapter disentangles the effects of demotivation, social conformity, and status associated with ranking. I implement a randomized experiment at a Bangladeshi sweater factory that pays employees on piece rates. Treated workers receive monthly information on their relative performance either in private or in public. A simple theoretical framework shows that intrinsic status concerns induce Private Treatment workers to increase or decrease effort depending on the feedback they receive from the intervention. Workers in Public Treatment respond similarly but face two additional incentives - social status (positive effect) and social conformity (negative effect). Empirical evidence shows that Private Treatment workers increased (decreased) effort upon receiving positive (negative) feedback. Public ranking led to lower net effort relative to Private Treatment because of a strong preference not to outperform friends. The negative effects from demotivation and social conformity may explain why the existing literature finds mixed evidence of impact of ranking workers. In Chapter 2, we look at how firing of workers in an organization affect the productivity of the surviving co-workers. We take advantage of detailed individual-level production records from, and extensive fieldwork conducted at, a large Bangladeshi sweater factory before, during, and after several episodes of labour unrest that eventually led the management to fire approximately 25 percent of the labour force on the relevant production floor. Exploiting across-worker variation in exposure to colleagues' terminations, we document a negative impact of the firings on productivity of surviving workers. Fired co-workers' spatial proximity drives the results. Additional evidence rules out a number of competing mechanisms such as subsequent targeted punishments from management, loss of productive peers, or attention diverted to help recently hired and inexperienced co-workers. We argue that the effects are likely driven by workers' feelings of loss or anger towards the management. Chapter 3 studies the relationship between external shocks, such as political strikes and labour unrest, and productivity in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh. Using data from 33 ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh and adopting an event-study approach, we document very little change in productivity or worker absenteeism during political strikes lasting two days or less. Productivity falls when strikes last five days or more. The main channel for such fall appears to be supply-chain disruptions rather than worker absenteeism. However, absenteeism and quality defect rates increase immediately during labour unrest, resulting in a decrease in output. As a benchmark comparison, we show that the drop in productivity from sustained strikes or labour unrest is equivalent to a fall in productivity due to an increase of about 7 degrees centigrade in temperature.

The thesis contains three essays on the determinants of productivity. The first essay studies how costly supplier contract enforcement shapes firm boundaries, and quantifies the impact of this transaction cost on aggregate productivity and welfare. Contract enforcement costs lead suppliers to underproduce. Thus, firms will perform more of the production process in-house instead of outsourcing it. In countries with slow and costly courts, firms should buy relatively less inputs from sectors whose products are more specific to the buyer - seller relationship. I first present reduced-form evidence for this hypothesis using cross-country regressions. I use microdata on case law from the United States to construct a new measure of relationship specificity by sector-pairs. This allows me to control for productivity differences across countries and sectors and to causally identify the effect of contracting frictions on industry structure. I estimate a model and conduct a series of counterfactual experiments. Setting enforcement costs to US levels would increase real income by an average of 3.6 percent across all countries, and by an average of 10 percent across low-income countries. The second essay investigates the role of bureaucratic startup costs and credit market imperfections in shaping selection, misallocation, and aggregate productivity. We study a dynamic model of misallocation. Limited access to external financing and entry costs mean that firms are not necessarily operated by the most talented managers. We calibrate our model to the United States. Our findings suggest that the reduction of startup costs would only have a small impact on aggregate productivity and welfare. Financial frictions, on the other hand, seem to have a much larger impact. The third essay returns to the role of intermediate inputs for economic performance. Using panel data on manufacturing firms in India, we study the role of input complementarities in shaping the firm’s choice of products. We find that firms are more likely to add products to their portfolio if these products require intermediate inputs that the firm is already using in their production activities. Our findings shed light on the source of firm’s core competencies. We also provide the first study of supply linkages within multiproduct firms in developing countries. We find product turnover rates in India that are comparable to US levels.

FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do CearÃ
This thesis studies agricultural productivity both from an empirical and theoretical perspective. On the empirical side, a stochastic frontier is estimated for Brazilian states and the Data Envelopment Analysis methodology is employed for South American countries. Regarding the theoretical perspective, the impact of an increase on agricultural productivity upon economic growth and welfare is analyzed by means of an endogenous growth model. We conclude that agricultural productivity plays a major role in determining the growth rate of economies.
Nesta Tese faz-se um estudo sobre produtividade agrÃcola tanto do ponto de vista empÃrico quanto teÃrico. Quanto ao primeiro aspecto, realiza-se estimativas usando o mÃtodo da fronteira estocÃstica para os estados brasileiros e o Data Envelopment Analysis - DEA para os paÃses da AmÃrica do Sul. Do ponto de vista teÃrico analisa-se atravÃs de um modelo de crescimento endÃgeno o impacto do aumento da produtividade agrÃcola no crescimento econÃmico e no nÃvel de bem-estar. A conclusÃo do trabalho à que a produtividade no setor agrÃcola tem importantes implicaÃÃes na taxa de crescimento da economia

Understanding and enhancing productivity has been at the heart of sustainable growth goals of developing countries. Policy makers and multilateral agencies have inquired about what role the government can play in this regard. The empirical evidence at the micro level however, is surprisingly limited. This dissertation contributes to this literature by undertaking a firm and product level study of productivity. It estimates a causal effect of a typical industrial policy measure on total factor productivity and other firm outcomes. It also forwards a micro level explanation of the low productivity of capital despite its shortage in developing countries. We find that typical policy incentives like tax holiday and cheap loans targeted at firms in certain sectors and locations have negatively affected total factor productivity due to entry of less productive firms and diversification. We find that human capital, power and road infrastructure positively determine the productivity of capital. The dissertation goes on to examine gender pay inequality by constructing a new measure from gender disaggregated labour share in value added. This measure is comparable across time and across countries. We also undertake a causal analysis of what determines gender pay inequality. We find that although gender pay inequality has been declining it is still substantial. In addition in some middle income countries income have to triple for gender pay gap to close.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’interaction entre migration et productivité, sous différents angles, à travers trois pays et périodes. Plus précisément, j’étudie les avantages à la mobilité pour les migrants sur le marché du travail en période de crise économique, les gains de productivité dus à la mobilité des migrants lors de la reconstruction d’un pays au lendemain d’une guerre, et les gains associés à une plus forte concentration de la population dans les grandes zones urbaines. J’aborde ces sujets à la fois théoriquement et empiriquement, en utilisant de riches données confidentielles sur la sécurité sociale provenant d’Espagne, d’Allemagne et de Turquie, en utilisant diverses techniques de données de panel ainsi que des instruments historiques pour estimer des relations causales. Les résultats de ces études portent sur de nombreuses questions qui intéressent à la fois le monde universitaire et les décideurs politiques, mais sur lesquelles on sait encore peu de choses. Cette thèse vise à contribuer à améliorer nos connaissances sur des questions qui demeureront pertinentes dans un avenir proche
This dissertation explores the interaction between migration and productivity, through multiple angles, across three different countries and period contexts. Specifically, I study the labor market benefits of migrant mobility during an economic crisis, productivity gains due to migrant mobility in the reconstruction of a country in the aftermath of a war, and gains associated with a higher concentration of people in larger urban areas. I address these subjects both theoretically and empirically, using rich confidential social security data from Spain, Germany, and Turkey, applying a variety of panel data techniques and historical instruments to estimate causal relationships. The findings of these studies relate to many issues that interest both the academia and the policymakers yet on which little is known. This dissertation aims to contribute to knowledge gap on issues that will remain relevant foreseeable future

We study whether exposure to poverty can induce affective states that decrease productivity. In a controlled laboratory setting, we find that subjects randomly assigned to a treatment, in which they view a video featuring individuals that live in extreme poverty, exhibit lower subsequent productivity compared to subjects assigned to a control treatment. Questionnaire responses, as well as facial recognition software, provide quantitative measures of the affective state evoked by the two treatments. Subjects exposed to images of poverty experience a more negative affective state than those in the control treatment. Further analysis shows that individuals in a more positive emotional state exhibit less of a treatment effect. Also, those who exhibit greater attentiveness upon viewing the poverty video are less productive. The results are consistent with the notion that exposure to poverty can induce a psychological state in individuals that adversely affects productivity.

Over the last three decades foreign direct investment (FDI) has become the most visible driver of globalisation. It has grown faster than world output and international trade and now reports world annual flows exceeding 1,000 billion US dollars. In this period, Germany has undergone significant changes in order to play an important role in the globalisation process. Apart from being a member state of the European Union (EU) whose key feature is the free flow of trade, investment and labour, the re-unification of East and West Germany in 1990 has been a significant development. This in effect has meant that East Germany as well as other Eastern European nations opened up to foreign investment for the first time. In this period, Germany has attracted in excess of 10 per cent of inward FDI into the EU and invested around 15 per cent of all FDI in the EU. This thesis explores empirically the potential impact of FDI on firms operating in and investing from Germany over a ten year period. Using panel data at the firm-level it concentrates on three areas relating to FDI. Firstly, it considers whether foreign-owned firms are more productive than German multinational firms and German non-multinational firms. Secondly, the thesis considers the impact of German investments abroad on domestic productivity. Finally, employment effects emanating from outward high-tech FDI are estimated for the leading OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, namely Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Japan. The findings of the first analysis indicate that while foreign-owned firms are generally more productive than German non-multinationals, there is no clear cut difference between foreign-owned firms and German multinationals. These differences would not have been uncovered, had the analysis compared foreign firms with all domestic firms. Equally, location within Germany is also important, as this productivity gap is more pronounced for firms which are located in the Eastern states. The findings of the second analysis suggest that engaging in outward FDI has an overall positive effect on the parent firm's productivity at home. Finally, results of the third analysis show that an expansion of high-tech offshoring activities by OECD multinationals (MNEs) is not associated with any reduction in employment at home.

Cette thèse étudie comment le taux de change effectif réel (TCER) et ses mesures associées (volatilité du TCER et désalignement du TCER) affectent la croissance de la productivité totale des facteurs (CPTF). Elle analyse également les canaux par lesquels le TCER et ses mesures associées agissent sur la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF). La première partie étudie comment le TCER lui-Même, d'une part, et la volatilité du TCER, d'autre part, influencent la productivité. Une analyse du lien entre le niveau du TCER et la PTF dans le chapitre 1 indique qu'une appréciation de taux de change cause une augmentation de la PTF. Mais cet impact est également non- inéaire: en-Dessous du seuil, le TCER influence négativement la productivité tandis qu'au-Dessus du seuil il agit positivement. Les résultats du chapitre 2 illustrent que la volatilité du TCER affecte négativement la CPTF. Nous avons également constaté que la volatilité du TCER agit sur PTF selon le niveau du développement financier. Pour les pays modérément financièrement développés, la volatilité du TCER réagit négativement sur la productivité et n'a aucun effet sur la productivité pour les niveaux très bas et très élevés du développement financier. La deuxième partie examine les canaux par lesquels le TCER et ses mesures associées influencent la productivité. Les résultats du chapitre 3 illustrent que la volatilité du TCER a un impact négatif élevé sur l'investissement. Ces résultats sont robustes dans les pays à faible revenu et les pays à revenu moyens, et en employant une mesure alternative de volatilité du TCER. Le chapitre 4 montre que le désalignement du taux de change réel et la volatilité du taux de change réel affectent négativement les exportations. Il démontre également que la volatilité du taux de change réel est plus nocive aux exportations que le désalignement. Ces résultats sont corroborés par des résultats sur des sous-Échantillons de pays à bas revenu et à revenu moyen
This dissertation investigates how the real effective exchange rate (REER) and its associated asurements (REER volatility and REER misalignment) affect total factor productivity growth (TFPG). It also analyzes the channels through which the REER and its associated measurements act on total factor productivity (TFP). The first part studies how the REER itself, on the one hand, and the REER volatility, on the other hand, influence productivity. An analysis of the link between the level of REER and TFP in chapter 1 reveals that an exchange rate appreciation causes an increase of TFP. But this impact is also nonlinear: below the threshold, real exchange rate influences negatively productivity while above the threshold it acts positively. The results of chapter 2 illustrate that REER volatility affects negatively TFPG. We also found that REER volatility acts on TFP according to the level of financial development. For moderately financially developed countries, REER volatility reacts negatively on productivity and has no effect on productivity for very low and very high levels of financial development. The second part examines the channels through which the REER and its associated measurements influence productivity. The results of chapter 3 illustrate that the exchange rate volatility has a strong negative impact on investment. This outcome is robust in low income and middle income countries, and by using an alternative measurement of exchange rate volatility. Chapter 4 show that both real exchange rate misalignment and real exchange rate volatility affect negatively exports. It also demonstrates that real exchange rate volatility is more harmful to exports than misalignment. These outcomes are corroborated by estimations on subsamples of Low- ncome and Middle-Income countries

Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 1990.
Thesis Advisor(s): Haga, William J. Second Reader: McCaffrey, Martin J. "December 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on March 30, 2010. DTIC Descriptor(s): Contract Administration, Lead Time, Management, Experimental Design, Teams(Personnel), Morale, Theses, Quality, Procurement, Productivity, Workload, Archives, Cooperation, Output, Measurement. DTIC Identifier(s): Automation, Contracts, Productivity, SAACONS(Standard Army Automated Contracting System), SACONS-Federal(Standard Automated Contracting System For Federal Agencies), PALT(Procurement Administrative Lead Time). Author(s) subject terms: Productivity, Automated Contracting. Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-116). Also available in print.

Ma dissertation utilise des outils théoriques et des méthodes empiriques pour aborder des questions de fond dans l'intersection de la macroéconomie et de l'organisation industrielle. En particulier, mes recherches mettent l'accent sur la compréhension des forces sous-jacentes qui déterminent l'efficacité et les distorsions. Tout d'abord, je demande que, dans quelle mesure et par quel canal la privatisation a contribué à la croissance rapide du PIB et de la PTF dans le secteur manufacturier chinois. La privatisation, comme beaucoup d'autres politiques industrielles, affecte la production et la productivité des entreprises par un effet direct sur la productivité et un effet indirect sur l'allocation des ressources. Comprendre les conséquences de la privatisation à la fois sur la productivité et sur l'efficacité de l'allocation est crucial pour l'évaluation des politiques et les réformes ultérieures. Pour ce faire, je développe d'abord une méthode pour identifier séparément la productivité et identifier les fausses affectations. Ceci associe deux littératures distinctes. L'une est la littérature macro sur la mauvaise affectation qui utilise des cales ou des distorsions pour mesurer l'écart par rapport à l'échelle optimale de l'entreprise. L'autre est la littérature empirique des IO pour estimer la fonction de production en utilisant les entrées et sorties, ainsi que les choix optimaux de l'entreprise. Je augmente le cadre d'estimation de la fonction de production empirique en introduisant des quartiers entre les revenus marginaux et les coûts marginaux en tant que variable supplémentaire non observée qui fausse la production des entreprises en dehors de leurs choix d'entrée optimale. Et je montre que comment identifier et estimer la productivité, les distorsions et les paramètres dans la fonction de production. J'estime ensuite les effets de productivité et de distorsion de la privatisation. Enfin, je propose une méthode de décomposition pour la croissance globale de la productivité pour expliquer explicitement l'effet direct de la privatisation. Deuxièmement, j'ai discuté des frictions du marché, en particulier des frictions de recherche et d'information qui empêchent des allocations efficaces sur les marchés du travail. Au chapitre deux, nous développons un modèle de recherche dirigé pour étudier les transitions des travailleurs entre les emplois sur le marché du travail français. En particulier, le modèle que nous considérons permet aux travailleurs d'avoir des informations incomplètes sur les caractéristiques commercialisables (types) de l'autre au point où ils prennent leurs décisions de recherche. La théorie fournit une série de prédictions vérifiables sur la relation entre le salaire qu'un travailleur reçoit au travail qu'il a quitté et le salaire qu'il obtient à son prochain emploi. Le document utilise ensuite les données de l'ensemble de données DADS français pour étudier les transitions sur différents marchés du travail en France en 2007 et compare ces transitions à celles prédites par la théorie. Nous constatons que les marchés du travail pour les travailleurs qualifiés et les travailleurs industriels appuient davantage notre modèle. Troisièmement, j'explore le retour de la productivité et des distorsions dans le monde scientifique. Dans le chapitre trois, nous testons l'hypothèse nulle selon laquelle le nombre de citations fournit une mesure impartiale de la valeur scientifique d'un article. Pour ce faire, nous exploitons un choc qui est exogène à la valeur scientifique d'un document, à savoir le délai de fin de la rédaction de collègues d'auteurs d'un article. Nous montrons qu'au cours du rendez-vous d'un éditeur, les taux de citations de ses articles dans le journal qu'elle édite augmentent de 23 points de pourcentage. La citation premium s'efface lorsque l'éditeur démissionne
My dissertation uses theoretical tools and empirical methods to address substantive questions in the intersection of Macroeconomics and Industrial Organization. In particular, my research focuses on understanding the underlying forces that determine efficiency and distortions. In the first chapter, Privatization, Distortions, and Productivity, I ask that to what extent and through what channels privatization has contributed to the rapid growth of GDP and TFP in China’s manufacturing sector. Privatization, like many other industrial policies, affects firms’ output and productivity through a direct effect on productivity and an indirect effect on resource allocation. Understanding the consequences of privatization on both productivity and allocative efficiency is crucial for policy evaluation and subsequent reforms. To do so, I first develop a method to separately identify productivity and factor misallocations. This links to two distinct literatures. One is the macro literature on misallocation that use wedges or distortions to measure the deviation from firm’s optimal scale. The other is the empirical IO literature to estimate production function using input and output, together with firm’s optimal choices. I augment the empirical production function estimation framework by introducing wedges between marginal revenues and marginal costs as an additional unobserved variable that distorts the firms output away from their optimal input choices. And I show that how to identify and estimate productivity, distortions and parameters in production function. I then estimate the productivity and distortion effects of privatization. Finally I propose a decomposition method for aggregate productivity growth to explicitly account for the direct effect of privatization. Second, I discussed market frictions, specifically search and informational frictions that prevents efficient allocations in the labor markets. In Understanding Transitions using Directed Search with Mike Peters (UBC) and Steven Xu (HKU), we develop a directed search model to study worker transitions between jobs in the French labor market. In particular, the model we consider allows workers to have incomplete information about each other’s’ marketable characteristics (types) at the point where they make their search decisions. The theory provides a series of testable predictions about the relationship between the wage a worker receives at the job that he or she leaves, and the wage they get at their next job. The paper then uses data from the French DADS data set to study transitions in a variety of different labor markets in France in 2007, and compares these transitions to what is predicted by the theory. We find that the labor markets for skilled workers and industrial type of workers support more of our model. Third, I explore the return of productivity and distortions in scientific world. In Is Citation Behavior Biased? The Influence of Journal Editors with Bruno Biais (TSE) and Augustin Landier (TSE), we test the null hypothesis that the number of citations provides an unbiased measure of an article’s scientific value. To do so, we exploit a shock that is exogenous to the scientific value of a paper, namely the ending time of editorial appointments of colleagues of a paper’s author(s). We show that during the course of an editor’s appointment, the citation rates of her papers in the journal she edits go up by 23 percentage points. During the same period, these articles don’t have any significant citation premium at other journals. The citation premium fades away when the editor steps down. The same phenomenon applies to colleagues of the editor. This provides a counterexample to the null hypothesis that is both large in size and in the population of papers that is affected

This dissertation explores the effects of factors such as industrial policy and listing on the stock market on manufacturing firms’ profitability and productivity. The second chapter investigates the effect of industrial policies on misallocation using a rich data-set of Chinese firms. Using a difference-in-difference approach, I provide evidence that government policies (i.e. the 10th Five Year Plan) favoring particular industries lead to increased misallocation (i.e., an increase in the dispersion of revenue productivity across firms in four-digit industries). Moreover, the differential changes between industries supported and not supported by the 10th Five Year Plan are quantitatively large and indicative of a substantial negative impact on aggregate TFP. Using a changes-in-changes model, I find evidence that the Five Year Plan had a positive and significant effect for most of the TFPR distribution while the effect was negative for the lowest quintile of TFPQ and positive for the highest TFPQ quintile. The results suggest increased misallocation is related to the way in which the Chinese government doled out support through the increase of subsidies and the improvement of credit conditions for a subset of firms. In the third chapter, I study the heterogeneous effects of an industrial policy -the 10th Five Year Plan on misallocation, profitability and real technology in Chinese provinces with different mix of supported intensities. I find that the 10th Five Year Plan increased misallocation, profitability and technology of supported industries in provinces with higher supporting intensities. After controlling the effects of China’s state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms and joining into World Trade Organization (WTO), the results are still robust and consistent. In the fourth chapter, I investigate the effects of listing on the stock market on firm’s profitability and technology. Using Chinese firm level data, I identify listing firms, and compute revenue productivity and physical productivity to measure profitability and technology, respectively. To deal with the endogenous problem of listing, I use the number of investment banks as instrument variable. With a difference-in-difference model, I find that listing increases firm’s profitability and technology. Empirical findings also reveal that listing changes characteristics of firms, such as asset, liability and capital structure.

Behaviors that may waste time in the workplace, like surfing the Internet for personal purposes (cyberloafing) or smoking breaks, may be the root antecedent for poor productivity. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine whether there was a relationship between the independent variables: time spent cyberloafing and time in uncontrolled smoking breaks, and the dependent variable: employee productivity. Procedural justice theory was used to frame the study. The population consisted of 34 employees working in a multinational engineering company in Jordan who have official smoking policies, but not cyberloafing policies. Correlations and multiple regression were computed using a Cyberloafing Scale and time spent smoking (independent variables) and The Endicott Work Productivity Scale (dependent variable). The results of the correlations indicated no significant relationship between Internet surfing and employee productivity. Smoking breaks were not a significant source of wasted time during the workday (the subsample and frequency of engaging in smoking were low); therefore, smoking did not have an effect on productivity. The findings of this study support the theory that using the Internet at work does not affect employee productivity. These findings have implications for positive social change that are also supported by existing research. Employees who engage in personal Internet activities at work tend to meet private demands and obligations. This connectivity may help to facilitate work-life balance.

My work consists in three papers in which I analyze different aspects regarding the effects of increased productivity of labour. I progressively increase the "range" of my analysis: I start considering a partial equilibrium framework, where a limited number of firms compete using innovation as a competitive threat; I then consider a general equilibrium setting in order to investigate the effects of increased productivity of labour over employment rate, wages and welfare spending; I finally consider a system dynamic approach to simulate the long-run effects over employment and other macroeconomic variable of increasing productivity assuming a trade-off between labour and energy efficiency.