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Sequential Malmquist Indices of Productivity Growth: An Application to OECD Industrial Activities

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Abstract

The paper applies both the standard DEA methodology with contemporaneous frontiers and DEA with sequential frontiers to study changes in productivity and efficiency in manufacturing for a sample of eleven OECD countries over a twenty-year period. It uses a decomposition of the industrial Malmquist productivity indices to locate the sources of productivity growth: 'technical progress' and 'catching up.' The alternative indices are interrelated in a unifying framework that provides an interpretation to their difference. We argue that for manufacturing industries, in which technological regress is unlikely to occur, DEA with sequential frontiers provides a more adequate measure for the contribution of technical changes than standard DEA.

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  1. Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000, LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Victoria Shestalova

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  1. Victoria Shestalova
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Shestalova, V. Sequential Malmquist Indices of Productivity Growth: An Application to OECD Industrial Activities. Journal of Productivity Analysis 19, 211–226 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022857501478

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