scholarly journals The New Zealand productivity puzzle: A paradox or an issue of 'firm governance'

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sodany Tong

<p>New Zealand’s productivity under-performance, despite its good quality institutions, has remained a puzzling phenomenon. This topic has generated spirited debates among academia and public policy experts seeking to provide an answer to this age-old paradox. Solving ‘The New Zealand Productivity Puzzle’ is not a straightforward proposition. Previous studies in this area attempted to pin down the main determinants behind the extent to which New Zealand’s actual GDP per capita growth has undershot its predicted rates based on policy settings (Barnes et al., 2013). The recent New Zealand Productivity Commission (2014a) report shows the three key determinants accounting for such a gap are New Zealand’s weak international connections, low innovation and low managerial quality. This paper seeks to go further than merely highlighting the determinants (symptoms) of poor productivity performance in New Zealand, to the cause(s) of the problem by asking ‘why’ these key determinants (symptoms) of poor productivity performance occur. The analytical process of piecing together key results and findings (from available data, literature, and empirical studies) enables one to build a richer picture of New Zealand’s relatively poor productivity performance, to better understand the mechanism behind this puzzling phenomenon. The findings unraveled in this paper verify that this phenomenon is not paradoxical but simply an issue of firm/corporate governance. The sort of issues uncovered here is neither one of poor corporate governance in a conventional manner or an issue of managerial competency alone. Rather problems arise largely as a consequence of inappropriate incentives unintentionally generated by a certain ownership structure. This paper discusses how high ownership concentration associated with lower firm performance in New Zealand negatively affects managerial effectiveness by exacerbating the agency costs associated with managerial entrenchment. The paper shows that together New Zealand’s relatively lower managerial competency and managerial effectiveness associated with lower firm performance, can account for New Zealand’s lack of international connections, low innovation and low managerial quality, and thus potentially explain ‘The New Zealand Productivity Puzzle’.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sodany Tong

<p>New Zealand’s productivity under-performance, despite its good quality institutions, has remained a puzzling phenomenon. This topic has generated spirited debates among academia and public policy experts seeking to provide an answer to this age-old paradox. Solving ‘The New Zealand Productivity Puzzle’ is not a straightforward proposition. Previous studies in this area attempted to pin down the main determinants behind the extent to which New Zealand’s actual GDP per capita growth has undershot its predicted rates based on policy settings (Barnes et al., 2013). The recent New Zealand Productivity Commission (2014a) report shows the three key determinants accounting for such a gap are New Zealand’s weak international connections, low innovation and low managerial quality. This paper seeks to go further than merely highlighting the determinants (symptoms) of poor productivity performance in New Zealand, to the cause(s) of the problem by asking ‘why’ these key determinants (symptoms) of poor productivity performance occur. The analytical process of piecing together key results and findings (from available data, literature, and empirical studies) enables one to build a richer picture of New Zealand’s relatively poor productivity performance, to better understand the mechanism behind this puzzling phenomenon. The findings unraveled in this paper verify that this phenomenon is not paradoxical but simply an issue of firm/corporate governance. The sort of issues uncovered here is neither one of poor corporate governance in a conventional manner or an issue of managerial competency alone. Rather problems arise largely as a consequence of inappropriate incentives unintentionally generated by a certain ownership structure. This paper discusses how high ownership concentration associated with lower firm performance in New Zealand negatively affects managerial effectiveness by exacerbating the agency costs associated with managerial entrenchment. The paper shows that together New Zealand’s relatively lower managerial competency and managerial effectiveness associated with lower firm performance, can account for New Zealand’s lack of international connections, low innovation and low managerial quality, and thus potentially explain ‘The New Zealand Productivity Puzzle’.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yi Zou

<p>Foreign direct investment (FDI) and its multinationals' activities are well accepted as an engine of growth by which a host country can benefit from the injection of capital investment, technology and managerial knowhow to build up indigenous competitiveness through spillovers effects and productivity gap between foreign affiliates and local firms New Zealand is a small but developed economy. FDI plays an important role in the development and growth of local industry in New Zealand. In the extant literature, there was very few studies research on the performance gap in New Zealand context. This paper investigates the effect of inward FDI on host country theoretically, focusing on the spillover effects and firm performance. Statistical analysis tests the possibility of performance gap's existence in New Zealand firms. In addition, separated attention is provided to service industry to differ from manufacturing industries that always be testified in many empirical studies. The findings provide evidence that foreign owned firms have superior performance advantages over local firms. But more research needs to be conducted for more conclusive results.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-75
Author(s):  
Rizwan Khalid ◽  
◽  
Tayyab Ali ◽  
Muhammad Usman Javed

Corporate governance is one of most widely researched topics in the different fields of management sciences. Additionally, governance plays equal role in firm performance in all countries especially developing countries become more important like Pakistan which contain equal importance to be studied with in subject to developed countries as to be well known in governance values, moreover there is increased interest to observe impact of corporate governance on different dimensions of firm performance. The objective of this paper is to underlay the corporate governance theories and practices and we have studied and try to analysis the impact of corporate governance structure on firm performance. This is a descriptive type of study in which we analysis different studies as coded all studies as they may have different implications in developed countries but here they may have different results as in developing countries and Pakistan is different among other Asian countries because of number of reasons as discussed in introduction with respect to its governance structure. We also have find interesting results as from other empirical studies recently a part of Pakistan perspective research and having number of important implications with respect of changes need to be made in Pakistan’s governance structure. Findings shows there is impact of corporate governance on firm performance and market performance of firm also been effected with governance style


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yi Zou

<p>Foreign direct investment (FDI) and its multinationals' activities are well accepted as an engine of growth by which a host country can benefit from the injection of capital investment, technology and managerial knowhow to build up indigenous competitiveness through spillovers effects and productivity gap between foreign affiliates and local firms New Zealand is a small but developed economy. FDI plays an important role in the development and growth of local industry in New Zealand. In the extant literature, there was very few studies research on the performance gap in New Zealand context. This paper investigates the effect of inward FDI on host country theoretically, focusing on the spillover effects and firm performance. Statistical analysis tests the possibility of performance gap's existence in New Zealand firms. In addition, separated attention is provided to service industry to differ from manufacturing industries that always be testified in many empirical studies. The findings provide evidence that foreign owned firms have superior performance advantages over local firms. But more research needs to be conducted for more conclusive results.</p>


2016 ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
R. Kapeliushnikov ◽  
A. Lukyanova

Using panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 2006-2014, the paper investigates reservation wages setting in the Russian labor market. The sample includes non-employed individuals wishing to get a job (both searchers and non-searchers). The first part of the paper provides a survey of previous empirical studies, describes data and analyzes subjective estimates of reservation wages in comparison with various objective indicators of actual wages. The analysis shows that wage aspirations of the majority of Russian non-employed individuals are overstated. However their wage expectations are rather flexible and decrease rapidly as the search continues that prevents high long-term unemployment. The second part of the paper provides an econometric analysis of main determinants of reservation wage and its impact on probability of re-employment and wages on searchers’ new jobs.


CFA Digest ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-18
Author(s):  
Frank T. Magiera

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