A comparison of structural productivity levels in the major industrialised countries

Hourly labour productivity levels in a number of European countries are thought to be very close to, or possibly even higher than the level ‘observed’ in the United States. At the same time, however, there are big differentials between hours worked and/or employment rates in these countries and in the United States. Frequent mention is also made of the theory of diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate. The object of the analysis proposed here is to adjust the ‘observed’ levels of hourly productivity for the effect of the differentials (with the United States) in the hours worked and/or employment rates of several categories of the population of working age in order to calculate ‘structural’ hourly productivity. The results obtained confirm the diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate (especially where young and elderly people are concerned). The level of ‘structural’ hourly productivity appears to be highest in the United States, suggesting that the differential between per capita GDP in the European countries and in the United States is attributable to hours worked and employment rates being at lower levels, and also to lower ‘structural’ hourly productivity.Productivity; Employment rates; Working time; ICTs; Well-being

Autour de la question de Dieu : l’interdisciplinarité!?

Posant d'abord la question de la construction de l'interdisciplinarité entre les sciences humaines et la théologie, cet article tente de faire le point sur la question de Dieu dont l'interdit généré par les sciences humaines semble avoir reflué sur la théologie. Il examine ensuite les malaises produits par un social que les sciences humaines ont fortement contribué à produire en le vidant de toute question transcendantale et il ébauche finalement un certain nombre de questions qui pourraient servir d'amorce à une possible interdisciplinarité.Beginning with the question of interdisciplinarity between the social sciences and theology, this article addresses the question of God whose interdiction generated by the social sciences seems in turn to have flowed back into theology. It examines the malaise produced by the social sciences, which have emptied society of all reference to transcendence. It concludes by raising a number of questions that could spark a possible interdisciplinary debate

Le formel et l’informel : une tension créatrice continuelle

Posant d’abord le formel et l’informel comme des notions-images qu’il faut penser dans le rapport qui les lie, cet article explore ensuite la forme et l’informe en essayant de montrer leur trajectoire et leur jeu créateur pour enfin s’arrêter sur le mouvement dynamique qui pousse vers la formalisation et suscite l’informel

Employment and productivity: disentangling employment structure and qualification effects

This paper studies the effect of changes in the employment rate on labour productivity per hour, taking an empirical approach. By splitting the workforce into three qualification categories, this study allows us to distinguish the effects of changes in the employment rate structure from those of changes in the qualification structure. With the results obtained, we are then able to emphasise the mechanical effect on GDP, for each country in our panel, of a catch-up with the best practice with respect to employment rate structure and qualification level. It appears that the two effects are more or less of the same magnitude. Moreover, this methodology allows us to rank the countries in our panel depending on the gains they could expect from adopting the best practices in each of the two areas.Productivity; Growth; Employment; Education

Employment and productivity: disentangling employment structure and qualification effects

This paper studies the effect of changes in the employment rate on labour productivity per hour, taking an empirical approach. By splitting the workforce into three qualification categories, this study allows us to distinguish the effects of changes in the employment rate structure from those of changes in the qualification structure. With the results obtained, we are then able to emphasise the mechanical effect on GDP, for each country in our panel, of a catch-up with the best practice with respect to employment rate structure and qualification level. It appears that the two effects are more or less of the same magnitude. Moreover, this methodology allows us to rank the countries in our panel depending on the gains they could expect from adopting the best practices in each of the two areas

Road-based goods transportation : a survey of real-world logistics applications from 2000 to 2015

The vehicle routing problem has been widely studied from a technical point of view for more than 50 years. Many of its variants are rooted in practical settings. This paper provides a survey of the main real-life applications of road-based goods transportation over the past 15 years. It reviews papers in the areas of oil, gas and fuel transportation, retail, waste collection and management, mail and package delivery and food distribution. Some perspectives on future research and applications are discussed

DO PRODUCT MARKET REGULATIONS IN UPSTREAM SECTORS CURB PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH? PANEL DATA EVIDENCE FOR OECD COUNTRIES

The paper focuses on the influence of upstream competition for productivity outcomes in downstream sectors. This relation is illustrated with a neo-Schumpeterian theoretical model of innovation (Aghion et al., 1997) with market imperfections in the production of intermediate goods. In this context, upstream market imperfections create barriers to competition in downstream markets and upstream producers use their market power to share innovation rents sought by downstream firms. Thus, lack of competition in upstream markets curbs incentives to improve productivity downstream, negatively affecting productivity outcomes. We test this prediction by estimating an error correction model that differentiates the potential downstream effects of lack of upstream competition in situations close and far from the global technological frontier. We measure competition upstream with regulatory burden indicators derived from OECD data on sectoral product market regulation and the industry-level efficiency improvement and the distance to frontier variables by means of a multifactor productivity (MFP) index. Panel regressions are run for 15 OECD countries and 20 sectors over the 1985-2007 period with country, sector and year fixed effects. We find clear evidence that anticompetitive regulations in upstream sectors have curbed MFP growth downstream over the past 15 years. These effects tend to be strongest for observations (i.e. country/sector/period triads) that are close to the global technological frontier. Our results suggest that, measured at the average distance to frontier and average level of anticompetitive regulations, the marginal effect of increasing competition by easing such regulations is to increase MFP growth by between 1 and 1.5 per cent per year in the OECD countries covered by our sample. Our results are robust to changes in the way MFP and the regulatory burden indicators are constructed, as well as to variations in the sample of countries and/or sectors

A comparison of structural productivity levels in the major industrialised countries

Hourly labour productivity levels in a number of European countries are thought to be very close to, or possibly even higher than the level ‘observed’ in the United States. At the same time, however, there are big differentials between hours worked and/or employment rates in these countries and in the United States. Frequent mention is also made of the theory of diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate. The object of the analysis proposed here is to adjust the ‘observed’ levels of hourly productivity for the effect of the differentials (with the United States) in the hours worked and/or employment rates of several categories of the population of working age in order to calculate ‘structural’ hourly productivity. The results obtained confirm the diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate (especially where young and elderly people are concerned). The level of ‘structural’ hourly productivity appears to be highest in the United States, suggesting that the differential between per capita GDP in the European countries and in the United States is attributable to hours worked and employment rates being at lower levels, and also to lower ‘structural’ hourly productivity

A comparison of structural productivity levels in the major industrialised countries

Hourly labour productivity levels in a number of European countries are thought to be very close to, or possibly even higher than the level ‘observed’ in the United States. At the same time, however, there are big differentials between hours worked and/or employment rates in these countries and in the United States. Frequent mention is also made of the theory of diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate. The object of the analysis proposed here is to adjust the ‘observed’ levels of hourly productivity for the effect of the differentials (with the United States) in the hours worked and/or employment rates of several categories of the population of working age in order to calculate ‘structural’ hourly productivity. The results obtained confirm the diminishing returns to hours worked and the employment rate (especially where young and elderly people are concerned). The level of ‘structural’ hourly productivity appears to be highest in the United States, suggesting that the differential between per capita GDP in the European countries and in the United States is attributable to hours worked and employment rates being at lower levels, and also to lower ‘structural’ hourly productivity