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Sources of Heterogeneity in Labor Productivity and Total Factor Productivity in Egyptian Manufacturing

Author

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  • Abeer Elshennawy

    (The American University in Cairo)

  • Mohamed Bouaddi

Abstract

Egypt Ranking in the World Competitiveness Report deteriorated between 2004 and 2017. Boosting competitiveness requires reforms on several important fronts, but raising labor productivity and TFP are perhaps the most pressing. This paper identifies the correlates of both labor productivity and TFP at the firm level in Egypt’s in manufacturing sector using Economic Census data for the year 2012/2013.We find significant heterogeniety in both Labor productivity and TFP between firms. By econometirically dicotomizing firms into low and high productivity regimes, we find that the correlates of productivity differ between these two sets of firms. By identifying the sources of heterogeneity between low and high productivity firms we show that there is considerable scope for the former to catch up with the lattter based on factors that are internal to the firm .However, the literature does not offer much insights as to how high productivity firms can increase their productivity further.

Suggested Citation

  • Abeer Elshennawy & Mohamed Bouaddi, 2018. "Sources of Heterogeneity in Labor Productivity and Total Factor Productivity in Egyptian Manufacturing," Working Papers 1276, Economic Research Forum, revised 26 Dec 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1276
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Georges Harb & Charbel Bassil, 2023. "TFP in the Manufacturing Sector: Long-Term Dynamics, Country and Regional Comparative Analysis," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Yismaw Ayelign & Lakhwinder Singh, 2019. "Labor productivity of Ethiopian large and Medium Scale Manufacturing Sector," Academic Journal of Economic Studies, Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accountancy Bucharest,"Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University Bucharest, vol. 5(3), pages 64-70, September.

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