Article history: Received 29 August 2011 Received in revised form 20 September 2012 Accepted 11 December 2012 Available online 20 December 2012 Using the firm-level census data, this paper re-estimated the total factor productivity (TFP) of firms in China's iron and steel industry and examined its potential determinants over the period 1998–2007. To deal with the “endogenous input” problem, we ...

Ken Iverson, a technology entrepreneur, almost singlehandedly revived the moribund US steel industry. His success contains important lessons for health care. Nucor, the steel-focused factory Iverson managed, differed from the everything-for-everybody steel behemoths of yore, like Bethlehem Steel, with its specialty steel products and relatively small mini-mills, as did his egalitarian, producti...

Three dimensions of the performance of firms in Ghana’s manufacturing sector are investigated in this paper: their technology and the importance of technical and allocative efficiency. We show that the diversity of factor choices is not due to a non-homothetic technology. Observable skills are not quantitatively important as determinants of productivity. Technical inefficiency is not lower in f...

This paper develops a Walrasian general equilibrium model based on transaction cost and specialization to investigate the emergence and evolution of the role of management services in a competitive market with the general concern of corporate governance. It explains the reason why along the commercialization and modernization of human society, there is substantial increment of professional mana...