Factor Productivity (factor + productivity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

Kinds of Factor Productivity

  • total factor productivity

  • Terms modified by Factor Productivity

  • factor productivity growth

  • Selected Abstracts


    TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY IN AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION SERVICES

    ECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 3 2000
    GEORGE VERIKIOS
    First page of article [source]


    Efficiency and TFP Growth in the Spanish Regions: The Role of Human and Public Capital

    GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2003
    Maria del Mar Salinas Jiménez
    Once estimates of efficiency are obtained, the aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of human and public capital on growth in terms of their impact on Total Factor Productivity (TFP). Public capital is believed to increase the productivity of the private factors of production whereas human capital is thought to contribute to the production process as an additional input and to have a dynamic influence on growth through its impact on technological innovation (shifts in the production frontier) and technological diffusion (movements toward the frontier), which are the components of this TFP measure. Considering inefficiencies will then allow the effects of these variables on TFP growth to be estimated via technological progress and efficiency gains. [source]


    Total Factor Productivity and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Conditional Volatility,

    INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2007
    Nicholas Apergis
    This paper empirically assesses whether monetary policy and its volatility affect real economic activity through their effect on the aggregate supply side of the macroeconomy. Analysts typically argue that monetary policy either does not affect the real economy (the classical dichotomy) or only affects the real economy in the short run through aggregate demand (new Keynesian or new classical theories). Real business cycle theorists try to explain the business cycle with supply-side productivity shocks. We provide some preliminary evidence about how monetary policy and its volatility affect the aggregate supply side of the macroeconomy through their effect on total factor productivity and its volatility. Total factor productivity provides an important measure of supply-side performance. The results show that monetary policy and its volatility exert a positive and statistically significant effect on the supply side of the macroeconomy. Moreover, the findings buttress the importance of reducing short-run swings in monetary policy variables as well as support the adoption of an optimal money supply rule. Our results also prove consistent with the effective role of monetary policy during the so-called ,Great Moderation' in US gross domestic product volatility beginning in the early 1980s. [source]


    Capital Subsidies and their Impact on Total Factor Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence from Northern Ireland,

    JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2005
    Richard Harris
    Many studies have tried to assess the impact of such assistance, but without the counterfactual evidence it is difficult to ascertain whether or not such support does improve performance. The aim of this paper is to use a unique matched data set to establish if such assistance has made a difference to total factor productivity in Northern Ireland manufacturing plants. [source]


    Farm-level efficiency and productivity measurement using panel data: wool production in south-west Victoria

    AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2001
    Iain Fraser
    In this article we explore some issues surrounding the use of farm-level efficiency and productivity estimates for benchmarking studies. Using an eight-year balanced panel of Victorian wool producers we analyse annual variation between estimates of farm-level technical efficiency derived using Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist estimates of Total Factor Productivity. We find that farms change their relative rank in terms of efficiency across years. Also, unlike aggregate studies of Total Factor Productivity, we find at best erratic and modest growth, a worrying result for this industry. However, caution is needed when interpreting these results, and for that matter, benchmarking analysis as currently practised when using frontier estimation techniques like Data Envelopment Analysis. [source]


    Slave prices, the African slave trade, and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674,18071

    ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 4 2005
    DAVID ELTIS
    We draw wide-ranging implications about slave productivity change by making use of newly collected data on the prices paid for nearly 230,000 slaves as they arrived in the Americas from Africa between 1674 and 1807. Prices for the product that most slaves were destined to produce-sugar-are also available. Together the comprehensive series allow us to derive annual measures of average slave productivity and to compare productivity trends across different sectors of the Caribbean. Average productivity rose throughout the Caribbean, and the pattern of average productivity change across regions was similar, indicating an open slave market. These averages mask sharp differences in the growth of demand for slaves among regions, as reflected by their slave populations. Between 1700 and 1790 the increase in demand ranged from 90 per cent in Barbados to 600 per cent in Jamaica and Cuba; while total factor productivity overall may have doubled. The slave trade accommodated the rising demand. It also served to offset population attrition among the slaves. [source]


    Dual Economies and International Total Factor Productivity Differences: Channelling the Impact from Institutions, Trade, and Geography

    ECONOMICA, Issue 300 2008
    AREENDAM CHANDA
    This paper provides a framework that decomposes aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) into a component reflecting relative efficiency across sectors, and another component that reflects the absolute level of efficiency. A development accounting analysis suggests that as much as 85% of the international variation in aggregate TFP can be attributed to variation in relative efficiency across sectors. Estimation results show that recent findings highlighting the importance of strong protection of property rights, financial development and geographical advantage for the level of TFP, can be explained by their impact on relative efficiency. [source]


    Information and Communications Technology as a General-Purpose Technology: Evidence from US Industry Data

    GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2007
    Susanto Basu
    Information technology; general-purpose technology; productivity acceleration Abstract. Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Stories of ICT as a ,general-purpose technology' suggest that measured total factor productivity (TFP) should rise in ICT-using sectors (reflecting either unobserved accumulation of intangible organizational capital; spillovers; or both), but with a long lag. Contemporaneously, however, investments in ICT may be associated with lower TFP as resources are diverted to reorganization and learning. We find that US industry results are consistent with general-purpose technology (GPT) stories: the acceleration after the mid-1990s was broad-based , located primarily in ICT-using industries rather than ICT-producing industries. Furthermore, industry TFP accelerations in the 2000s are positively correlated with (appropriately weighted) industry ICT capital growth in the 1990s. Indeed, as GPT stories would suggest, after controlling for past ICT investment, industry TFP accelerations are negatively correlated with increases in ICT usage in the 2000s. [source]


    Total Factor Productivity and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Conditional Volatility,

    INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2007
    Nicholas Apergis
    This paper empirically assesses whether monetary policy and its volatility affect real economic activity through their effect on the aggregate supply side of the macroeconomy. Analysts typically argue that monetary policy either does not affect the real economy (the classical dichotomy) or only affects the real economy in the short run through aggregate demand (new Keynesian or new classical theories). Real business cycle theorists try to explain the business cycle with supply-side productivity shocks. We provide some preliminary evidence about how monetary policy and its volatility affect the aggregate supply side of the macroeconomy through their effect on total factor productivity and its volatility. Total factor productivity provides an important measure of supply-side performance. The results show that monetary policy and its volatility exert a positive and statistically significant effect on the supply side of the macroeconomy. Moreover, the findings buttress the importance of reducing short-run swings in monetary policy variables as well as support the adoption of an optimal money supply rule. Our results also prove consistent with the effective role of monetary policy during the so-called ,Great Moderation' in US gross domestic product volatility beginning in the early 1980s. [source]


    Irrigation Externalities and Agricultural Sustainability in South-eastern Nigeria

    JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2004
    Kevin C. Urama
    Agricultural intensification by irrigation is increasingly regarded as the key to solving food supply problems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conversely, mounting empirical evidence suggests that irrigation externalities might preclude long-term sustainability of arable agriculture. Choosing between intensive irrigation schemes and less intensive farming systems is therefore, problematic. The paper examines the implications of irrigation intensification in south-eastern Nigeria using adjacent rain-fed farms as the counterfactual. The analyses found mixed results. When first introduced, the irrigation scheme increased marginal factor productivity and gross margins but this has subsequently declined to the extent that the marginal factor product of land has become negative. The annual yields of the irrigated farms were also less stable than those of the less intensive rain-fed farms. These results indicate the dilemma that irrigation externalities present to sustainable agricultural policy and suggest a need to look again at the potential for developments in rain-fed systems. [source]


    A new production function estimate of the euro area output gap,

    JOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 1-2 2010
    Matthieu Lemoine
    Abstract We develop a new version of the production function (PF) approach for estimating the output gap of the euro area. Assuming a CES (constant elasticity of substitution) technology, our model does not call for any (often imprecise) measure of the capital stock and improves the estimation of the trend total factor productivity using a multivariate unobserved components model. With real-time data, we assess this approach by comparing it with the Hodrick,Prescott (HP) filter and with a Cobb,Douglas PF approach with common cycle and implemented with a multivariate unobserved components model. Our new PF estimate appears highly concordant with the reference chronology of turning points and has better real-time properties than the univariate HP filter for sufficiently long time horizons. Its inflation forecasting power appears, like the other multivariate approach, less favourable than the statistical univariate method. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Explaining agricultural productivity growth: an international perspective

    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
    Derek Headey
    Labor productivity; Multi-output distance function; Total factor productivity Abstract This article presents multi-output, multi-input total factor productivity (TFP) growth rates in agriculture for 88 countries over the 1970,2001 period, estimated with both stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and the more commonly employed data envelopment analysis (DEA). We find results with SFA to be more plausible than with DEA, and use them to analyze trends across countries and the determinants of TFP growth in developing countries. The central finding is that policy and institutional variables, including public agricultural expenditure and proagricultural price policy reforms, are significant correlates of TFP growth. The most significant geographic correlate of TFP growth is distance to the nearest OECD country. [source]


    The impact of integrated aquaculture,agriculture on small-scale farms in Southern Malawi

    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
    Madan M. Dey
    Aquaculture; Malawi; Participatory research; Technical efficiency Abstract Sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. One potential solution is to rely on local farmers' knowledge for improved management of diverse on-farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises. In this article, we analyze the farm-level impact of one recent example, namely the integrated aquaculture,agriculture (IAA) technologies that have been developed and disseminated in a participatory manner in Malawi. Based on a 2004 survey of 315 respondents (166 adopters and 149 nonadopters), we test the hypothesis that adoption of IAA is associated with improved farm productivity and more efficient use of resources. Estimating a technical inefficiency function shows that IAA farms were significantly more efficient compared to nonadopters. IAA farms also had higher total factor productivity, higher farm income per hectare, and higher returns to family labor. [source]


    District-level total factor productivity in agriculture: Western Cape Province, South Africa, 1952,2002

    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2009
    Beatrice Conradie
    Total factor productivity; Western Cape; South Africa Abstract This article measures total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Western Cape agriculture for 31 magisterial districts from 1952 to 2002 to illustrate the benefits of disaggregation compared with national TFPs. There is negative or low growth in the eastern districts and rapid growth in the western districts. The regions with substantial chicken, pigs, dairy, and, especially, export fruit production grew rapidly, whereas the sheep-dominated Karoo had negative growth. Productivity growth correlates mostly with output mix, which in turn depends on irrigation investment. A similar program will be needed at the national level if prosperity is to be extended to black smallholders who currently lack access to water and other modern infrastructure. [source]


    Short and long-run returns to agricultural R&D in South Africa, or will the real rate of return please stand up?

    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2000
    David Schimmelpfennig
    Abstract This paper briefly presents the results of a total factor productivity (TFP) study of South African commercial agriculture, for 1947-1997, and illustrates some potential pitfalls in rate of return to research (ROR) calculations. The lag between R&D and TFP is analyzed and found to be only 9 years, with a pronounced negative skew, reflecting the adaptive focus of the South African system. The two-stage approach gives a massive ROR of 170%. The predetermined lag parameters are then used in modeling the knowledge stock, to refine the estimates of the ROR from short- and long-run dual profit functions. In the short run, with the capital inputs treated as fixed, the ROR is a more reasonable 44%. In the long run, with adjustment of the capital stocks, it rises to 113%, which would reflect the fact that new technology is embodied in the capital items. However, the long-run model raises a new problem since capital stock adjustment takes 11 years, 2 years longer than the lag between R&D and TFP. If this is assumed to be the correct lag, the ROR falls to 58%, a best estimate. The paper draws attention to the possible sensitivity of rate of return calculations to assumed lag structure, particularly when the lag between changes in R&D and TFP is skewed. [source]


    Capital Subsidies and their Impact on Total Factor Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence from Northern Ireland,

    JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2005
    Richard Harris
    Many studies have tried to assess the impact of such assistance, but without the counterfactual evidence it is difficult to ascertain whether or not such support does improve performance. The aim of this paper is to use a unique matched data set to establish if such assistance has made a difference to total factor productivity in Northern Ireland manufacturing plants. [source]


    Investment in Fixed Capital Stock: Testing for the Impact of Sectoral and Systemic Uncertainty*

    OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 2 2004
    Johannes Fedderke
    Abstract This paper applies current theory recognizing the irreversibility of investment, in order to test for the impact of uncertainty on investment expenditure for a middle income country. The contribution of the paper is unique in two respects. First, it employs dynamic heterogeneous panel estimation techniques not previously applied to investment functions. Secondly, it explicitly tests for the impact of both sectoral and systemic uncertainty on investment expenditure. We find that both sectoral (as measured by output volatility) and systemic uncertainty (as measured by political instability) have a negative impact on investment rates in a middle income country context. Liquidity constraints and growth in total factor productivity are found to have no impact on investment, while trade liberalization has the impact predicted by Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory. Finally, we find complementarity effects between physical capital and skilled human capital, suggesting that South African educational policies may have hampered investment in physical capital as well as the growth performance of the economy. Policy implications emphasize the importance of lowering uncertainty for investors, and the need for sound human capital investment. [source]


    LESSONS FROM THREE DECADES OF GREEN REVOLUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

    THE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 2 2006
    Jonna P. ESTUDILLO
    O13; O33; O53 The purpose of the current paper is to assess the changing contributions of successive generations of modern varieties of rice (MV) to yield increase and stability and the changes in total factor productivity (TFP) in irrigated, rainfed, and upland ecosystems in the Philippines. We found that the yield increase in irrigated ecosystem has been by far the highest, which can be attributed to the diffusion of pest- and disease-resistant MV. The contribution of MV to yield increase in the rainfed ecosystem has been less significant, but much more compared with that of upland ecosystem. The rainfed and upland ecosystems have experienced an upward trend in yield, albeit slowly, because of the diffusion of improved traditional varieties and MV suitable to adverse production environments. The contribution of MV cum irrigation has accounted for approximately 50% of the growth of TFP in Central Luzon. [source]


    FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY, AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

    THE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 1 2006
    Sylviane GUILLAUMONT JEANNENEY
    O16; O47; R11 Financial development might lead to productivity improvement in developing countries. In the present study, based on the Data Envelopment Analysis approach, we use the Malmquist index to measure China's total factor productivity change and its two components (i.e., efficiency change and technical progress). We find that China has recorded an increase in total factor productivity from 1993 to 2001, and that productivity growth was mostly attributed to technical progress, rather than to improvement in efficiency. Moreover, using panel dataset covering 29 Chinese provinces over the period from 1993 to 2001 and applying the Generalized Method of Moment system estimation, we investigate the impact of financial development on productivity growth in China. Empirical results show that, during this period, financial development has significantly contributed to China's productivity growth, mainly through its favorable effect on efficiency. [source]


    Does Employment Protection Reduce Productivity?

    THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 521 2007
    Evidence From US States
    Theory predicts that mandated employment protection may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. We use the adoption of wrongful-discharge protection by state courts in the US from 1970 to 1999 to evaluate the empirical link between dismissal costs and productivity. Drawing on establishment-level data from the Census Bureau, our estimates suggest that wrongful-discharge protection reduces employment flows and firm entry rates. Moreover, plants engage in capital deepening and experience a decline in total factor productivity, indicative of altered production techniques. Evidence of strong contemporaneous growth in employment, however, leads us to view our findings as suggestive but tentative. [source]


    Agricultural productivity growth in traditional and transitional economies in Asia

    ASIAN-PACIFIC ECONOMIC LITERATURE, Issue 2 2009
    Supawat Rungsuriyawiboon
    This paper reports estimates of agricultural productivity growth in Asian countries, with special attention to the transition economies. A parametric output distance function approach is formulated to decompose total factor productivity (TFP) growth into its associated components and to examine how input and output intensities shift in response to the adoption of innovations. The results show that by including the transition economies, Asia achieved healthy TFP growth at an annual average rate of 1.9 per cent. However, TFP growth and its components differ widely across the transition countries and at different stages of the transition periods within these countries. [source]


    Factor Determinants of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Malaysian Manufacturing Industries: a decomposition analysis

    ASIAN-PACIFIC ECONOMIC LITERATURE, Issue 1 2009
    Sangho Kim
    To decompose total factor productivity growth into technical progress, technical efficiency change, allocative efficiency change, and scale efficiency change, a stochastic frontier approach was applied to Malaysian manufacturing data covering the period 2000 to 2004. The results show that total factor productivity was driven mainly by technical progress but was hurt by deteriorating technical efficiency. Scale efficiency and allocative efficiency also exerted significant influences on total factor productivity. The skill and quality of workers were the most important determinants of technical efficiency, whereas foreign ownership, imports, and employee quality underpinned technical progress. The impact of firm size on scale economies differed across industries. [source]


    X-Efficiency and Productivity Change in Australian Banking

    AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 2 2004
    Penny Neal
    This paper investigates X -efficiency and productivity change in Australian banking between 1995 and 1999 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity indexes. It differs from earlier studies by examining efficiency by bank type, and finds that regional banks are less efficient than other bank types. The study concludes that diseconomies of scale set in very early and hence are not a sufficient basis on which to allow mergers between large banks to proceed. Total factor productivity in the banking sector was found to have increased by an average annual 7.6 per cent between 1995 and 1999. All of the productivity increase was due to technological advance shifting out the frontier. The banking sector's performance was less efficient relative to the frontier in 1999 than it had been in 1995. [source]


    Measuring and decomposing agricultural productivity and profitability change,

    AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2010
    Christopher J. O'Donnell
    Profitability change can be decomposed into the product of a total factor productivity (TFP) index and an index measuring changes in relative prices. Many TFP indexes can be further decomposed into measures of technical change, technical efficiency change, scale efficiency change and mix efficiency change. The class of indexes that can be decomposed in this way includes the Fisher, Törnqvist and Hicks,Moorsteen TFP indexes but not the Malmquist TFP index of Caves, Christensen and Diewert (1982). This paper develops data envelopment analysis methodology for computing and decomposing the Hicks,Moorsteen index. The empirical feasibility of the methodology is demonstrated using country-level agricultural data covering the period 1970,2001. The paper explains why relatively small countries tend to be the most productive, and why favourable movements in relative prices tend to simultaneously increase net returns and decrease productivity. Australia appears to have experienced this relative price effect since at least 1970. Thus, if Australia is a price-taker in output and input markets, Australian agricultural policy-makers should not be overly concerned about the estimated 15 per cent decline in agricultural productivity that has taken place over the last three decades. [source]


    Exploring the impact of R&D and climate change on agricultural productivity growth: the case of Western Australia,

    AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2010
    Ruhul A. Salim
    This article empirically examines the impact of R&D and climate change on the Western Australian Agricultural sector using standard time series econometrics. Based on historical data for the period of 1977,2005, the empirical results show that both R&D and climate change matter for long-run productivity growth. The long-run elasticity of total factor productivity (TFP) with respect to R&D expenditure is 0.497, while that of climate change is 0.506. There is a unidirectional causality running from R&D expenditure to TFP growth in both the short run and long run. Further, the variance decomposition and impulse response function confirm that a significant portion of output and productivity growth beyond the sample period is explained by R&D expenditure. These results justify the increase in R&D investment in the deteriorating climatic condition in the agricultural sector to improve the long-run prospects of productivity growth. [source]


    THE SOURCES OF AGGREGATE PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: US MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES, 1958,1996

    BULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008
    Jens J. Krüger
    L16; O12; O33; L60 ABSTRACT The sources of aggregate productivity growth are explored using detailed data for four-digit US manufacturing industries during 1958,96 and a decomposition formula that allows us to quantify the contribution of structural change. Labour productivity as well as total factor productivity are considered with either value-added or employment shares serving as aggregation weights. It is shown that structural change generally works in favour of industries with increasing productivity. This effect is particularly strong in the years since 1990, in high-tech industries and in durable goods producing industries. The impact of the computer revolution can be clearly identified. [source]


    Technical Efficiency, Technological Change and Output Growth of Wheat Farms in Saskatchewan

    CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2001
    Konstantinos Giannakas
    This paper utilizes recent advances in stochastic decomposition methodology to examine the level and the driving forces of technical efficiency for an unbalanced panel data set of 100 wheat farms in Saskatchewan during the period 1987,95. The contributions of resource use and total factor productivity to the output growth of these farms are also investigated. The analysis indicates moderate levels of technical efficiency and a considerable variation of efficiency ratings among Saskatchewan farms. The ownership status, composition of labor employed, participation in crop insurance and government income transfer programs, participation in Top Management Workshops, degree of specialization, level of intensification and mechanization of production, type of land used, and the farm debts account for differences in efficiency across wheat farms. Even though the productive efficiency of the farms has been increasing over time, the results show that technological progress was the main source of productivity and output growth during the study period. L'analyse que voici fait appel aux plus récentes améliorations apportées à la méthode de décomposition stochastique pour déterminer le degré d'efficacité technique et les motivations d'ungroupe non pondéré de 100 producteurs de blé de la Saskatchewan entre 1987 et 1995. Les auteurs ont aussi déterminé dans quelle mesure l'exploitation des ressources et la productivité totale des facteurs affectent la croissance de la production dans les exploitations concernées. L'analyse révéle un degré moyen d'efficacité technique et une variation considérable du rendement chez les agriculteurs de la Saskatchewan. La variation du rendement s'explique par divers facteurs comme le type de propriété, la composition de la main-d',uvre, l'inscription aux programmes gouvernementaux d'assurance récolte et de transfert du revenu, la participation à des ateliers de gestion, le degré de spécialisation, le niveau d'industrialisation et de mécanisation de la production, le genre de terres cultivées et la dette de l'exploitant. Même si la productivité des fermes a augmenté au fil des ans, les résultats indiquent que le progrés de la technologie demeure la principale source d'une croissance du rendement et de la production durant la période à l'étude. [source]


    Total factor productivity and the measurement of technological change

    CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2004
    Richard G. Lipsey
    Changes in TFP are shown to measure not technological change, only the super-normal returns to investing in such change , returns that exceed the full opportunity cost of the activity. Thus, in the limit, technological change can proceed with unchanged TFP. Measuring the effects of technological change instead requires counterfactual estimates. Reasons why changes in TFP are imperfect measures of super normal returns are also studied , reasons connected with the timing of output responses, the treatment of R&D in the national accounts, the omission of resource inputs, and two types of aggregation. La productivité totale des facteurs et la mesure du changement technologique., La productivité totale des facteurs (PTF) est interprétée dans la littérature de manières différentes et mutuellement contradictoires. On montre que les changements dans la PTF ne mesurent pas le changement technologique, mais seulement les rendements supra-normaux sur les investissements dans de tels changements , des rendements qui dépassent le plein coût d'opportunité de cette activité. Donc, à la limite, le changement technologique peut procéder sans que la PTF change. Mesurer les effets du changement technique réclame des évaluations d'hypothèses de rechange. Les raisons pour lesquelles les changements dans la PTF sont des mesures imparfaites des rendements supra-normaux sont aussi étudiées , raisons connectées avec la réponse des niveaux de production, le traitement de la R&D dans les comptes nationaux, l'omission des intrants de ressources, et deux types d'agrégation. [source]