Tremendous differences in producer productivity levels exist, even within narrowly defined industries. This paper explores the influence of product substitutability in an industry on this disparity. When consumers can easily switch between producers, relatively inefficient (highcost) producers cannot profitably operate. Thus high-substitutability industries should exhibit less productivity disp...

Based on a two-stage analysis of a panel of data on 12 outlets of a high-end retailer for 24 months, we investigate how the level of supervisory monitoring affects retail sales productivity. In the first stage, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute the relative productivity of retail outlets in using their labor and capital resources to generate store sales. In the second stage, we ...

The productivity of enzyme fermentations depends critically on maintaining a high oxygen transfer rate to satisfy the optimal oxygen demand of the microorganism for product formation. Among the several factors that affect oxygen transfer rates in a fermentor are the air flow rate and agitation. The production of a-amylase by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens was performed in 600-mL and 5-litre ferment...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors determining the productivity of the software industry in Japan, using individual data from the Survey of the State of the Information Service Industry conducted in August 2006 by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan). This paper focuses on the relationship between the subcontracting structure and productivity in the Japanes...

in order to evaluate of drought tolerance in different canola varieties based on stress evaluation indices in terminal growth duration, an experiment was conducted as split-plot design on randomized complete block design with four replications at experimental field of seed and plant improvement institute, karaj in 2005 and 2006. results using stress susceptibility index (ssi) and tolerance inde...

two models are commonly made use to explain the behavior of insurance industries, namely: risk-pooling and the risk-absorbing models. neither of the two models provides an acceptable definition of insurance output in the economies experiencing high inflation rate. to address the deficiencies of the present models, an alternative was proposed in the current study as based on the theory of in...

this is a report on the study of high melt flow, highly isotactic polypropylene homopolymer synthesized in liquid monomer using a fifth generation ziegler-natta catalytic system. at highest catalyst productivity, the response of thecatalyst to hydrogen as chain transfer is studied. melt flow rate is controlled by hydrogen as chain transfer from 0.4 to 300 g/10min with changing the amount of hyd...

In any machining operations, quality and productivity are the two important conflicting objectives. In order to give assurance for high productivity, some extent of quality has to be compromised. Similarly productivity will be decreased while the efforts are channelized to enhance quality. Therefore it is essential to optimize both quality and productivity simultaneously. Surface roughness and ...

We examine the effects of technology on productivity growth by disaggregating total output into sectoral components, exploring the roles of investment and technology on productivity growth for countries in different income groups. We find that for low-income countries, investment is the most important determinant of productivity growth. While investment plays an important role in determining pr...

This paper develops a model where short-term reputation concerns guide the public disclosure of information and affect welfare in a coordination environment. Entrepreneurs use public information to make investment decisions, and there is complementarity in their actions. There are and high and low states that determine the productivity in the economy, and the high state is more likely if the go...