Read more
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Basic concepts; 3. Productivity estimation; 4. Measuring market efficiency; 5. Sources of data; 6. Productivity and the financial environment; 7. Productivity and the labour market; 8. Productivity in a borderless world; 9. Productivity and competitive pressure; 10. Conclusion and final remarks.
About the author
Carlo Altomonte is Associate Professor of Economics at Bocconi University and non-resident fellow at Bruegel. He has acted as consultant for a number of international institutions, including the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the United Nations.Filippo di Mauro is the founder and chairman of CompNet, a leading forum for productivity research and provider of a top standard firm-level based dataset. He has been an economist and research manager in central banks (Bank of Italy, US Fed and ECB) and international organizations (IMF and ADB).
Summary
Productivity varies widely at the level of individual firms. Governments policies must strike the right balance between increasing productivity across the board and promoting resource reallocation towards most deserving firms. This book provides the empirical evidence needed to strike this policy balance.
Additional text
'Total factor productivity (TFP) is a force for economic growth. Yet, how that happens has long been a matter of controversy, due to disagreement on both concept and measurement. Traditionally estimated as a residual, TFP has been described as a measure of our ignorance. Altomonte and di Mauro convincingly argue that leveraging big datasets on firms boosts understanding of TFP as a driver of economic growth by reducing the scope for conceptual and measurement errors.' Gianmarco Ottaviano, Bocconi University
