IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pdc/jrnbeh/v14y2018i2p300-325.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intangible factors and productivity: Evidence from Europe at the regional level

Author

Listed:
  • Anneli Kaasa

Abstract

This study investigates how a region’s labour productivity could be influenced by intangible factors such as social capital, government quality, cultural dimensions andreligion – factors that have not received much attention in the previous literature. As another novelty, regional-level data (78 regions of 22 European countries) were analysed. In order to take into account the relationships between various factors of productivity, the structural equation modelling approach is used enabling to find out both direct and indirect effects. The results showed institutional trust and civic participation to be the most important for productivity. Individualism appeared to have a positive and masculinity and power distance a negative total effect on labourproductivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Anneli Kaasa, 2018. "Intangible factors and productivity: Evidence from Europe at the regional level," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 14(2), pages 300-325, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:pdc:jrnbeh:v:14:y:2018:i:2:p:300-325
    DOI: 10.15208/beh.2018.23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://academicpublishingplatforms.com/downloads/pdfs/beh/volume31/201805080608_23_BEH_2018_Vol14_Issue2_Anneli_Kaasa_Intangible_factors_and_productivity_pp.300-325.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://academicpublishingplatforms.com/volume.php?journal=BEH&id=3&number=31
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.15208/beh.2018.23?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Sharpe, 2004. "Exploring the Linkages between Productivity and Social Development in Market Economies," CSLS Research Reports 2004-02, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Fabio Sabatini, 2008. "Does social capital improve labour productivity in Small and Medium Enterprises?," International Journal of Management and Decision Making, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(5), pages 454-480.
    3. House, Robert & Javidan, Mansour & Hanges, Paul & Dorfman, Peter, 2002. "Understanding cultures and implicit leadership theories across the globe: an introduction to project GLOBE," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 3-10, April.
    4. Sankar Mukhopadhyay, 2011. "Religion, religiosity and educational attainment of immigrants to the USA," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 539-553, December.
    5. C. Guilmi & F. Clementi & T. Matteo & M. Gallegati, 2008. "Social networks and labour productivity in Europe: an empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 3(1), pages 43-57, June.
    6. Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd & van Schaik, Ton, 2005. "Social capital and growth in European regions: an empirical test," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 301-324, June.
    7. Crespi, Gustavo & Zuniga, Pluvia, 2012. "Innovation and Productivity: Evidence from Six Latin American Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 273-290.
    8. Christian Bjørnskov & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The productivity of trust," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, June.
    9. Lionel Artige & Rosella Nicolini, 2006. "Labor productivity in Europe: Evidence from a sample of regions," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 661.06, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    10. Kevin Denny, 2003. "The effects of human capital on social capital: a cross-country analysis," IFS Working Papers W03/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Barbara Dettori & Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2012. "Total Factor Productivity, Intangible Assets and Spatial Dependence in the European Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1401-1416, November.
    12. Elias G. Carayannis & Urmas Varblane & Tõnu Roolaht (ed.), 2012. "Innovation Systems in Small Catching-Up Economies," Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management, Springer, number 978-1-4614-1548-0, March.
    13. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    14. Anneli Kaasa & Maaja Vadi, 2010. "How does culture contribute to innovation? Evidence from European countries," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(7), pages 583-604.
    15. Esa Mangeloja, 2003. "Implications of the Economics of Religion to the Empirical Economic Research," Others 0310004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    17. Bronwyn H. Hall, 2011. "Innovation and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 17178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Lio, Monchi & Liu, Meng-Chun, 2008. "Governance and agricultural productivity: A cross-national analysis," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 504-512, December.
    19. Kaasa, Anneli, 2016. "Culture, religion and productivity: Evidence from European regions," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 12(1), pages 1-18.
    20. R. Quentin Grafton & Tom Kompas & P. Dorian Owen, 2004. "Productivity, Factor Accumulation and Social Networks: Theory and Evidence," Economics and Environment Network Working Papers 0401, Australian National University, Economics and Environment Network.
    21. van Hoorn, André, 2014. "Individualism and the cultural roots of management practices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 53-68.
    22. Peters, Bettina & Lööf, Hans & Janz, Norbert, 2003. "Firm Level Innovation and Productivity: Is there a Common Story Across Countries?," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-26, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    23. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote, 2008. "Education and Religion," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 188-215.
    24. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gerard Roland, 2017. "Culture, Institutions, and the Wealth of Nations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 402-416, July.
    25. Crespi, Gustavo & Zuniga, Pluvia, 2012. "Innovation and Productivity: Evidence from Six Latin American Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 273-290.
    26. Shane, Scott, 1993. "Cultural influences on national rates of innovation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 59-73, January.
    27. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    28. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 883-895, November.
    29. Kevin Denny, 2003. "The effects of human capital on social capital : a cross-country analysis (version 1.6)," Working Papers 200318, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    30. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    31. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    32. Eiji Yamamura & Inyong Shin, 2012. "Heterogeneity, Trust, Human Capital and Productivity Growth: Decomposition Analysis," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 55(2), pages 51-77.
    33. Linz, Susan J. & Luke Chu, Yu-Wei, 2013. "Work ethic in formerly socialist economies," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 185-203.
    34. Dee, Thomas S., 2004. "Are there civic returns to education?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1697-1720, August.
    35. Terrence Casey & Kevin Christ, 2005. "Social Capital and Economic Performance in the American States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(4), pages 826-845, December.
    36. Mourad Dakhli & Dirk De Clercq, 2004. "Human capital, social capital, and innovation: a multi-country study," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 107-128, March.
    37. Nazrul Islam, 2008. "Determinants of productivity across countries:an exploratory analysis," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 42(1), pages 201-242, September.
    38. Javier Arias-Vazquez, F., 2012. "A note on the effect of education on religiosity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 895-897.
    39. Forson, Joseph Ato & Janrattanagul, Jakkaphong & Carsamer, Emmanuel Carsamer, 2013. "Culture Matters: A Test of Rationality on Economic Growth," MPRA Paper 56825, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    40. Christopher John Boudreaux, 2017. "Institutional quality and innovation: some cross-country evidence," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(1), pages 26-40, April.
    41. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gerard Roland, 2011. "Which Dimensions of Culture Matter for Long-Run Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 492-498, May.
    42. Anneli Kaasa, 2016. "Culture, religion and productivity: Evidence from European regions," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 12(1), pages 11-28, April.
    43. Waarts, Eric & Van Everdingen, Yvonne, 2005. "The Influence of National Culture on the Adoption Status of Innovations:: An Empirical Study of Firms Across Europe," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 601-610, December.
    44. Leslie Williams & Stephen McGuire, 2010. "Economic creativity and innovation implementation: the entrepreneurial drivers of growth? Evidence from 63 countries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 391-412, May.
    45. Shane, Scott A., 1992. "Why do some societies invent more than others?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 29-46, January.
    46. Anneli Kaasa & Maaja Vadi & Urmas Varblane, 2014. "Regional Cultural Differences Within European Countries: Evidence from Multi-Country Surveys," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 54(6), pages 825-852, December.
    47. Anneli Kaasa & Eve Parts & Helje Kaldaru, 2012. "The Role of Human and Social Capital for Innovation in Catching-Up Economies," Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management, in: Elias G. Carayannis & Urmas Varblane & Tõnu Roolaht (ed.), Innovation Systems in Small Catching-Up Economies, chapter 0, pages 259-276, Springer.
    48. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2014. "Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 68-90, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schubert, Torben & Jäger, Angela & Türkeli, Serdar & Visentin, Fabiana, 2020. "Addressing the productivity paradox with big data: A literature review and adaptation of the CDM econometric model," MERIT Working Papers 2020-050, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaasa, Anneli, 2016. "Culture, religion and productivity: Evidence from European regions," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 12(1), pages 1-18.
    2. Anneli Kaasa, 2016. "Culture, religion and productivity: Evidence from European regions," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 12(1), pages 11-28, April.
    3. Urszula Markowska-Przybyła, 2020. "Does Social Capital Matter for Total Factor Productivity? Exploratory Evidence from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-25, November.
    4. Švarc, Jadranka & Lažnjak, Jasminka & Dabić, Marina, 2019. "Regional innovation culture in innovation laggard: A case of Croatia," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    5. Klasing, Mariko J., 2013. "Cultural dimensions, collective values and their importance for institutions," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 447-467.
    6. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Ganau, Roberto, 2023. "Firm-level productivity growth returns of social capital: Evidence from Western Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 17979, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Roberto Ganau & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2023. "Firm‐level productivity growth returns of social capital: Evidence from Western Europe," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 529-551, June.
    8. Jacob A. Jordaan & Bogdan Dima, 2020. "Post Materialism and Comparative Economic Development: Do Institutions Act as Transmission Channel?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(2), pages 441-472, April.
    9. Ron Boschma & Simona Iammarino & Raffaele Paci & Jordy Suriñach & Anneli Kaasa, 2017. "Culture and Innovation: Evidence from the European Union and Neighbouring Countries," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 108(1), pages 109-128, February.
    10. Barreto, Tais S. & Lanivich, Stephen E. & Cox, Kevin C., 2022. "Temporal orientation as a robust predictor of innovation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 287-300.
    11. Jian Huang & Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink & Wim Groot, 2012. "Does education promote social capital? Evidence from IV analysis and nonparametric-bound analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 1011-1034, June.
    12. Yamamura, Eiji, 2008. "The role of social capital in homogeneous society: Review of recent researches in Japan," MPRA Paper 11385, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Assmann, Daisy & Ehrl, Philipp, 2021. "Individualistic culture and entrepreneurial opportunities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1248-1268.
    14. Kostis, Pantelis C. & Kafka, Kyriaki I. & Petrakis, Panagiotis E., 2018. "Cultural change and innovation performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 306-313.
    15. Cathrin Söllner & Dirk Fornahl, 2021. "Unleashing Inventive Power - Solving cognitive, social and geographic distance issues with cultural proximity," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2103, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    16. Brandon N. Cline & Claudia R. Williamson, 2020. "Trust, regulation, and contracting institutions," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(4), pages 859-895, September.
    17. Pascal Gantenbein & Axel Kind & Christophe Volonté, 2019. "Individualism and Venture Capital: A Cross-Country Study," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 741-777, October.
    18. Rubino, Michele & Vitolla, Filippo & Raimo, Nicola & Garzoni, Antonello, 2019. "Cultura nazionale e livello di digitalizzazione delle imprese europee: evidenze empiriche," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 581-593.
    19. Nabamita Dutta & Lisa Giddings & Russell S. Sobel, 2022. "Does Trust Always Help Gender Role Attitudes? The Role of Individualism and Collectivism," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 379-408, January.
    20. Horváth, Roman, 2013. "Does trust promote growth?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 777-788.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; social capital; institutional quality; culture; religion; Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pdc:jrnbeh:v:14:y:2018:i:2:p:300-325. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jaroslav Holecek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pradecz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.