Title: Global productivity growth from 1980–2000: a regional view using the Malmquist total factor productivity index

Authors: Muhideen B. Adesokan

Addresses: School of Management, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

Abstract: I compared economic performance across nine global regions using the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (MTFP) Index. Contemporaneously, I searched for evidence, if any, that regions with formal economic groups performed relatively better than others. Furthermore, I decomposed the measured growth in productivity into technological progress, technical efficiency and scale efficiency, following Knox-Lovell (2003). The Far East is found to be the top performer for the period. The productivity growth for most regions was mainly driven by technological progress and the contributions of scale efficiency. All of the regions suffered a fall in technical efficiency. Although the regions with formal economic blocs perform better than others, the difference in performance is not statistically significant.

Keywords: Malmquist index; total factor productivity; productivity index; technical efficiency; scale efficiency; technological progress; global productivity growth; economic performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2008.019993

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2008 Vol.10 No.4, pp.374 - 390

Published online: 20 Aug 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article