German Agricultural Employment, Production and Labour Productivity: A New Benchmark for 1936 and a Note on Hoffmann’s Tales

Author(s):  
Rainer Fremdling

AbstractThis paper focuses on agricultural performance in 1936 as part of a comprehensive project to (re)construct a new and reliable benchmark for revising German historical national accounts. The new estimates presented here confirm the poor agricultural performance of Germany compared with other developed economies. The new figures are even significantly lower than Hoffmann’s estimates: In particular, this is shown for key variables like gross and net value added and labour productivity. The benchmark year of 1936 is considered to be representative of the inter-war years. Consequently, once again my statement is confirmed that one should keep away from Hoffmann′s figures when discussing any aspect of economic failure of the Weimar Republic or economic recovery after Hitler came to power.

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Norbert Bozsik ◽  
Róbert Magda

This paper presents the situation of the agricultural labour employment and evaluates the agricultural labour productivity in Hungary. Since Hungary’s EU accession, the share of agricultural employment in the total employed population has been stabilized at around 5% in the country. Due to low wages, low profit and low prestige, agricultural jobs are not attractive. The gross and net labour productivity gap between Hungary and the EU have been significant since the EU accession. The agricultural labour productivity of the Hungarian regions also shows a different picture. The labour productivity influences the cost, profitability and competitiveness of products. The advantage of the cheap labour force in Hungary’s agriculture significantly decreased due to low labour productivity. There are several opportunities to increase the agricultural labour productivity such as the increase of labour force qualification, moving toward producing higher value added agri-food products, rejuvenation of population in agriculture and the improvement of the conditions of financing agriculture.


2002 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 38-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary O'Mahony ◽  
Willem de Boer

This paper summarises the results of a major revision of the data underlying a previous study of Britain's productivity position in an international perspective (O'Mahony, 1999). Thus it examines the productivity record of the UK relative to the US, France, and Germany. There have been a number of changes since the original study which necessitated a revision rather than a mere updating of previous estimates. These included changes to national accounts definitions of value added to include immaterial investments following the adoption of SNA93 by these countries, labour input revisions which allow the distinction between jobs and persons employed, extensive revisions to industrial classifications and the desire to present estimates for unified Germany rather than the former West Germany. In addition the data series were extended to include a division of capital stocks by asset type which allows for a more refined treatment of capital input in explaining relative labour productivity performance. Hence the first aim of this paper is to see if these changes have significantly altered perceptions of Britain's relative productivity position. The evidence on the extent to which Britain has improved its relative productivity position in the past decade is presented and the paper re-examines the issue of the impact of its investment record in both physical and human capital on Britain's labour productivity shortfall. Since the publication of the original study, much of the productivity literature has focused on the new economy and, in particular, the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) on productivity trends. The association between ICT and sector productivity growth rates is also considered below.


2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
LALISA ALEMAYEHU DUGUMA ◽  
IKA DARNHOFER ◽  
HERBERT HAGER

SUMMARYA study was conducted in Suba area, central highlands of Ethiopia, to assess the net return, land and labour productivity, and the return to scale of cereal farming practice. Seventy-five farmers belonging to three local wealth classes (poor, medium and rich) were randomly selected and interviewed about inputs and outputs related to cereal farming for the production year 2007/2008. Farm soil properties were investigated to check the variability in soil quality among the wealth classes. Benefit:cost ratio (BCR), net returns and annual profit were used to indicate the worthiness of the cereal farming activity. The return to scale was estimated by using the Cobb–Douglas production function. The results show that cereal farming is a rewarding practice, with the rich households gaining more profit than the poor. Farm size was the most important variable that affects the net return. There is an increasing return to scale. However, it is unlikely that farmers will have more land than they own at present because of the land shortage problem in the country caused by the increasing human population. Thus, attention should be given to minimizing the costs of production through proper regulation of domestic fertilizer costs and increasing labour productivity especially for the poor and medium households. The use of manure and compost as an additional fertilizer should also be promoted.


2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (No. 5) ◽  
pp. 205-208
Author(s):  
J. Klíma ◽  
M. Palát Sn

The paper is focused on assessing the development of the economic account for agriculture of the Czech Republic in the selected reference period 1998–2003. There were evaluated effects of the particular types of the economic accounts. Methods of regression and correlation analysis and development trends were used for the mathematical-statistical analysis. The plant production output similarly as the output of agricultural industry show an increasing tendency since the period under investigation reaching a peak about 2001 and in next years decreasing in difference to the gross value added at basic prices and the net value added at basic prices which shows an increasing trend throughout the period. Both animal output and the agricultural services output show a decreasing trend reaching a minimum about 2002. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-428
Author(s):  
Larysa Antoniuk ◽  
Nataliia Cherkas

In conditions of globalization and rapidly growing production fragmentation, generation of value added becomes an ultimate goal and a measure of economic performance. The study provides an analysis of factors contributing to value added at macro level in different European countries. The analysis includes a panel framework covering 27 European countries over the period 2006–2015. In order to investigate the differences across regions, three subsamples are considered, namely, developed economies, PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and Central-Eastern European Countries (CEEC). Pooled OLS, fixed effects and random effects models are used. The results indicate that increase of value added corresponds to budget discipline, quality of human capital improvement, strong currency and transparent institutions. It could be expected that currency depreciation improves performance of the value added of exported final goods. However, the results show the opposite evidence: currency depreciation causes the value added decrease in all groups. Thus, for transitional countries, it is im¬portant not only to join global production chains, but also to acquire a significant share in generation of value added in these chains based on technological changes.


Ekonomika ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanta Žemgulienė

This paper examines the tendencies of Lithuanian services sector’s value added and labour productivity during 1995-2006. Comparative analysis of the average annual labour productivity growth in manufacturing and service industries reveals arguments supporting the W. Baumol’s consideration that there can be sporadic productivity increases in nonprogressive sectors. During 1995-2000, labour productivity growth in services exceeded productivity growth in manufacturing. The paper offers an interpretation of the Verdoom law for empirical regularities of the relationship between the cross-sectorial labour productivity growth rate and the value added growth rate.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Lembo Tanning ◽  
Toivo Tanning

<p><em>One of the main aims of the European Union (EU) is the European competitiveness. To achieve this goal, it is important to study the lessons of the economic crisis. This in turn allows the development of measures.</em></p> <p><em>The aim of this article is to analyse the economic crisis lessons of the transportation and storage<strong> </strong>enterprises of Poland and other new EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE-8), and to compare them on the EU level.</em></p> <p><em>The purpose </em><em>is to analyse the labour productivity<strong> </strong>before and after the economic crisis by<strong> </strong>gross value added per person employed and employee and turnover per person employed.</em></p> <p><em>We will look at how the economic crisis has affected the labour productivity of transportation companies and analyze the changes in the companies. </em></p> <p><em>In the background, we look at the countries’ economic (GDP) development and quality of life. </em></p> <p><em>What are the lessons learned from the economic crisis?</em></p> <p><em>The literature review shows the </em><em>crisis theory. </em></p> <p><em>We present for discussion the objective and subjective factors of the economic crisis of the companies.</em></p> <p><em>Based on this and previous publications, we will offer a number of generalized suggestions.</em></p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 1649-1675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Z Muller ◽  
Robert Mendelsohn ◽  
William Nordhaus

This study presents a framework to include environmental externalities into a system of national accounts. The paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the United States. An integrated-assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pollution emissions for the US which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by industry to compute gross damages. Solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added. The largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal-fired electric generation, whose damages range from 0.8 to 5.6 times value added. (JEL E01, L94, Q53, Q56)


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 78-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanita Ahlawat ◽  
Renu

India is one of the largest textile producers in the world. Textile industry is huge employment-providing industry after agriculture in India. The present article is an attempt to analyse first, the growth and composition of employees engaged in textile industry in India. Second, to find the growth and relation between employments, man-days employed, wages and net value added (NVA) by textile industry in India. And lastly, the impact of labour productivity in wage determination is also analysed. The results suggested that there is huge gender disparity in employment, that is, women are very few in comparison to men workers. Overall employment in textile has an increasing trend among both categories of textile industry. Further, spinning, weaving and finishing of textile manufacturing is growing faster than manufacturing of other textiles. Employment in textile industry has a positive and significant correlation with real wage rates in both categories of industries. This indicates that increase in real wage rate causes enhancement in employment in textile manufacturing. And further results suggest that labour productivity is a significant determinant of wage rate of textile employees.


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