Determinants of Productivity - Syverson - 2011

Paper: What Determines Productivity?
Chad Syverson
Journal of Economic Literature 2011, 49:2, 326–365
Can be accessed from Syverson's personal website

Economists have shown that large and persistent differences in productivity levels across businesses are ubiquitous. This finding has shaped research agendas in a number of fields, including (but not limited to) macroeconomics, industrial organization, labor, and trade. This paper surveys and evaluates recent empirical work addressing the question of why businesses differ in their measured productivity levels. The causes are manifold, and differ depending on the particular setting. They include elements sourced in production ractices—and therefore over which producers have some direct control, at least in theory—as well as from producers’ external operating environments. After evaluating the current state of knowledge, the papers  lays out the major questions that research in the area should address going forward.

Research questions for further research

1 What Is the Importance of Demand?

2 What Is the Role of (or Hope for) Government Policies That Encourage Productivity Growth?

3 Which Productivity Drivers Matter Most?

4 What Factors Determine Whether Selection or Within-Producer Growth Is More Important in a Market/Sector/

Industry?

5 What Is the Role of Misallocation as a Source of Variation in Emerging Economies?

6 What Is the Importance of Higher Variance in Productivity Outcomes?

7 Can We Predict Innovation Based on Market Conditions?

8 The Nature of Intangible Capital

9 Management Versus Managers

10 A Plea for Data

This research is further  continued by other scholars

http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/china/why-management-matters-for-productivity

http://www.nber.org/reporter/2008number4/bloom.html

Updated  20 November 2016,  6 August 2013