We develop a multi-sector general equilibrium model in which productivity growth is driven by the production of sector-specific knowledge. In the model, we find that long run differences in total factor productivity growth across sectors are independent of the parameters of the knowledge production function except for one, which we term the fertility of knowledge. Differences in R&D intensity a...

Using micro evidence from manufacturing and services firms located in 55 African countries, this paper shows that better management practice, reflected by international management certification, helps firms to raise productivity. Larger and older firms and firms operating closer to the technological frontier are more likely to possess international management standards certification, as do firm...

This paper examines the costs and bene ̄ts of government control of enterprises in transition, using a large survey of Chinese state enterprises. We ̄nd that tighter government control causes more unpro ̄table production and more surplus employment and thus tends to distort more severely enterprises' economic decisions. However, tighter government control also tends to reduce agency costs by forc...

This paper investigates how ownership changes affect the plant performance, focusing on the cotton spinning industry in early twentieth century Japan, where many plants experienced ownership changes. Through analyses of detailed plant-level data, it is revealed that, after ownership changes, plants tended to focus on low grade and low price products and, at the same time, total factor productiv...

Technological Change, Depletion and the U.S. Petroleum Industry*** A common claim in the nonrenewable resource literature is that improvements in technology may largely offset the effects of increasing scarcity over time. This study provides perhaps the first empirical evidence on this issue by analyzing the determinants of the average finding cost for additional petroleum in the U.S. over the ...

The relation between a firm’s stock return and its intangible investment ratio and asset tangibility is derived under the intangible-asset-augemnted (IAA) q-theory framework. Using firm level data and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), we estimate the model and three main results emerge. First, the IAA q-theory captures the value premium and the relation between R&D intensity and stock re...

A number of studies have explored the semiand nonparametric estimation of stochastic frontier models by using kernel regression or other nonparametric smoothing techniques. In contrast to popular deterministic nonparametric estimators, these approaches do not allow one to impose any shape constraints (or regularity conditions) on the frontier function. On the other hand, as many of the previous...

Much of recent Trade theory focuses on heterogeneity of firms and the differential impact trade policy might have on firms with different levels of productivity. A common problem is that most firm level dataset do not contain information on output prices of firms which makes it difficult to distinguish between productivity differences and differences in market power between firms. This paper de...

We study the impact of bank credit supply on the output and productivity of borrower firms. Exploiting a matched firm-bank database covering all credit relationships of Italian corporations over more than a decade, we measure idiosyncratic supply-side shocks to firm credit availability. Then, we estimate a production model augmented with heterogeneous financial frictions, to show that an expans...

It has been argued that Africa will not be able to export manufactures as it lacks the necessary skills. Without an ability to export there will only be an incentive to invest in the sector if domestic demand grows rapidly. Comparative data for four African countries the Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe shows that in the early 1990s investment in manufacturing remained very low. The micro ev...