Any one organization or agency, whether for-profit or non-profit organizations that are seeking to enhance their efficiency, improve production technology, thereby achieving the goal of improving productivity, with a view to the current competitive environment. Efficiency measurement is very important, it can help decision makers understand whether the organization achieve technology progress and innovation objectives. In recent years, the government and civil organizations devote themselves to measure the change of organizational efficiency and productivity. Academia constantly research and develop various models of efficiency and productivity analysis, and application to actual cases analysis. Efficiency and productivity analysis has leapt to the mainstream of production economic studies. This empirical study adopts the census data of the classification of the Chamber of Commerce and industry of manufacturing in Taiwan, using two-stage approach to explore dynamic agglomeration externalities of 2-digit manufacturing. In the first stage, we apply dynamic network data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index to calculate static efficiency and dynamic efficiency of 2-digit manufacturing. In the second stage, we apply Tobit regression analysis to verify a manufacturing geographical concentration effects on productive efficiency. We also adopt two-stage least squares methods (2SLS) to validate dynamic agglomeration externalities effects of manufacturing. Based on the results of this empical study, we propose some specific practical policy alternatives and management strategies. In the last 20 years, the strctures of Taiwan manufacturing industries have significant changes, the livelihood industry and of the sharp decline in industry, the chemical industry, electronics industry, metal machinery industry is growing fast. There is an obvous agglomeration tendency toward northern Taiwan region. In static efficiency, labour-intensive manufacturing industries tend to be diminishing return to scale rendering, while knowledge-intensive industries are rendering the increasing trend. The scale efficiency of eastern region manufacturing is very low, resulting in their productive efficiency significantly lower than the northern, central, southern regional manufacturing. In dynamic efficiency, the total factor productivity (TFP) of Taiwan manufacturing industries are rendering the growth trend, achieving the goal of innovation effect. However, the technical efficiency of manufacturing are rendering decline trend. This study found that the most important impact factor on production efficiency is the internal economies of scale. Localization economies, urbanization economies, and other static agglomeration economies external effect gradually reduce. Moreover, this study also found that Taiwan manufacturing industries have notable MAR professional dynamic external economics and notable Porter regional competitive dynamic external economic effect. Besides, Taiwan manufacturing industries has noticeable human resource dynamic external economics, but we also found low wages is beneficial to regional economic growth. We should not expand to explain Taiwan manufacturing-sweatshops. This phenomenon may be caused by high salaries, high rents, high land costs and high labor costs, these factors offset the interest of agglomeration economies. Finally, Taiwan and mainland China signed a cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) in Chongqing on 29 June 2010. Taiwan manufacturing inevitably be impacted and influenced by ECFA. This is an important topic worthy of further study and discussion in the future.

The objective of this thesis is to compare performances of companies operating in regulated industries.The selected industries are natural gas and electricity distribution, water and sewerage systems operation and railway maintenance. Two methodological approaches are used throughout the thesis, each in its own part. The first one focuses on the financial analysis, while the other one uses the total factor productivity analysis. The latter is based on physical units typical for their respective sectors. As the conclusion of this thesis both approaches and the results of individual companies are compared.

A partir des années quatre-vingt, la manière d’appréhender les investissements directs étrangers (IDE) a basculé. Les firmes multinationales (FMN) sont perçues progressivement comme les acteurs centraux du processus de globalisation. Une littérature abondante commence à émerger et décrit le rôle des IDE comme composante non négligeable dans la stratégie de développement industriel d’un pays. Comprendre par quels mécanismes les IDE interviennent dans la dynamique industrielle d’une économie signifie qu’ils sont susceptibles de générer des retombées positives, autrement dit des spillovers sur celle-ci. Etudier l’impact des IDE sur la dynamique industrielle d’une économie en transition, telle que la République tchèque devient donc une question pertinente. L’objectif de notre travail est de comprendre l’impact des IDE sur les économies en transition à travers l’étude de la productivité totale des facteurs (PTF) et des spillovers (autrement dit des externalités positives). Les questions sous-jacentes sont les suivantes : les IDE induisent-ils un effet d’entraînement ou un effet d’éviction de l’investissement local? Quel est l’impact des IDE sur la productivité du pays d’accueil ? Observe-t-on des spillovers en matière de transfert de technologie vers les entreprises locales ? Précisons toutefois que la littérature théorique et empirique est très riche. Se concentrer uniquement sur la PTF et sur les spillovers comme nous le faisons ne permet pas de conclure précisément sur l’impact des IDE ; il existe, en effet un grand nombre d’impacts que nous ne traitons pas. Nous arrivons toutefois à étudier l’impact des IDE sur la structure industrielle de la République tchèque à travers l’analyse de la PTF et des spillovers. Nos résultats nous permettent aussi de réfléchir aux implications en termes de politiques incitatives à l’égard des IDE ainsi qu’en termes de déterminants incitant les FMN à investir. Nous essayons enfin de comprendre de quelle manière la République tchèque peut décider de politiques publiques visant à rendre ses entreprises plus compétitives face aux FMN. / Since the 1980s, the approach to foreign direct investment (FDI) has changed. Multinational companies (MNCs) are viewed incrementally as the central actors of the globalization process. Extensive literature is emerging, which describes FDI as a significant component of a country’s industrial development strategy. The understanding of the mechanisms by which FDI intervene in industrial dynamics of an economy has shown that they are likely to generate benefits, in other words, spillovers. Studying the impact of FDI on industrial dynamics of a transition economy, such as the Czech Republic, thus becomes a relevant issue. The aim of our work is to understand the impact of FDI on transition economies through investigating total factor productivity (TFP) and spillovers (i.e. positive externalities). The underlying questions are: Do FDI cause a knock-on effect or crowding out of local investment? What is the impact of FDI on the productivity of the host country? Are spillovers observed in terms of technology transfer to local businesses? Herein we carefully investigated the impacts of FDI on the industrial structure of the Czech Republic through the analysis of TFP and spillovers. Although extensive theoretical and empirical literature exists; focusing exclusively on TFP and spillovers does not allow direct conclusion on the impact of FDY, since different other factors were not examined. Nevertheless, our results also enable to deliberate on the implications of incentive policies towards FDI and determinants encouraging MNCs to invest. Eventually, we evaluate how the Czech Republic may set public policies to make its companies more competitive against FMN.

This thesis consists of two self-contained empirical essays. Essay I investigates the impact of labor subsidies on TFP, and profit per employee is included as a second outcome. Coarsened exact matching (CEM) is performed on the key variables. After matching, a difference-in-difference (DID) model is applied. The study shows that firms employing workers with wage subsidies experience negative and significant effects on both TFP and profit per employee. Heterogeneity is, however, observed; the only sector to show a deficit in both TFP and profit per employee is wholesale. During the second year with a subsidy, a negative impact can be observed on the profit per employee but not on TFP. The policy conclusion from the analysis is that subsidizing individuals from particular groups is necessary to induce firms to hire workers from these groups. However, the time period for which a single firm is subsidized should be considered. Essay II (with Jonas Månsson from Linnaeus University and the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO), Christian Andersson from SNAO and Fredrik Bonander from SNAO) measures TFP of the Swedish district courts by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate the Malmquist productivity index for 48 Swedish district courts from 2012 to 2015. This study uses a fully decomposed Malmquist index. A bootstrapping approach is further applied to compute confidence intervals for each decomposed factor of TFP as well as for TFP. The study shows an average annual of TFP by 0.7%. However, a substantial variation between years is observed both with regards to the number of statistically significant courts below and above unity. The negative impact is mainly driven by pure technical regress. Large variations are also observed over time where the small courts have the largest volatility. The TFP change is positively correlated with the rate of change in the caseload. Two recommendations are: 1) that district courts with negative TFP growth could learn from those with positive TFP growth and 2) that a back-up force could be developed to enhance flexibility.