Empirical Economics

, Volume 46, Issue 4, pp 1545–1572 | Cite as

Intrasectoral structural change and aggregate productivity development: robust stochastic nonparametric frontier function estimates

Article
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Abstract

This paper investigates the sources of total factor productivity growth in the German manufacturing sector during 1981–1998. Decompositions of aggregate productivity growth are used to identify the effects of structural change and entry–exit on aggregate productivity growth. We find a substantial rise in productivity growth after the German reunification. The bulk of this rise can be attributed to structural change and entry–exit. Two methodological refinements are implemented. The first refinement is the application of robust stochastic nonparametric approaches to frontier function analysis, and the second is the calculation of bootstrap confidence intervals for the components of the productivity decompositions.

Keywords

Productivity decomposition Structural change Manufacturing 

JEL Classification

D24 O12 L60 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

I thank the participants of the 2009 EARIE conference in Toulouse, the 2010 DRUID Summer Conference in London and the Economic Seminar in Ottobeuren 2011 for their comments. I am also grateful to Uwe Cantner for generously providing the data. Of course, neither of them is responsible for the final outcome.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Law and EconomicsDarmstadt University of TechnologyDarmstadtGermany

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