The dissertation examines catching up in labor productivity across countries and across US states. It also studies the role of financial development and inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) on labor productivity and structural change. Chapter one studies unconditional convergence in labor productivity in cross section of countries. Using disaggregated service sector data for 101 countries, we find unconditional convergence in labor productivity for the service sector. The aggregate service sector yields a large unconditional convergence coefficient of -0.028, while for individual sub-sectors we find a similar presence of unconditional convergence. Since the service sector, as part of the "modern" sector now also faces international competition, unconditional convergence in labor productivity in this sector is not totally unwarranted. Given Rodrik's recent findings of unconditional convergence in labor productivity in the manufacturing sector (2013) and the observed failure of unconditional convergence of per capita GDP, our findings of unconditional convergence in the service sector suggest that we need to look carefully at methodological issues such as "aggregation bias" and the huge divergence of other sectors such as the agricultural sector as a potential solution to this anomaly. In chapter two, we investigate secoral unconditional convergence in labor productivity in the US sates using two series of data sets for the period 1987-1997 and 1998-2013. We have found evidence for catching up in labor productivity in the US states for the majority sectors. There is no evidence for unconditional convergence for the mining sector in 1-digit classification for 1980-1997 and manufacturing and utilities sectors in 2-digit classification for the recent data (1998-2013). The aggregate per capita GDP convergence test shows evidence for convergence for the 1980-1997 data but no evidence for convergence in the recent data consistent with the existing literature. The same factors that were considered responsible for regional convergence in the US, such as migration and falling cost of education, could work in the opposite direction to cause divergence in per capita income in recent years. Chapter three considers the relationship between financial development, inflow of foreign direct investment, labor productivity and structural change variables for 41 countries in Groningen Growth and Development 10-sector database for the period 1971-2012 using panel-VAR methodology. The effect of financial development on total labor productivity and employment share in sectors depend on the income level and geographical locations. We find that financial development has a significantly positive effect on total labor productivity of high income European countries, the United States, and for middle income Latin American counties. We do not find evidence for the positive effect of financial development on labor productivity for low income and middle income countries except for Latin American countries. The result does not show a significant effect of financial development on sectoral employment and value added shares. Inflow of FDI has a statistically significant negative effect on employment share of agriculture in middle income countries, and positive effect on the employment share of the manufacturing sector in middle income Asian countries.

ix, 88 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This dissertation addresses the high disease burden in developing countries today by examining the role of disease in economic development through its impact on productivity, fertility and human capital investment. In the second chapter of this dissertation, I model the impact on labor productivity of a change in disease susceptibility that results from intellectual property rights (IPR) reform. I develop a North-South model in which the disease environments differ between the rich and poor countries, and individuals consume innovated health goods to avoid the cost (labor time lost) of getting a disease. Southern welfare is shown to increase with the imposition of IPR protection when health needs in the South differ sufficiently from those in the North, and when health goods are accessible (in terms of adequate health care infrastructure) and effective (in counteracting disease). In the third chapter of this dissertation, I model the impact of child disease burden on fertility and human capital investment. The fertility response to a decline in child mortality depends on the morbidity effect of the disease, the level of disease burden, and whether prevalence rates or case fatalities decline. Fertility rates follow mortality and morbidity, but since mortality and morbidity do not always move in the same direction, the fertility response may be dampened or non-monotonic. Using a 20-year panel data set on malaria prevalence for 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, I find empirical support for the cases defined by the model; changes in malaria prevalence affect fertility more in non-endemic areas, where cases are more severe and more fatal relative to endemic areas. Historical and biological evidence suggest a link between (infectious) diseases early in life and (non-infectious) diseases later in life. In Chapter IV I model this link using a three-period overlapping generations model in which childhood disease outcomes affect longevity. Simulations in a general equilibrium framework duplicate the defining characteristics of the epidemiological-demographic transition as it occurred in many industrialized countries: as disease declines parents engage in a quantity-quality tradeoff for children, longevity rises and population declines after an initial jump. This dissertation includes unpublished co-authored material. / Committee in charge: Shankha Chakraborty, Chairperson, Economics; Bruce Blonigen, Member, Economics; Peter Lambert, Member, Economics; Laura Leete, Member, Planriing Public Policy & Mgmt; Jean Stockard, Outside Member, Planning Public Policy & Mgmt

Interest in effectively publishing academic articles stems from involvement in statistical research support provided to academic researchers conducting their research. In the context of this study research output (RO) is defined as the publication of research findings (articles) in academic journals accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET). The vantage point of this research is that of research support statisticians. New knowledge is continually required to drive decision making, policy formulation, industry, economies, regulation, development, innovation and progress (SESCES 2015:9; Pullinger 2014). Quality published research serves as a reliable source of new information. Therefore measures are globally and nationally implemented to stimulate article publication. Such measures and incentives include measurement of publication rate; journal impact ratings; government funding of research based on research output; acknowledgement as research-intensive institutions, promotion opportunities linked to publication rate and more. Although the literature reports on aspects of the production and publication of research findings, limited research is reported on research output productivity (ROP) viewed from the perspective of the statistical community that support research within the research process. Therefore a theoretical framework for ROP had to be developed. Classic grounded theory (GT) proved to be an appropriate methodology for this research based on its theory-develop properties. The literature, responses to an open- and closed-ended questionnaire, observational field notes of this researcher and informal discussion notes were inter alia used as data bases in the cycles of data-collection-analysis-and-comparison that characterise GT implementation. Theoretical components (‘categories’) that emerged in the research include the research process as central concept (the ‘core category’), a research practice component; role players in the research process; the attitude of researchers; knowledge of researchers; skills and attributes of researchers; research resources and research resource centres; and the research climate of the researcher environment. These components constitute the factors that impact ROP. Relational links - which forms the second leg of a developing theory - between these components are explained quantitatively in terms of multivariate linear regression equations; a profile of researcher-type (discriminant analysis) and qualitatively by means of the literature and field notes of this researcher. The emerged theoretical model indicates that knowledge and skills of academic researchers, as well as researcher-type directly impact on the research process and therefore on ROP. Furthermore attitude forms a discriminatory attribute of academic researchers. The objective with the development of the model of ROP was to identify important components of RO delivery and propose grassroots recommendations to promote ROP. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)

No description available.

The thesis is focused on assessing the impact of labor productivity on the dynamics of wages and working expensiveness of selected farms. In the theoretical part, the labor productivity, the actual measurement and relationship to the average wage. Attention is also paid wages, payroll forms, moving components of wages and super wage. The practical part is focused on a comparison of wages in the agricultural sector with the national average, as well as the influence of the change in average labor productivity and average wages to average labor Cost in 74 farms for 2005, 2008 and 2009. In conclusion, it considered whether the development of wages over time is a reasonable development of labor productivity over the period 2005-2010.

The aim is to analyse the options of business productivity evaluation of the selected agricultural company in South Bohemia with regard to the agriculture specifics. Another goal was to determine, how the economic results of the agricultural companies affect the monitoring of sector productivity evaluation (CZ - NACE) within the region NUTS3, and alternatively to point out the possible problematical areas throughout the monitoring.

abstract: Economic and environmental concerns necessitate the preference for retrofits over new construction in manufacturing facilities for incorporating modern technology, expanding production, becoming more energy-efficient and improving operational efficiency. Despite the technical and functional challenges in retrofits, the expectation from the project team is to; reduce costs, ensure the time to market and maintain a high standard for quality and safety. Thus, the construction supply chain faces increasing pressure to improve performance by ensuring better labor productivity, among other factors, for efficiency gain. Building Information Modeling (BIM) & off-site prefabrication are determined as effective management & production methods to meet these goals. However, there are limited studies assessing their impact on labor productivity within the constraints of a retrofit environment. This study fills the gap by exploring the impact of BIM on labor productivity (metric) in retrofits (context). BIM use for process tool installation at a semiconductor manufacturing facility serves as an ideal environment for practical observations. Direct site observations indicate a positive correlation between disruptions in the workflow attributed to an immature use of BIM, waste due to rework and high non-value added time at the labor work face. Root-cause analysis traces the origins of the said disruptions to decision-factors that are critical for the planning, management and implementation of BIM. Analysis shows that stakeholders involved in decision-making during BIM planning, management and implementation identify BIM-value based on their immediate utility for BIM-use instead of the utility for the customers of the process. This differing value-system manifests in the form of unreliable and inaccurate information at the labor work face. Grounding the analysis in theory and observations, the author hypothesizes that stakeholders of a construction project value BIM and BIM-aspects (i.e. geometrical information, descriptive information and workflows) differently and the accuracy of geometrical information is critical for improving labor productivity when using prefabrication in retrofit construction. In conclusion, this research presents a BIM-value framework, associating stakeholders with their relative value for BIM, the decision-factors for the planning, management and implementation of BIM and the potential impact of those decisions on labor productivity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Construction 2015

abstract: The dissertation consists of three essays that deal with variations in economic growth and development across space and time. The essays in particular explore the importance of differences in occupational structures in various settings. The first chapter documents that intergenerational occupational persistence is significantly higher in poor countries even after controlling for cross-country differences in occupational structures. Based on this empirical fact, I posit that high occupational persistence in poor countries is symptomatic of underlying talent misallocation. Constraints on education financing force sons to choose fathers' occupations over the occupations of their comparative advantage. A version of Roy (1951) model of occupational choice is developed to quantify the impact of occupational misallocation on aggregate productivity. I find that output per worker reduces to a third of the benchmark US economy for the country with the highest level of occupational persistence. In the second chapter, I use occupational prestige as a proxy of social status to estimate intergenerational occupational mobility for 50 countries spanning the breadth of world's income distribution for both sons and daughters. I find that although relative mobility varies significantly across countries, the correlation between relative mobility and GDP per capita is only mildly positive for sons and is close to zero for daughters. I also consider two measures of absolute mobility: the propensity to move across quartiles and the propensity to move relative to father's occupational prestige. Similar to relative mobility, the first measure of absolute mobility is uncorrelated with GDP per capita. The second measure, however, is positively correlated with GDP per capita with correlations being significantly higher for sons compared to daughters. The third chapter analyses to what extent the growth in productivity witnessed by India during 1983--2004 can be explained by a better allocation of workers across occupations. I first document that the propensity to work in high-skilled occupations relative to high-caste men increased manifold for high-caste women, low-caste men and low-caste women during this period. Given that innate talent in these occupations is likely to be independent across groups, the chapter argues that the occupational distribution in the 1980s represented talent misallocation in which workers from many groups faced significant barriers to practice an occupation of their comparative advantage. I find that these barriers can explain 15--21\% of the observed growth in output per worker during the period from 1983--2004. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2015

A tese apresenta quadro conceitual baseado nas teorias da firma, evolucionária e posicionamento competitivo. É formado pelos construtos rotina e estratégia onde pesquisou-se a evolução da rotina de alto nível, representada pela qualidade da empresa Beta S.A., uma das maiores encarroçadoras de ônibus do mundo, com matriz no Rio Grande do Sul. O quadro é constituído pelos aspectos ostensivo e performativo, pelo individualismo metodológico interacionista e pelos elementos evolucionários: variação, seleção e retenção. O estudo caracterizou-se como uma abordagem qualitativa, com objetivo descritivo, tendo como estratégia de pesquisa estudo de caso. As técnicas de coleta foram a entrevista semiestruturada, história oral temática, técnica projetiva e pesquisa documental. Na variação, decorrentes da teoria evolucionária e do construto rotina, considerou-se para análise 42 questões divididas entre os blocos: seleção racional, cega, propagação seletiva path dependence, imitação, variação endógena, micromudança, padrões, conhecimento tácito e explícito, fatores emergentes e repertório individual. Pesquisaram-se os blocos, a partir da seleção, por meio das teorias do crescimento da firma e do posicionamento competitivo. Na retenção, consideraram-se os elementos que ampliam o escopo competitivo da rotina e que a limitam. Participaram da pesquisa 10 coordenadores, representados pelo nível operacional, 09 gerentes do nível tático e 10 diretores do nível estratégico. A análise ocorreu individualmente e após comparou-se com o nível correspondente. Ao final da análise de cada um dos blocos, formavam-se sistemas de inferência, que correspondiam as respostas simétricas, onde se caracterizavam, na sequência, os sistemas de dispersão, que correspondiam as assimetrias de concepção quanto a rotina da qualidade da Beta S.A. No nível operacional identificaram-se 34 sistemas de inferência, 42 no tático e 39 no estratégico. Em cada um dos blocos estabeleceram-se relações de causa e efeito comparados no modelo empírico da organização. Também se estruturaram, relações dos fatores limitantes e potencializadores da rotina a partir de subníveis. Evidenciou-se que a evolução da rotina, se deu pelas interações, erros e customização. Também se constatou que a evolução endógena da rotina, decorre de reconhecimento da restrição e ênfase na prevenção. Na aprendizagem da rotina, os resultados indicaram a necessidade de sistematização do conhecimento tácito em processo e maior comunicação. O estudo demonstrou simetria empírica com os conceitos teóricos de regularidade das rotinas, interpretações distintas, padrões heterogêneos e práticas de descobrimento. No aspecto performativo estruturou-se dois modelos para potencializar a rotina da qualidade da Beta S.A. Um, é a estruturação de estratégias futuras condicionadas ao estudo das variações retrospectivas, interações e aprendizagem. O outro objetiva ampliar a capacidade de absorção do comitê decisor da qualidade por meio do indivíduo e de segmentação de mercados transformando conhecimento de laço simples em duplo. / Submitted by cmquadros@ucs.br (cmquadros@ucs.br) on 2018-02-01T15:49:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Oberdan Teles da Silva.pdf: 6565069 bytes, checksum: 045c897834332e3093c39996e50cc059 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-02-01T15:49:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Oberdan Teles da Silva.pdf: 6565069 bytes, checksum: 045c897834332e3093c39996e50cc059 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, CAPES / The thesis presents a conceptual framework based on the theory of the firm, it is focused on organizational evolution and competitive positioning and it is based on routines and strategy constructs. The research was conducted with such theorical context and deals with high-level quality routine in the company Beta SA, one of the leading bus manufacturers of the world, headquartered in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The conceptual framework considered ostensible and performative aspects of the research, which included an interactionist methodological individualist strategy and the elements of the evolutionary, such as variation, selection and retention. The routine study is characterized as a qualitative approach, with a descriptive objective, having as a research strategy a single case study. The techniques were semi-structured interviews, using thematic oral history, projective technique and documentary analysis. From the variation constructs, arising from the routine and the evolutionary theory, 42 questions were identified from various characteristics, such as rational selection, blind selection, selective propagation, path dependence, imitation, endogenous variation, micro-change, patterns, tacit and explicit knowledge, emerging and repertoire. These characteristics were investigated from a selection perspective, using the theories of the firm and of competitive positioning. The concept of retention is dealt with the elements that extend the competitive scope of the routine and limitation in which they are restrained. Ten coordinators, from the operational level, 09 managers of the tactical level and 10 directors of the strategic level participated in the research. The analysis occurred individually and then each analysis was compared with the corresponding level. At the end of the analysis of each of the constructs, inference systems were formed to correspond to the symmetrical responses, where the dispersion systems corresponding to the asymmetries of conception and the quality routine of Beta S.A. The whole interviews procedure allowed the identification of 34 inference systems at the operational level, 42 inference systems at the tactical level and 39 inference systems at the strategic level. For each unit, a cause and effect relationship was established, by comparing them with the empirical model of the organisation. Relationships of the limiting factors and potentiates of the routine from sub-levels were also structured. The results show that the evolution of the routine is due to interactions, errors and customization. It was also established that the endogenous evolution of the routine results from the recognition of the restriction and the emphasis on prevention. In the routine learning process, the results indicated the need to systematize the tacit knowledge into internal and greater routine communication. The study demonstrated the empirical similarity with the theoretical concepts of regularity of the routines, the different interpretations, the patterns of heterogeneous operation and the discovery practices. In the performative aspect, two models were designed to enhance the quality routine of Beta S.A. The first is the structure of the future strategies conditioned to the study of retrospective variations, interactions and learning. The second was designed to increase the absorption capacity of the quality decision-making committee through the individual transforming knowledge from single to double loop.

Thesis (MTech (Construction Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / This research was carried out to assess the extent to which supervisory motivational strategies can transform construction workers to perform higher levels of productivity. While worker motivation has been proven to improve productivity globally, motivation was rarely implemented in South African conditions. This study gauges the construction workers’ viewpoint on how supervisory motivational strategies can improve worker productivity. A pilot study was conducted in the initial stage of the study to gain more insight into the study. A qualitative research approach was employed using a semi-structured questionnaire to interview construction workers including bricklayers, plumbers, concrete workers, electricians and earthworks workers. The interviews were done in Bellville in the Western Cape at two conveniently selected construction companies. The data was analysed using content data analysis. Most prevalent in the findings of this study is the fact that the workers agreed that a lack of supervisory motivational techniques negatively impact their productivity. This information was helpful in setting up the questionnaires for the main study.