Vania Sena

Public capital and total factor productivity: New evidence from the Italian regions, 1970–98

Destefanis S. and Sena V. (2005) Public capital and total factor productivity: new evidence from the Italian regions, 1970–98, Regional Studies 39 , 603–618. This paper analyses the relationship between industrial total factor productivity and public capital across the 20 Italian administrative regions. It adds upon the existing literature in a number of ways: it analyses a longer period (1970–98); it allows for the role of human capital accumulation; it tests for the existence of a long‐run relationship between total factor productivity and public capital (through previously suggested panel techniques) and for weak exogeneity of public capital; and it assesses the significance of public capital within a non‐parametric set‐up based on the Free Disposal Hull. The results confirm that public capital has a significant impact on the evolution of total factor productivity, particularly in the Southern regions. This impact is mainly ascribed to the core infrastructures (road and airports, harbours, railroads, water and electricity, telecommunications). Also, core infrastructures are weakly exogenous.

Has DRG payment influenced the technical efficiency and productivity of diagnostic technologies in Portuguese public hospitals? An empirical analysis using parametric and non-parametric methods.

The use of Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) as a mechanism for hospital financing is a currently debated topic in Portugal. The DRG system was scheduled to be initiated by the Health Ministry of Portugal on January 1, 1990 as an instrument for the allocation of public hospital budgets funded by the National Health Service (NHS), and as a method of payment for other third party payers (e.g., Public Employees (ADSE), private insurers, etc.). Based on experience from other countries such as the United States, it was expected that implementation of this system would result in more efficient hospital resource utilisation and a more equitable distribution of hospital budgets. However, in order to minimise the potentially adverse financial impact on hospitals, the Portuguese Health Ministry decided to gradually phase in the use of the DRG system for budget allocation by using blended hospital‐specific and national DRG case‐mix rates. Since implementation in 1990, the percentage of each hospital’s budget based on hospital specific costs was to decrease, while the percentage based on DRG case‐mix was to increase. This was scheduled to continue until 1995 when the plan called for allocating yearly budgets on a 50% national and 50% hospital‐specific cost basis. While all other non‐NHS third party payers are currently paying based on DRGs, the adoption of DRG case‐mix as a National Health Service budget setting tool has been slower than anticipated. There is now some argument in both the political and academic communities as to the appropriateness of DRGs as a budget setting criterion as well as to their impact on hospital efficiency in Portugal. This paper uses a two‐stage procedure to assess the impact of actual DRG payment on the productivity (through its components, i.e., technological change and technical efficiency change) of diagnostic technology in Portuguese hospitals during the years 1992–1994, using both parametric and non‐parametric frontier models. We find evidence that the DRG payment system does appear to have had a positive impact on productivity and technical efficiency of some commonly employed diagnostic technologies in Portugal during this time span.

The determinants of firms' performance: Can finance constraints improve technical efficiency?

This paper analyses the mechanisms through which binding finance constraints can induce debt-constrained firms to improve technical efficiency to guarantee positive profits. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of firms belonging to the Italian manufacturing. Technical efficiency scores are computed by estimating parametric production frontiers using the one stage approach as in Battese and Coelli [Battese, G., Coelli, T., 1995. A model for technical efficiency effects in a stochastic frontier production function for panel data. Empirical Economics 20, 325-332]. The results support the hypothesis that a restriction in the availability of financial resources can affect positively efficiency.

Is there a Trade-Off between Quality and Productivity? The Case of Diagnostic Technologies in Portugal

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, we compute quality-adjusted measures of productivity change for the three most important diagnostic technologies (i.e., the Computerised Tomography Scan, Electrocardiogram and Echocardiogram) in the major Portuguese hospitals. We use the Malmquist–Luenberger index, which allows to measure productivity growth while controlling for the quality of the production. Second, using non-parametric tests, we analyse whether the implementation of the Prospective Payment System may have had a positive impact on the movements of productivity over time. The results show that the PPS has helped hospitals to use these tools more efficiently and to improve their effectiveness.

Growth, Governance and Corruption in the Presence of Threshold Effects: Theory and Evidence

We study the joint determination of corruption and economic growth. Our model can generate multiple equilibria when complementarity between corruption and growth is sufficiently strong. Our estimates of the impact of corruption on growth take into account that corruption is endogenous and that there may exist different growth/corruption regimes. In a cross section of countries in the 1990s,we identify two regimes, conditional on the quality of political institutions. In the regime with high quality political institutions, corruption has a negative impact on growth. In the regime with low quality institutions, corruption has, overall, little impact on growth, but, if anything, the impact is, surprisingly, positive.

Appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

ABSTRACT We use an extended version of the well-established Crepon, Duguet, and Mairesse model [1998. “Research, Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level.” Economics of Innovation and New Technology 7 (2): 115–158] to model the relationship between appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and firm-level productivity. We enrich this model in three ways: (1) We compare estimates obtained using a broader definition of innovation spending to those that use R&D spending. (2) We assume that a firm simultaneously innovates and chooses among different appropriability methods to protect the innovation. (3) We estimate the impact of innovation output on firm productivity conditional on the choice of appropriability mechanism. We find that firms that innovate and rate formal methods for the protection of intellectual property highly are more productive than other firms, but that the same does not hold in the case of informal methods of protection, except possibly for large firms as opposed to SMEs. We also find that this result is strongest for firms in the services, trade, and utility sectors, and negative in the manufacturing sector.

Profit sharing, technical efficiency change and finance constraints

This paper analyses the mechanisms through which profit-sharing schemes may induce debt constrained firms to improve technical efficiency over time to guarantee positive profits. This hypothesis is first formalised in a partial equilibrium framework and then is tested on a sample of Italian traditional and cooperative firms. Technical efficiency change indexes are computed by DEA. These are regressed on a measure of finance constraints to analyse their impact on firms’ efficiency growth. The results support the hypothesis that a restriction in the availability of financial resources can affect positively the growth in efficiency in firms with profit-sharing schemes.

Trade Mark Incentives

This report investigates potential links between trade marking and performance. The researchers document an overview of corporate trade marking activity in Britain, analyse the role of trade marks in the innovation process for firms and their impact on households, and explore possible links between trade marking and branding.

Unions: Rent Extractors or Creators?

This paper proposes a model of workplace-specific unions that integrates two (conflicting) views of what unions do: one that unions mainly engage in rent extraction, the other that unions mainly engage in rent creation by providing agency services that increase workplace productivity. In our model, the union leadership makes a choice between the two types of activities, and we demonstrate why it is optimal to engage in both: rent extraction increases the bargained wage rate, rent creation secures higher employment. More importantly, the choice between the two activities depends systematically on the economic and regulatory environment in which the union operates. Unions operating in an environment of intense market competition are mainly engaged in rent extraction. Our model thus suggests that the economic and regulatory environment is an important determinant of “what unions do”, and that changes/differences in this environment can explain changes/differences in union behaviour across time and space.

Do Co-Operatives Promote Consumer Social Responsibility? The Case of Fair Trade in Italy

Understanding the determinants of the demand for goods, which have been produced according to ethical considerations and marketed accordingly, has become an important research area in business economics. Less clear is the role that the social environment plays in shaping the preferences for ethically produced goods. Our main objective is to fill this gap in the literature by quantifying the extent to which the social capital generated by the presence of co-operatives in an area can have an impact on the consumers’ motivations to buy ethically produced goods by using a sample of 889 individuals who have visited one of the retailers specialized in the distribution of ethically produced goods in four Italian regions. Our results show that the presence of co-operatives in an area has a positive influence on the consumers’ preferences for fair trade goods.