Productivity Measurement: some Theoretical Underpinnings By Zenon S. Zannetos, William B. Lindsley, Themis A. Papageorgiou, and Ming-Je Tang Contents I. Introduction II. Major Approaches: A Literature Review A. Basic Approaches B. Major Contributions III. Theoretical Models A. Definitions and Assumptions B. Model 1: Production Function Approach C. Model 2: Value Added Approach D. A Comparison IV. Conclusions Introduction In the past decade, the U.S. industrial power has shown some signs of weakening--both in absolute and ...
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Productivity Measurement: some Theoretical Underpinnings By Zenon S. Zannetos, William B. Lindsley, Themis A. Papageorgiou, and Ming-Je Tang Contents I. Introduction II. Major Approaches: A Literature Review A. Basic Approaches B. Major Contributions III. Theoretical Models A. Definitions and Assumptions B. Model 1: Production Function Approach C. Model 2: Value Added Approach D. A Comparison IV. Conclusions Introduction In the past decade, the U.S. industrial power has shown some signs of weakening--both in absolute and relative terms. This realization has elicited a good deal of concern on the part of both the business and government sectors and has encouraged a considerable amount of research into the subject. One of the major purported reasons for this deterioration of industrial power is believed to be the decline in U.S. productivity, especially in such major manufacturing industries as automobiles, steel, and shipbuilding. Many experts, and even more non-experts, have given opinions on the causes underlying the decline of past productivity and on remedies for the future. We present in Table 1 a collection of such ideas from Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 1981. The set of professionals who support these ideas is impressive, but the disarray of conclusions and recommendations leads us to observe that the productivity problem is indeed very complex, and that the esoteric nature of this issue and the obvious disagreement of experts offer numerous opportunities for new strategic, economic, and policy research. It is to this opportunity for research that we have addressed ourselves. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.
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