IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adv/wpaper/200504.html

What Makes a Difference in Achieving Higher Labor Productivity?: The Case of Low-Income Countries in Latin America

Author

Listed:
  • Osvaldo Nina

    (Grupo Integral)

Abstract

This paper uses firm level surveys from Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to estimate the determinants of labor productivity. This study started out with the hypothesis that the adverse external business conditions that firms in poor Latin American countries face, may be an important explication of the generally low levels of productivity. However, the empirical results, based on the survey of more than 1300 businesses, do not confirm this hypothesis. Compared to all the variables that are under the firms control, such as capital intensity, energy use, and worker skills, the external business environment (macroeconomic instability and labor regulations) has very little impact on productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Osvaldo Nina, 2005. "What Makes a Difference in Achieving Higher Labor Productivity?: The Case of Low-Income Countries in Latin America," Development Research Working Paper Series 04/2005, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:adv:wpaper:200504
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inesad.edu.bo/pdf/wp04_2005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geeta Batra & Daniel Kaufmann & Andrew H. W. Stone, 2003. "Investment Climate Around the World : Voices of the Firms from the World Business Environment Survey," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15143, April.
    2. Lewis, William W., 2004. "The Power of Productivity," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226476766.
    3. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian & Álvaro José Riascos & James A. Schmitz, 2006. "Latin America in the rearview mirror," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 30(Sep).
    4. Lora, Eduardo & Cortés, Patricia & Herrera, Ana María, 2001. "Los obstáculos al desarrollo empresarial y el tamaño de las firmas en América Latina," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 2144, Inter-American Development Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Osvaldo Nina, 2007. "¿Qué hace la Diferencia para el Logro de una Mayor Productividad Laboral? Caso de los Países de Bajos Ingresos en América Latina," Development Research Working Paper Series 01/2007, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    2. Berthold Herrendorf & Ákos Valentinyi, 2012. "Which Sectors Make Poor Countries So Unproductive?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 323-341, April.
    3. Osvaldo Nina & Pablo von Vacano, 2006. "Insumos para la construcción de una Visión Productiva de País," Development Research Working Paper Series 15/2006, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    4. International Monetary Fund, 2006. "Republic of Lithuania: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2006/163, International Monetary Fund.
    5. T. Dinh, Hinh & Mavridis, Dimitris A. & Nguyen, Hoa B., 2010. "The binding constraint on firms'growth in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5485, The World Bank.
    6. Colin C. Williams & Abbi M. Kedir, 2017. "Starting-up unregistered and firm performance in Turkey," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 797-817, September.
    7. Elizabeth Asiedu & James Freeman, 2009. "The Effect of Corruption on Investment Growth: Evidence from Firms in Latin America, Sub‐Saharan Africa, and Transition Countries," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 200-214, May.
    8. Martin Neil Baily & James Manyika & Shalabh Gupta, 2013. "U.S. Productivity Growth: An Optimistic Perspective," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 25, pages 3-12, Spring.
    9. Pedro S. Amaral & Erwan Quintin, 2005. "Finance matters," Center for Latin America Working Papers 0104, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f0uohitsgqh8dhk980ea412b5 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Lin, Tse-Chun & Liu, Jinyu & Ni, Xiaoran, 2022. "Foreign bank entry deregulation and stock market stability: Evidence from staggered regulatory changes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 185-207.
    12. Seung-Hyun Lee & Kyeungrae Oh & Lorraine Eden, 2010. "Why Do Firms Bribe?," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 775-796, December.
    13. Carlos Esteban Posada & Jorge Andr�s Tamayo, 2008. "La transici�n hacia una econom�a urbana y el aumento del producto per c�pita: el caso colombiano del siglo XX desde la perspectiva de Lucas," Borradores de Economia 5111, Banco de la Republica.
    14. Valentina Ciriotto & José Noguera-Santaella, 2023. "The Catching up in Steady State per Capita Income: Latin America and the Caribbean," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 51(1), pages 71-82, March.
    15. Nesma Mohamed Ali, 2017. "Towards a better integration of the informal sector: three empirical essays on the interaction between formal and informal firms in Egypt and beyond," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph17-05 edited by Manon Domingues Dos Santos & Boris Najman, December.
    16. Søreide, Tina, 2009. "Too risk averse to stay honest?: Business corruption, uncertainty and attitudes toward risk," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 388-395, December.
    17. Andrew Sharpe, 2016. "Productivity to the Rescue: Review Article on the McKinsey Global Institute Report Global Growth: Can Productivity Save the Day in an Aging World?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 30, pages 98-110, Spring.
    18. Jing Jun Chang & Been‐Lon Chen & Mei Hsu, 2006. "Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth: Role of Tax Revenues and Infrastructures," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 891-914, April.
    19. Valenzuela-Klagges, Bárbara & Corvalán-Quiroz, Alejandro & Fuenzalida-O'Shee, Darcy, 2018. "Trade facilitation and its effects on Chile’s bilateral trade between 2006 and 2014," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    20. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Pessôa, Samuel de Abreu & Veloso, Fernando A., 2010. "The evolution of TFP in Latin America: high productivity when distortions were high?," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 699, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    21. Colin C Williams & Abbi M. Kedir, 2016. "Business Registration And Firm Performance: Some Lessons From India," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03), pages 1-19, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:adv:wpaper:200504. 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: Lykke Andersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inesabo.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.