This paper identifies and evaluates rationales for team participation and for the effects of team composition on productivity using novel data from a garment plant that shifted from individual piece rate to group piece rate production over three years. The adoption of teams at the plant improved worker productivity by 14% on average. Productivity improvement was greatest for the earliest teams ...

The paper investigates the effects of international trade in goods and capital movement on the productivity distribution and industry-wide productivity when countries are heterogeneous in the quality of their financial institutions. In autarky, firm heterogeneity in their productivities arises in countries with poor financial institutions, while all firms adopt a high-productivity technology in...

We analyze a model economy with many agents, each with a different productivity level. Agents divide their time between two activities: producing goods with the production-related knowledge they already have, and interacting with others in search of new, productivity-increasing ideas. Each meeting involves two people, each with a different productivity level. Both parties emerge from a meeting ...

Animal selection for genetic improvement of productivity may lead to an increase in inbreeding through the use of techniques that enhance the reproductive capability of selected animals. Therefore, breeding strategies aim to balance maintaining genetic variability and acceptable fitness levels with increasing productivity. The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of genomic-based optimu...

How do different exporters react to exchange rate changes? Theory, empirics and aggregate implications This paper analyzes the reaction of exporters to exchange rate changes. We present a model where, in the presence of distribution costs in the export market, high and low productivity firms react differently to a depreciation . Whereas high productivity firms optimally raise their markup rathe...

this paper is concerned with the estimation of total factor productivity (tfp) growth for the iranian electric utilities during the period 1980-1993 on the basis of panel data. a translog cost function is used which accommodates firm - specific variability through a one - way error component model. the results show that the iranian electricity supply industry experienced increasing returns to s...

OBJECTIVES To measure the productivity of cataract surgeons in Africa and assess the factors that predict high productivity. METHODS A questionnaire on productivity and working environments was sent to all cataract surgeons trained in Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. In addition, 2 meetings and in-depth discussions were held to elicit information on strategies to improve productivity amon...

A great deal is known about the influence of dispersal on species that interact via competition or predation, but very little is known about the influence of dispersal on species that interact via both competition and predation. Here, I investigate the influence of dispersal on the coexistence and abundance-productivity relationships of species that engage in intraguild predation (IGP: competin...

BACKGROUND No study has examined the financial impact of relapses on schizophrenia from the perspective of Japanese society. This study aimed to estimate the societal costs in Japan caused by the relapses of schizophrenia. METHODS The societal costs in Japan in 2013 due to relapses of schizophrenia were estimated by summing the productivity loss and deadweight loss caused by schizophrenia rel...

most developing countries have achieved productivity growth in economic sectors like agriculture for more than 30 years. universities and governmental research centers have tried to generate knowledge with direct social and economic effects during these decades. so, productivity and production growth can be attributed to technological changes made possible through investment in agricultural res...