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This paper aims to investigate how the gap between a multinational enterprise’s (MNE) productivity and that of its competitor determines the utilization of expatriate managers in its foreign subsidiaries.

The authors first develop a formal analytical model where expatriate managers are relatively more reliable and expensive while local managers are prone to job-hopping. The authors then test the predictions of the analytical model using subsidiary-level data of Korean MNEs.

The findings show a positive relationship between the productivity gap and the share of expatriate managers in a foreign subsidiary. The empirical findings also show that the job position (middle versus top managers) is another key determinant of the utilization of expatriate managers.

The results of this paper are consistent with the literature that finds that MNEs choose a governance structure that minimizes the hazard of opportunism in their subsidiaries, yet the paper reveals a novel aspect of the determinants of expatriate utilization.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the total factor productivity (TFP) gap between the USA and eight Latin American countries for the period of 1970-2000.

The paper provides an explicit application of TFP estimation by employing a growth accounting approach (Solow Residual) in the presence of non-constant returns to scale and a non-parametric approach (DEA – Malmquist Index) while relaxing the scale-related constraint. A macro-based economic model of innovator and follower countries is employed to explore the linkage between technology gaps and innovations, labor productivity, trade openness, foreign direct investment, and adult workforce illiteracy rates. A pooled model and a fixed effects model are used to determine the factors of the technology gap between the innovator and the follower countries.

The results show that the labor productivity gap, adult work force illiteracy rates, patent filing gap, and trade openness are significant determinants of the technology gap between innovator and follower country.

Latin American countries would benefit from the technology diffusion from an innovator country; but a minimum threshold of human capital, such as adult workforce illiteracy rates and patent filing has to be met. The authors find government policies on trade openness also have large effects on technology limitations in foreign countries.

This paper is of value to researchers, policy makers, and economic development specialists trying to improve the rate of technology adoption and innovation.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

This study aims to measure the productivity of 21 major shipyards in China, South Korea and Japan.

Data envelopment analysis was applied to measure the productivity of shipyards. The contemporaneous and intertemporal productivity scores of each shipyard were measured. Additionally, the technical gaps among shipyards in China, South Korea and Japan were measured and compared.

The results indicate that Japan led the global shipbuilding industry in 2014 and South Korea dominated in 2015. Additionally, from 2014 to 2015, shipyards in South Korea and Japan maintained their levels of productivity. Comparatively, major shipyards in China made substantial progress from 2014 to 2015, revealing their strong ambition to improve productivity.

This study first used a metafrontier framework to measure the technical gap of shipyards among major shipbuilding countries. The model and approach objectively analyze the productivity of major shipyards and considers their nationalities. Additionally, this study is the first to measure changes in the productivity of shipyards. By decomposing the metafrontier Malmquist productivity index, major shipyards were categorized into eight sets. The results of this study can provide a clear direction for shipyards to improve their productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of fixed-term contracts (FTCs) on labour productivity, wages (i.e. labour cost), and productivity-wage gaps (i.e. profits).

The authors apply dynamic panel data techniques to detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data covering the period 1999-2006.

Results indicate that FTCs exert stronger positive effects on productivity than on wages and (accordingly) that the use of FTCs increases firms’ profitability.

This paper is one of the first to examine the FTC-productivity-wage nexus while addressing three important methodological issues related to the state dependency of the three explained variables, to firm time-invariant heterogeneity, and to the endogeneity of FTCs.

The paper aims to explore factors of the low competitiveness of Russian companies assuming that the gap in the endowment of intangible resources is responsible for the gap in competitiveness.

The framework of resources-based view is used to examine causality between the resources used and competitiveness measured by economic value added (EVA). Controlling for the most relevant factors, the authors place an emphasis on those intangible resources that are considered in the literature as being the most critical for Russian companies when contending for global competitiveness: productivity, strategic long-term orientation of companies, quality of human capital, innovative behavior of companies, foreign investments and corporate networks. The data set of more than 1,000 Russian companies benchmarked to the data set of more than 1,600 European companies during a period of 10 years: 2004-2013 is analyzed to test the hypothesis put forward.

Causal effect of the gap in intangible endowment and competitiveness of Russian companies compared with European rivals is revealed. According to our analysis, gaps in productivity, strategy implementation, qualifications of the board of directors and company location play critical roles in the global competitiveness of Russian companies. Meanwhile, underinvestment in structural resources, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other intangible assets, are considered positive factors that reduce gaps in EVA.

The paper introduces original approach for studying the gap in performance caused by the gap in used resources.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the productivity of rice production by decomposing the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) into four components: technological change, scale effects, technical and allocative efficiencies.

This study employed an econometric approach to decompose TFP growth into four components: technological change, technical efficiency, allocative efficiency and scale effect. Unbalanced panel data used in this study were surveyed in 1994, 2004 and 2014 from 360 rice farming operations. The model used the stochastic frontier transcendental logarithm production technology to estimate the technology parameters.

The results indicate that the primary sources of TFP growth were technological change and allocative efficiency effects. The contribution of technical efficiency was low because it grew sluggishly.

This study has several shortcomings, such as very low R² and the insignificant elasticity of labour presented in the findings. Another limitation is the limited time period panel covering long interval, which resulted in unbalanced data.

The government should improve productivity growth by allocating more areas for rice production, which enhances the scale and efficiency effects and adjusting the use of capital and material inputs. Extension services should be strengthened to provide farmers with training on improved agronomic technologies. This action will enhance technical efficiency performance and lead to technological progress.

As Indonesian population is still growing at a significant rate and the fact that rice is the primary staple food for Indonesian people, the productivity of rice production should increase continually to ensure social security at a national level.

The productivity growth is decomposed into four components using the transcendental logarithm production technology based on farm-level data. The measure has not been conducted previously in Indonesia, even in rice-producing countries.

The paper's purpose is to show that the reported (and growing) labour productivity gap between the G7 and OECD countries and the USA might be a factor of the rapid adoption of shadow banking structures and techniques in the USA versus the adoption of those structures in OECD and G7 economies.

The paper explains the concept and practice of shadow banking and explores the ways in which the various conventions adopted distort reported productivity figures.

The growing adoption of shadow banking over the period 1974‐2007 has had the effect of increasing the metrics for labour productivity over the same period.

It is clear that those who wish to understand the apparent growing gap between labour productivity of the USA and other G7/OECD nations must look beyond the simple reported figures to identify the ways in which figures are calculated and reported.

The paper shows that reporting of figures to established conventions can be affected by a range of factors, not apparent from looking at those conventions themselves.

When spillovers are measured at a national level, the regional benefits may not be identified if they are too small. Very few studies that examined how FDI impacts the regional productivity of the host nations have shown mixed results. The evidence is still scarce and little is known about how the regional penetration of FDI affects the regional productivity performance. The trajectory of regional productivity growth in India has been a subject of scrutiny and intense debates and remains less systematically investigated. The purpose of this paper is to fill this lacuna by investigating the effect of FDI spillover on regional productivity in Indian states.

Using data supplied by the Central Statistical Organization, National Statistical Organization, National Sample Survey Office, and National Accounts Statistics, Government of India at the Indian Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, first, the study employs stochastic frontier model to explore the extent to which FDI spillover contributes to the regional productivity from panel data of 28 Indian states over 1993-2013. Second, the study examines the roles of absorptive ability and technology gap on productivity effect of FDI. Third, by adopting SFA, we measure productivity growth of Indian states in terms of Malmquist productivity index. Fourth, India’s development is imbalanced. To analyze the imbalance due to skewed distribution of FDI among Indian states, Indian states are divided into three regions, and the spillover effects of FDI on TFP in these regions are explored.

The results on the effects of FDI spillover on regional productivity in India using stochastic frontier and panel data from 28 states over 1993-2013 show that R&D, technology import, human capital, and various specifications of FDI have a significant impact on the regional productivity in India except technology gap. Study does not find support for the resource curse hypothesis in Indian states. Productivity growth for India using the Malmquist TFP index based on the stochastic frontier shows positive impact. The TFP growth in the three regions of India is turned to be differently attributed by the FDI spillover.

Little is known about how the regional penetration of FDI affects the regional productivity performance. This research aims to fill this lacuna by investigating the effect of FDI spillover on regional productivity in Indian states which has been a subject of scrutiny and intense debates.

This study aims to assess the effects of microfinance institution (MFI) services on the productivity of family farms in Cameroon, in the region of Mbam and Kim. It will be a question, therefore, of determining the level and determiners of the outputs of family farms, in particular those concerned by the cultures of cocoa, beneficiaries of the agricultural services of MFIs.

The authors use the Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) model of decomposition of the productivity differential between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of agricultural credits on a sample of 130 cocoa farming households and four MFIs of the same area between 2008 and 2011.

The yield gap between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of agricultural credits is estimated at 0.19 tons per hectare. This gap is explained positively by the financial aid variable, the farm size variable, which is significant in the explanation of the beneficiaries' level of returns and the constant term. On the other hand, all the socio-economic variables of the farmers contribute to reduce this gap of productivity.

This financial assistance from CVECA is essential to increase agricultural yields because it helps to cancel out some structural barriers. However, as this improvement in yields is only possible for large farms, the services of the MFIs would rather favor extensification policies. Nevertheless, the study results are limited by the negative effects of the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers on these yields, the study having been revealed without any selectivity bias.

This study seeks to reverse the trend that in rural areas, MFIs are financing agriculture to increase extensification rather than enhancing intensification in sub-Saharan Africa by challenging the role of MFI services in intensification.