IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4072.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Production and Cost Structure of Israeli Industry: Evidence From Individual Firm Data

Author

Listed:
  • Arie Bregman
  • Melvyn Fuss
  • Haim Regev

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to present estimates of production and cost functions obtained from using a time-series, cross-section data set pertaining to Israeli industry, We include a detailed list of heterogeneity controls in the specifications which substantially enhances the explanatory power of the models and contributes to our understanding of the nature of Israeli industry. Econometric problems which arise in attempting to estimate production and cost functions from panel data, such as sample selectivity, serial correlation due to unobserved firm effects, and endogeneity are addressed. A surprising finding is the relative inefficiency of large firms listed on the stock exchange. Histadrut and public firms appear to be poor performers in a number of dimensions. Large public firms are inefficient and pay excessively high wages. Small « 300 employees) public firms are not inefficient but pay excessive wages. Large Histadrut firms are inefficient while small Histadrut firms pay excessive wages. The wage structure in Israeli industry is seen to be systematically related to the heterogeneity controls used in this study. One productivity - related result is that firms experiencing higher than expected productivity also pay higher than expected wages, and about 70% of this productivity "bonus" appears as a wage rate increment.

Suggested Citation

  • Arie Bregman & Melvyn Fuss & Haim Regev, 1992. "The Production and Cost Structure of Israeli Industry: Evidence From Individual Firm Data," NBER Working Papers 4072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4072
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4072.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    2. Chambers,Robert G., 1988. "Applied Production Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521314275.
    3. Chamberlain, Gary, 1982. "Multivariate regression models for panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 5-46, January.
    4. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    5. Bregman, Arie & Fuss, Melvyn & Regev, Haim, 1991. "High tech and productivity: Evidence from Israeli industrial firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1199-1221, August.
    6. Ben-Ner, A. & Estrin, S., 1988. "Unions And Productivity: Unionized Firms Versus Union Firms," Papers 326, London School of Economics - Centre for Labour Economics.
    7. Denny, Michael & Fuss, Melvyn A, 1977. "The Use of Approximation Analysis to Test for Separability and the Existence of Consistent Aggregates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 404-418, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Griliches, Zvi & Regev, Haim, 1995. "Firm productivity in Israeli industry 1979-1988," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 175-203, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bregman, Arie & Fuss, Melvyn & Regev, Haim, 1995. "The production and cost structure of Israeli industry Evidence from individual firm data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 45-81, January.
    2. Egger, Peter & Keuschnigg, Christian & Merlo, Valeria & Wamser, Georg, 2011. "Corporate Taxes, Internal Borrowing, and the Lending Capacity within Multinational Firms," Economics Working Paper Series 1142, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    3. Yue Ma & Shu Kam Lee & Hing Lin Chan, 2003. "Estimating Firm Behavior under Rationing: a Panel Data Study of the Chinese Manufacturing Industry," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 221-244.
    4. Petrick, Matin & Kloss, Mathias, 2013. "Identifying Factor Productivity from Micro-data: The case of EU agriculture," Factor Markets Working Papers 144, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    5. Petrick, Martin & Kloss, Mathias, 2018. "Identifying Agricultural Factor Productivity from Micro-data: A Review of Approaches with an Application to EU Countries," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 67(2), June.
    6. Ghanem, Dalia, 2017. "Testing identifying assumptions in nonseparable panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 197(2), pages 202-217.
    7. Petrick, Martin & Kloss, Mathias, 2013. "Identifying Factor Productivity by Dynamic Panel Data and Control Function Approaches: A Comparative Evaluation for EU Agriculture," 53rd Annual Conference, Berlin, Germany, September 25-27, 2013 156104, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    8. repec:zbw:iamodp:271870 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Tavneet Suri, 2009. "Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption," NBER Working Papers 15346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Silvio R. Rendon, 2013. "Fixed and Random Effects in Classical and Bayesian Regression," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(3), pages 460-476, June.
    11. David Van Dijcke, 2022. "On the Non-Identification of Revenue Production Functions," Papers 2212.04620, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    12. Shumway, C. Richard & Davis, George C., 2001. "Does consistent aggregation really matter?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 45(2), pages 1-34.
    13. Timothy Goodspeed & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Li Zhang, 2011. "Public Policies and FDI Location: Differences between Developing and Developed Countries," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 67(2), pages 171-191, June.
    14. Rosario Crinò, 2010. "Service Offshoring and White-Collar Employment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 595-632.
    15. Ahn, Seung C. & Schmidt, Peter, 1995. "Efficient estimation of models for dynamic panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 5-27, July.
    16. Alarcón, Silverio, 2005. "Input Substitution in the Spanish Food Industry," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24487, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. repec:zbw:iamodp:274820 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Stefan Hochguertel & Henry Ohlsson, 2009. "Compensatory inter vivos gifts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 993-1023.
    19. Navon, Guy, 2009. "Human Capital Spillovers in the Workplace: Labor Diversity and Productivity," MPRA Paper 17741, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Becker, Annette & Hottenrott, Hanna & Mukherjee, Anwesha, 2022. "Division of labor in R&D? Firm size and specialization in corporate research," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 1-23.
    21. Chernozhukov, Victor & Fernández-Val, Iván & Hoderlein, Stefan & Holzmann, Hajo & Newey, Whitney, 2015. "Nonparametric identification in panels using quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 188(2), pages 378-392.
    22. Massimo Del Gatto & Adriana Di Liberto & Carmelo Petraglia, 2011. "Measuring Productivity," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 952-1008, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4072. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.