Abstract: Canadian food processing is an important manufacturing industry, accounting for 13 percent of shipments. By its nature food processing depends on infrastructure capital. Our objective is to estimate infrastructure’s effects on input requirements, cost and productivity. The increase in capital and decrease in materials were respectively 2.5 and 3 times greater than the −0.07 infrastructure elasticity of labor. Infrastructure investment was cost-reducing by inducing reductions in employment and intermediate inputs. A 1 percent increase caused cost to decline by 0.16 percent. Infrastructure capital was a major contributor to productivity, annually contributing 0.5 percentage points. This was nearly double TFP growth.
Keywords: Food processing, Infrastructure capital, Productivity growth
by Jeffrey I. Bernstein 1 and 2 Cand Theofanis P. Mamuneas 3
1. Department of Economics, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA; Email: jeffrey.bernstein@fiu.edu
2. NBER, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
3. Department of Economics, University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 20537, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus;
Email: tmamuneas@ucy.ac.cy
Journal of Productivity Analysis via Springer Publishing www.SpringerLink.com
Volume 29, Number 1; February, 2008; Pages 1-13
DOI: 10.1007/s11123-007-0063-5
http://www.springerlink.com/content/ux44728772612520/
http://envirovaluation.org/htsrv/trackback.php/5351
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