As well as their direct effects on output and employment, the attraction of foreign direct investment is sometimes argued to provide further economic benefits through spillover effects that potentially increase the productivity performance of domestic firms. Empirical evidence on these indirect effects has however tended to be mixed. This paper uses Irish firm-level data on both manufacturing and services firms to re-examine and update evidence on intra-industry and intra-region spillovers and then extends the previous research by examining if spillovers are more likely to occur through supply chain linkages. In addition, we consider the heterogeneity of investors and allow the spillover effects to differ for foreign affiliates owned by EU and non-EU based parent companies. Finally, we examine the role of domestic firms’ absorptive capacity in conditioning the effects of spillovers from multinationals on their productivity. Overall, we find limited evidence or a negative link between the presence of foreign-owned firms and the productivity of domestic firms in the same industry or the same region. Examining forward and backward linkages through supply chains indicates that on average, selling to foreign-owned firms had a positive effect while buying from foreign owned firms had a negative effect on the average productivity of domestic firms. Finally, considering the absorptive capacity of domestic firms and allowing the spillover effects to differ depending on the origin of the parent companies, we find that the positive productivity spillovers come from supply chain linkages between domestic firms investing in R&D and foreign affiliates of multinationals with headquarters based outside the EU.
{"title":"Productivity spillovers from multinational activity to local firms in Ireland","authors":"Mattia Di Ubaldo, M. Lawless, Iulia Siedschlag","doi":"10.1787/58619717-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/58619717-EN","url":null,"abstract":"As well as their direct effects on output and employment, the attraction of foreign direct investment is sometimes argued to provide further economic benefits through spillover effects that potentially increase the productivity performance of domestic firms. Empirical evidence on these indirect effects has however tended to be mixed. This paper uses Irish firm-level data on both manufacturing and services firms to re-examine and update evidence on intra-industry and intra-region spillovers and then extends the previous research by examining if spillovers are more likely to occur through supply chain linkages. In addition, we consider the heterogeneity of investors and allow the spillover effects to differ for foreign affiliates owned by EU and non-EU based parent companies. Finally, we examine the role of domestic firms’ absorptive capacity in conditioning the effects of spillovers from multinationals on their productivity. Overall, we find limited evidence or a negative link between the presence of foreign-owned firms and the productivity of domestic firms in the same industry or the same region. Examining forward and backward linkages through supply chains indicates that on average, selling to foreign-owned firms had a positive effect while buying from foreign owned firms had a negative effect on the average productivity of domestic firms. Finally, considering the absorptive capacity of domestic firms and allowing the spillover effects to differ depending on the origin of the parent companies, we find that the positive productivity spillovers come from supply chain linkages between domestic firms investing in R&D and foreign affiliates of multinationals with headquarters based outside the EU.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124059865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Productivity is the ultimate driver of sustainable increases in living standards. While Ireland is a high productivity country, it has not been immune from the global productivity slowdown, with the pace of growth on a downward trend throughout the 2000s. Little research has been carried out as to the determinants behind the productivity slowdown in Ireland, and even less so with microdata. To fill the gap, we use a firm-level panel dataset based on production surveys from Ireland’s national statistics office, together with the OECD MultiProd model, in order to identify productivity patterns and trends distributed by percentile, sector, ownership, as well as measures of the efficiency of resource allocation. Our results show a widening of the productivity gap between the most and least productive firms, with the majority of firms experiencing a decline in productivity since the mid-2000s, and also confirm that aggregate results are driven by the impact of foreign dominated sectors, with foreign firms typically larger and more productive. These results are significant in terms of enterprise policy and featured prominently in the OECD’s 2018 Economic Survey of Ireland.
{"title":"Patterns of firm level productivity in Ireland","authors":"Javier Papa, L. Rehill, B. O'Connor","doi":"10.1787/1a04730d-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/1a04730d-en","url":null,"abstract":"Productivity is the ultimate driver of sustainable increases in living standards. While Ireland is a high productivity country, it has not been immune from the global productivity slowdown, with the pace of growth on a downward trend throughout the 2000s. Little research has been carried out as to the determinants behind the productivity slowdown in Ireland, and even less so with microdata. To fill the gap, we use a firm-level panel dataset based on production surveys from Ireland’s national statistics office, together with the OECD MultiProd model, in order to identify productivity patterns and trends distributed by percentile, sector, ownership, as well as measures of the efficiency of resource allocation. Our results show a widening of the productivity gap between the most and least productive firms, with the majority of firms experiencing a decline in productivity since the mid-2000s, and also confirm that aggregate results are driven by the impact of foreign dominated sectors, with foreign firms typically larger and more productive. These results are significant in terms of enterprise policy and featured prominently in the OECD’s 2018 Economic Survey of Ireland.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124213217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper uses “centrality” metrics to reflect the changing structure of Global Value Chains (GVCs), contrasting central hubs and peripheral countries and sectors, and examine how these changes impact firm productivity. Using cross-country firm-level data from ORBIS, the paper finds that changing position within GVCs can play a role in the catch up of firms, but the results are heterogeneous across firms and countries. Firstly, becoming more central is associated with faster productivity growth of smaller firms, nonfrontier businesses, and of firms in smaller economies and in post-2004 EU member countries. And these correlations weaken with firm size and with proximity to the frontier, such that when one ignores firm heterogeneity and only considers average effects, there is no correlation for the average firms in the data. Secondly, the (centrality weighted) average productivity of buyers matters for the productivity of firms in our data overall, however this is particularly true for firms in large economies, for non-frontier and for smaller firms. The policy environment, such as flexible labour markets, better access to finance, stronger contract enforcement and simplified export procedures, appears to be important in translating the changing structure of GVCs into faster productivity growth of these non-frontier firms.
{"title":"GVC centrality and productivity","authors":"Chiara Criscuolo, Jon Timmis","doi":"10.1787/56453da1-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/56453da1-en","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses “centrality” metrics to reflect the changing structure of Global Value Chains (GVCs), contrasting central hubs and peripheral countries and sectors, and examine how these changes impact firm productivity. Using cross-country firm-level data from ORBIS, the paper finds that changing position within GVCs can play a role in the catch up of firms, but the results are heterogeneous across firms and countries. Firstly, becoming more central is associated with faster productivity growth of smaller firms, nonfrontier businesses, and of firms in smaller economies and in post-2004 EU member countries. And these correlations weaken with firm size and with proximity to the frontier, such that when one ignores firm heterogeneity and only considers average effects, there is no correlation for the average firms in the data. Secondly, the (centrality weighted) average productivity of buyers matters for the productivity of firms in our data overall, however this is particularly true for firms in large economies, for non-frontier and for smaller firms. The policy environment, such as flexible labour markets, better access to finance, stronger contract enforcement and simplified export procedures, appears to be important in translating the changing structure of GVCs into faster productivity growth of these non-frontier firms.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127401530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Productivity growth is slowing down among OECD countries, coupled with increased misallocation of resources. A recent strand of literature focuses on the role of non-viable firms (“zombie firms”) to explain these developments. Using a rich firm-level dataset for one of the OECD countries with the largest drop in barriers to firm exit and restructure, we assess the role of zombies on firm dynamics, both in the extensive and intensive margins. We confirm the results on the high prevalence of zombie firms, significantly less productive than their healthy counterparts and thus dragging aggregate productivity down. Moreover, while we find evidence of positive selection within zombies, with the most productive restructuring and the least productive exiting, we also show that the zombies' productivity threshold for exit is much lower than that of nonzombies, allowing them to stay in the market, distorting competition and sinking resources. Zombie prevalence curbs the growth of viable firms, in particular the most productive, harming the intra-sectoral resource reallocation. We show that a reduction in exit and restructuring barriers promotes a more effective exit channel and fosters the restructuring of the most productive. These results highlight the role of public policy in addressing zombies' prevalence, fostering a more efficient resource allocation and enabling productivity growth.
{"title":"Fear the walking dead","authors":"A. Gouveia, Christian Osterhold","doi":"10.1787/e6c6e51d-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/e6c6e51d-en","url":null,"abstract":"Productivity growth is slowing down among OECD countries, coupled with increased misallocation of resources. A recent strand of literature focuses on the role of non-viable firms (“zombie firms”) to explain these developments. Using a rich firm-level dataset for one of the OECD countries with the largest drop in barriers to firm exit and restructure, we assess the role of zombies on firm dynamics, both in the extensive and intensive margins. We confirm the results on the high prevalence of zombie firms, significantly less productive than their healthy counterparts and thus dragging aggregate productivity down. Moreover, while we find evidence of positive selection within zombies, with the most productive restructuring and the least productive exiting, we also show that the zombies' productivity threshold for exit is much lower than that of nonzombies, allowing them to stay in the market, distorting competition and sinking resources. Zombie prevalence curbs the growth of viable firms, in particular the most productive, harming the intra-sectoral resource reallocation. We show that a reduction in exit and restructuring barriers promotes a more effective exit channel and fosters the restructuring of the most productive. These results highlight the role of public policy in addressing zombies' prevalence, fostering a more efficient resource allocation and enabling productivity growth.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128500899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates whether and how worker composition, ownership and management affect the productivity of firms. To this aim, we use a dataset obtained by integrating the micro-data drawn from Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted by Inapp in 2010 and 2015 on a representative sample of Italian limited liability and partnership firms, with the AIDA archive containing comprehensive information on the balance sheets of almost all the Italian corporations. We apply different regression models and the findings reveal that a higher share of skilled workers within firms and more experienced managers are associated with higher productivity levels. In addition, firms run by managers with higher education are more likely to introduce innovation. Finally, family ownership and the coincidence of management with ownership are negatively related with firm productivity.
本文研究了工人构成、所有权和管理是否以及如何影响企业的生产率。为此,我们使用了一个数据集,该数据集整合了来自Rilevazione su impression e Lavoro (RIL)的微观数据,这是Inapp在2010年和2015年对意大利有限责任公司和合伙公司的代表性样本进行的一项调查,AIDA档案包含了几乎所有意大利公司的资产负债表的全面信息。我们应用了不同的回归模型,结果表明,企业中技术工人的比例越高,管理人员的经验越丰富,生产率水平越高。此外,由受过高等教育的管理者管理的公司更有可能引入创新。最后,家族所有权和管理与所有权的一致性与企业生产率呈负相关。
{"title":"Productivity and human capital","authors":"Camilla Andretta, I. Brunetti, A. Rosso","doi":"10.1787/01ca6be9-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/01ca6be9-en","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates whether and how worker composition, ownership and management affect the productivity of firms. To this aim, we use a dataset obtained by integrating the micro-data drawn from Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted by Inapp in 2010 and 2015 on a representative sample of Italian limited liability and partnership firms, with the AIDA archive containing comprehensive information on the balance sheets of almost all the Italian corporations. We apply different regression models and the findings reveal that a higher share of skilled workers within firms and more experienced managers are associated with higher productivity levels. In addition, firms run by managers with higher education are more likely to introduce innovation. Finally, family ownership and the coincidence of management with ownership are negatively related with firm productivity.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114924995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Silvia Albrizio, M. Conesa, Dennis Dlugosch, Christina Timiliotis
We examine the relationship between lax monetary policy, access to high-yield bond markets and productivity in the US between 2008 and 2016. Using monetary policy surprises, obtained from changes in interest rates futures in narrow windows around FOMC announcements, we isolate the increased access to high-yield bond markets relative to investment-grade bond markets that is due to unconventional monetary policy (UMP). We find that through the risk-taking channel, UMP has increased investors’ appetite for high-yield US corporate bonds, thereby increasing access to high-yield bond markets for firms with a higher risk profile. Since the relationship between credit ratings and firm-level productivity is U-shaped, the aggregate effect on productivity is a priori unclear. Turning to the real economy, we thus analyse whether this additional access to finance had an effect on aggregate productivity by altering the reallocation of resources across firms. Our results show that unconventional monetary policy induced less investment in tangible capital by high-productive firms. However, before drawing conclusions on the net effects of UMP on aggregate productivity, we discuss a number of issues that this paper could not deal with due to data limitations, including prominently whether this apparent misallocation may have been offset by a shift in the composition of investments towards more intangible investment.
{"title":"Unconventional monetary policy and productivity","authors":"Silvia Albrizio, M. Conesa, Dennis Dlugosch, Christina Timiliotis","doi":"10.1787/06d2cce0-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/06d2cce0-en","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the relationship between lax monetary policy, access to high-yield bond markets and productivity in the US between 2008 and 2016. Using monetary policy surprises, obtained from changes in interest rates futures in narrow windows around FOMC announcements, we isolate the increased access to high-yield bond markets relative to investment-grade bond markets that is due to unconventional monetary policy (UMP). We find that through the risk-taking channel, UMP has increased investors’ appetite for high-yield US corporate bonds, thereby increasing access to high-yield bond markets for firms with a higher risk profile. Since the relationship between credit ratings and firm-level productivity is U-shaped, the aggregate effect on productivity is a priori unclear. Turning to the real economy, we thus analyse whether this additional access to finance had an effect on aggregate productivity by altering the reallocation of resources across firms. Our results show that unconventional monetary policy induced less investment in tangible capital by high-productive firms. However, before drawing conclusions on the net effects of UMP on aggregate productivity, we discuss a number of issues that this paper could not deal with due to data limitations, including prominently whether this apparent misallocation may have been offset by a shift in the composition of investments towards more intangible investment.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115665191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Skills mismatch - the sub-optimal use of an individual's skills in their occupation - can be a source of dissatisfaction for workers and a brake for productivity growth. In our view, a difference in the level of skills within an occupation is not sufficient to infer that a skills mismatch exists. Since skills-mismatch is the result of a disparity between the supply and demand of labour, the quantifying of skills-mismatch must therefore be based on the mechanisms involved in this disparity. We propose to include in our measurement the level of education and field of study, which are key markers of an individual's skill level in the labour market. This makes it possible to identify, among individuals whose skill level differs from others within an occupation, those whose training profile can (or cannot) explain this situation. Through using the OECD PIAAC 2012 survey, this paper first identifies with data for France, individuals who present an apparent skills mismatch according to the framework proposed. Following an international comparison of “apparent skills mismatch rates”, we conclude this study by observing how the different groups identified differ in terms of how they perceive their employment situation as well as their individual characteristics.
{"title":"A new approach to skills mismatch","authors":"Amandine Brun-Schammé, Martin Rey","doi":"10.1787/e9563c2a-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/e9563c2a-en","url":null,"abstract":"Skills mismatch - the sub-optimal use of an individual's skills in their occupation - can be a source of dissatisfaction for workers and a brake for productivity growth. In our view, a difference in the level of skills within an occupation is not sufficient to infer that a skills mismatch exists. Since skills-mismatch is the result of a disparity between the supply and demand of labour, the quantifying of skills-mismatch must therefore be based on the mechanisms involved in this disparity. We propose to include in our measurement the level of education and field of study, which are key markers of an individual's skill level in the labour market. This makes it possible to identify, among individuals whose skill level differs from others within an occupation, those whose training profile can (or cannot) explain this situation. Through using the OECD PIAAC 2012 survey, this paper first identifies with data for France, individuals who present an apparent skills mismatch according to the framework proposed. Following an international comparison of “apparent skills mismatch rates”, we conclude this study by observing how the different groups identified differ in terms of how they perceive their employment situation as well as their individual characteristics.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"310 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122770112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Productivity growth has declined in most advanced economies in the past two decades and there are signs that the pace of global value chain (GVC) integration has slowed in the post-crisis period. This paper explores the role of GVCs - international trade in intermediate inputs - for multi-factor productivity growth using a range of cross-country industry-level data sources. We find that greater participation in GVCs is associated with faster domestic productivity growth at the industry level. We estimate that if GVCs had continued to grow at their pre-crisis trend, productivity growth would have been around 1 percentage point faster over the subsequent five years in both manufacturing and services. We also find that the productivity-enhancing direction of trade differs between sectors. For manufacturing sectors, greater use of intermediate inputs from foreign sources (backward participation) is linked with faster productivity growth, reflecting the beneficial effects of having access to better quality or cheaper inputs. For services sectors, it is more the sales of intermediates (forward participation) that is associated with productivity gains, in line with the traditional role of services in foreign trade as providing inputs to other activities. Looking by partner country, GVC participation with higher productivity countries is particularly productivity enhancing. We also find that GVC integration spurs greater domestic innovation activity.
{"title":"Productivity and innovation at the industry level","authors":"P. Gal, W. Witheridge","doi":"10.1787/a5cec52c-en","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/a5cec52c-en","url":null,"abstract":"Productivity growth has declined in most advanced economies in the past two decades and there are signs that the pace of global value chain (GVC) integration has slowed in the post-crisis period. This paper explores the role of GVCs - international trade in intermediate inputs - for multi-factor productivity growth using a range of cross-country industry-level data sources. We find that greater participation in GVCs is associated with faster domestic productivity growth at the industry level. We estimate that if GVCs had continued to grow at their pre-crisis trend, productivity growth would have been around 1 percentage point faster over the subsequent five years in both manufacturing and services. We also find that the productivity-enhancing direction of trade differs between sectors. For manufacturing sectors, greater use of intermediate inputs from foreign sources (backward participation) is linked with faster productivity growth, reflecting the beneficial effects of having access to better quality or cheaper inputs. For services sectors, it is more the sales of intermediates (forward participation) that is associated with productivity gains, in line with the traditional role of services in foreign trade as providing inputs to other activities. Looking by partner country, GVC participation with higher productivity countries is particularly productivity enhancing. We also find that GVC integration spurs greater domestic innovation activity.","PeriodicalId":155796,"journal":{"name":"OECD Productivity Working Papers","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115248634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}