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Over the past couple of decades there have been episodes of particularly rapid growth in output per head in a number of countries throughout the world, in particular in the UK since the early 1980s.The contributors to this volume provide a comparative analysis of data for a number of different countries. They also estimate the importance of a variety of different factors.
List of contents
1. Introduction David G. Mayes; 2. Productivity growth in the 1980s Melanie Lansbury and David Mayes; 3. Entry, exit, ownership and the growth of productivity Melanie Lansbury and David Mayes; 4. Shifts in the production frontier and the distribution of efficiency Melanie Lansbury and David Mayes; 5. Productivity, quality and the production process. A comment of chapters 2-4 Keith Cowling and Guy Vernon; 6. Productivity, machinery and skills in engineering: an Anglo-Dutch comparison Geoff Mason and Bart van Ark; 7. Knowledge, increasing returns and the UK production function Gavin Cameron and John Muellbauer; 8. Anglo-German productivity performance since 1973 Mary O'Mahony and Karin Wagner; 9. Productivity at the plant and industry levels in Australia Chris Harris; 10. Nonparametric approaches to the assessment of the relative efficiency of bank branches Henry Tulkens and Amador Malnero; 11. Productivity growth, plant turnover and restructuring in the Canadian manufacturing sector John R. Baldwin; 12. Downsizing and productivity growth: myth or reality? Martin Neil Baily, Eric J. Bartelsman and John Haltiwanger; 13. Sources of productivity slowdown in Swedish manufacturing 1964-89 Bo Walfridson and Lennart Hjalmarsson; 14. Productivity of Norwegian establishments: a Malmquist index approach Finn R. Førsund; 15. X-inefficiency in measured technical inefficiency Akio Torii; Notes; References.
Summary
Over the past fewdecades there have been surges in productivity in a number of countries, and the explanations for these surges have not been satisfactory. This 1996 book examines the data relating to these changes at an individual establishment level in a number of countries throughout the world.
