Productivity and Efficiency Analysis

This proceedings volume examines the state-of-the art of productivity and efficiency analysis and adds to the existing research by bringing together a selection of the best papers from the 8th North American Productivity Workshop (NAPW). It also aims to analyze world-wide perspectives on challenges that local economies and institutions may face when changes in productivity are observed. The volume comprises of seventeen papers that deal with productivity measurement, productivity growth, dynamics of productivity change, measures of labor productivity, measures of technical efficiency in different sectors, frontier analysis, measures of performance, industry instability and spillover effects. These papers are relevant to academia, but also to public and private sectors in terms of the challenges firms, financial institutions, governments and individuals may face when dealing with economic and education related activities that lead to increase or decrease of productivity.

The North American Productivity Workshop brings together academic scholars and practitioners in the field of productivity and efficiency analysis from all over the world. It is a four day conference exploring topics related to productivity, production theory and efficiency measurement in economics, management science, operations research, public administration, and related fields. The papers in this volume also address general topics as health, energy, finance, agriculture, utilities, and economic development, among others. The editors are comprised of the 2014 local organizers, program committee members, and celebrated guest conference speakers.

William Greene is a professor in the department of economics at New York University Stern School of Business. In his current positions, Professor Greene teaches courses in econometrics, statistics, and economics of the entertainment and media industries. Professor Greene has been with NYU Stern for more than 30 years. His primary research areas of interest include econometrics and applied microeconomics; productivity and production economics, health econometrics, technical change and the entertainment industry. He has published numerous articles in publications including Econometrica, Economics Letters, American Economic Review, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Economic Education, Economics Letters, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Review of Economics and Statistics and Journal of Political Economy . Before joining NYU Stern, Professor Greene served as a consultant for the Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington, D.C. Recent consultancies also include the World Health Organization, Ortho Biotech, National Economic Research Associates, American Express, the Federal Reserve Bank, FDIC, the United States Postal Service, and regulatory authorities in the UK and Brazil. He has also held a professorial position at Cornell University and served as a visiting lecturer at the University of Oxford, University of Sydney, Curtin University, University of Lugano, University of Putra, Universities of Southern Denmark and Aarhus in Denmark, Monash University, American University, University of Hull, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Umea, Sweden and the University of London and numerous others. Professor Greene received his Bachelor of Science in business administration from Ohio State University and his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in econometrics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Robin C. Sickles is the Reginald Henry Hargrove Chair of Economics at Rice University. Professor Sickles received his Ph.D at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is also the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Productivity Analysis.

Lynda Khalaf is a Professor of Economics at Carleton University. Her research fields include econometrics, energy econometrics, and financial econometrics.

Michael Veall is a Professor of Economics at McMaster University. He received his Ph.D in Economics at M.I.T. His fields of research include Applied Econometrics, Public Economics, Population Economics, and Health Economics.

Marcel-Cristian Voia is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Monetary and Financial Economics at Carleton University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Western Ontario. His research fields include micro-econometrics, applied econometrics, industrial organization, and labour economics.