INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY DIFFERENCES IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING THEORY AND SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR A THEORETICAL RESTRUCTURING

Abstract

Part I of this study examines certain important difficulties with existing formal theory purporting to explain international differences in output per worker in manufacturing, particularly differences between developed and underdeveloped countries. Part II presents a theoretical case for abandoning two central assumptions of that theory -- that all firms can be considered as on the same neoclassical production function, and that factor markets are perfect and competitive. Basically the argument will be that manufacturing development should be modeled as an inter- and intra-national diffusion process. Part III presents an empirical analysis of Colombian-United States productivity differences which supports the argument of Part II.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1967
Accession Number
AD0661553

Entities

People

  • Richard R. Nelson

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Colombia
  • Corporations
  • Diffusion
  • Elastic Properties
  • Employment
  • Equations
  • Labor
  • Labor Unions
  • Manufacturing
  • Mass Production
  • Money
  • Personnel Management
  • Power Equipment
  • Production
  • Productivity
  • United Nations
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Economics

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Theoretical Analysis.