Suchergebnisse

"The years since the first edition of this text (2014) have seen many changes, and these have often bought increased tension and uncertainty. This tension augments the fact that many young adults were struggling with anxiety and depression in the U.S.A. and other cultures even before recent times. In the last years, we have seen protests across many cultures for racial justice, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, the right to public expression. Some countries are accused of suppressing Muslim, Kurdish, or other minority groups, seeking to force them to conform to dominant cultures. We have seen a growing frequency of climate-related changes, such as increased storms in some areas, rising sea levels, shrinking ice caps, and resulting changes in food supplies. The number of refugees from local strife and from climate-related issues has risen drastically. At the time of this writing, there is open conflict in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Yemen, but also refugees fleeing Syria, Venezuela, and other countries. And then there was that whole COVID-19 virus. Surrounding all of these, many of our countries are seeing a rise in political polarization, which hints of political instability."--

"A statistical agency faces several challenges in building Productivity Accounts. What started out as a request for simple ratios of output to employment has moved to a demand for multifactor (total factor) productivity measures that take into account both labor and capital inputs, the compositional changes in both, and price corrections for the changing quality of outputs.The challenge that faces users of productivity measures is that many series often exist within statistical agencies that can be used on an ad hoc basis by outsiders to generate productivity estimates; however, these series often generate conflicting estimates. Only by pulling together data into one coherent consistent framework can the statistical agency solve the problem of %u2018multiple%u2019 stories. This can be done by developing a set of Productivity Accounts that are part of an integrated system of National Accounts.This paper discusses the challenges that a statistical agency faces in this area%u2014as illustrated by the Canadian experience. First, it examines the progress that has been made in developing a system that integrates the Productivity Accounts into the overall System of National Accounts. It also discusses deficiencies that still need to be overcome. The paper notes that integration provides not only benefits when it comes to the construction of productivity estimates, but also a means of quality control for the National Accounts. Productivity accounts bring together data on outputs, materials inputs, labor and capital. By confronting one series with another, the process of constructing productivity accounts provides a valuable means of quality assessment. It also helps to identify and fill data gaps. An integrated set of productivity accounts enhances the quality of the SNA through improvements in accuracy, coherence, relevance, and interpretability.Finally, the paper focuses on the need to consider whether the SNA manual should be extended into the area of productivity measurement. International comparisons of GDP have benefited immensely by the development of international standards over the last half-century. But productivity is not a central focus of the 1993 SNA. The paper argues that the advantage of integrating productivity accounts into the general accounts is sufficiently great that it is time to include more detail on the nature of productivity accounts in the general SNA framework"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

The Dynamics of Industrial Competition, first published in 1995, describes the internal dynamics of industries using longitudinal data that make it possible to track firms over time. It provides a comprehensive picture of a number of different aspects of firm turnover in North America that arise from the competitive process - the entry and the exit of firms, the growth and decline of incumbent firms, and the merger process. Instantaneous and cumulative measures of market dynamics are provided by examining change in both the short and the long run. Using various measures of firm turnover to proxy the amount of competition, the study examines and contextualizes the relationship between industry performance and the intensity of the competitive process