The UNIDO World Productivity Database: An Overview
Anders Isaksson
unpublished
This article introduces a new unique database, the World Productivity Database (WPD), which contains information on levels and growth of aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) for up to 112 countries, covering the period 1960 to 2000. At its core are numerous measurement methods, variations in functional forms and specifications-including schooling and health-of the production function, constant and variable returns to scale, as well as measures of technical progress and change in technical
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... fficiency. In addition, five labour and four capital stock measures are used to derive a variety of TFP measures. Another significant feature is TFP forecasts for the period of 2001-2010. THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE is to describe a new, unique database-the World Productivity Database (WPD)-which contains information on aggregate productivity performance, level and growth for up to 112 countries from 1960 to 2000. In addition, forecasts of TFP levels and growth are provided from 2001 to 2010. Although the WPD mainly focuses on measures of total factor productivity (TFP), it also includes partial measures, such as labour productivity (output per worker), and basic statistics , such as capital per worker and its change over time. To a great extent, the work of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is concerned with long-term sustainable industrial development and its role in overall economic development. Sustained growth relies on productivity growth. To understand better what policies for industry and productivity growth to recommend to countries at different stages of development, UNIDO launched a project on productivity performance in 15 developing countries. Based on case studies, it examined country-specific conditions regarding productivity measurement and attendant policies along with conventional crosscountry analysis. 2 The project revealed that, while many international and national organizations in industrialized countries regularly publish pro-1 Researcher in the Research and Statistics Branch, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The author thanks Tim Coelli for his advice on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as well as for his generosity, without which the WPD would not have contained any Long-Memory DEA (LMDEA) results, and Chuck Hulten for excellent discussions and insights on productivity measurement. Important contributors to the database include Margarita Grus-hanina, Harvir Kalirai and Katarina Zigova. The World Productivity Database website (www.unido.org/data1/wpd/ Index.cfm) was constructed and is maintained by Ömer Aksoycan and his contribution is gratefully acknowledged. Comments and suggestions by two anonymous referees and the editor of this journal have improved the article. The author alone assumes responsibility for any errors in the WPD and its documentation. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNIDO. This paper is based on Isaksson (2007c) posted at http://www.unido.org. Email: a.isaksson@unido.org. 2 The countries covered were Argentina,
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