We analyze hospital efficiency and productivity growth using an innovative approach which employs the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator. The primary advantage of our approach is that both input contractions and output expansions are considered. Our model generates a productivity indicator that is decomposed into the usual constituents of productivity growth...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in developing countries is expected to foster technology transfer from foreign-owned to local firms. Using detailed panel data from Tunisian manufacturing firms, we show that technological spillovers generated by FDI, as a form of technology transfer, help firms move near the best practice frontier (production frontier) measured by the Schmidt and Sickles method....

The impacts of the real exchange rate on employment and its channels are investigated. A real appreciation, 1) by decreasing the cost of imported inputs and increasing real wages expressed in tradable goods (technological channel), 2) by decreasing exports (export volume channel), 3) by exerting pressure on efficiency improvement (efficiency channel), exerts a negative effect on employment. Usi...

Economic growth is best understood as a combination of high and low growth regimes. This paper deals with the sources of growth around growth regimes change. To that end the derivation of structural breaks in growth rates series is combined with nonparametric growth accounting, which allows the decomposition of productivity changes into technological progress and efficiency changes. Even medium...