metadata: authors: 0: author: Dall'Olio,Andrea Mario
1: author: Iootty De Paiva Dias,Mariana
2: author: Kanehira,Naoto
3: author: Saliola,Federica
count: Europe
docna: 0: docna: Productivity growth in Europe
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Social Policy,Legal Products,Judicial System Reform,Business Environment,Construction Industry,Common Carriers Industry,Food & Beverage Industry,General Manufacturing,Pulp & Paper Industry,Plastics & Rubber Industry,Labor Markets,International Trade and Trade Rules,Legal Reform,Legislation,Regulatory Regimes,Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies
teratopic: Environment,Private Sector Development,Macroeconomics and Economic Growth,Finance and Financial Sector Development
abstracts: cdata!: This paper tests whether structural or
            firm-specific characteristics contributed more to (labor)
            productivity growth in the European Union between 2003 and
            2008. It combines the Amadeus firm-level data on
            productivity and firm characteristics with country-level
            data describing regulatory environments from the World
            Bank's Doing Business surveys, foreign direct
            investment data from Eurostat, infrastructure quality
            assessments from the Global Competitiveness Report, and
            credit availability from the World Development Indicators.
            It finds that among the 12 newest members of the European
            Union, country characteristics are most important for firm
            productivity growth, particularly the stock of inward
            foreign direct investment and the availability of credit. By
            contrast, among the more developed 15 elder European Union
            member countries, firm-level characteristics, such as
            industry, size, and international affiliation, are most
            important for growth. The quality of the regulatory
            environment, measured by Doing Business indicators, is
            importantly correlated with productivity growth in all
            cases. This finding suggests that European Union nations can
            realize significant benefits from improving regulations and
            encouraging inward and outward foreign direct investment.
repnme: repnme: Productivity growth in Europe
display_title: Productivity growth in Europe
listing_relative_url: /research/2013/05/17709669/productivity-growth-europe
topicv3: Manufacturing Sectors m1326521 1281,Trade m1326924 698,Business Law and Regulation m1327468 410,Labor Productivity m1504060 2756,Business Environment m1586411 2530
publishtoextweb_dt: 2013-05-01T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Environment,Private Sector Development,Macroeconomics and Economic Growth,Finance and Financial Sector Development
no_of_pages: 43
author_keys: 0: author_key: 905165
1: author_key: 1051061
2: author_key: 943342
3: author_key: 749070
model_extractions: WPS6425 Policy Research Working Paper 6425

# Productivity Growth in Europe

_Andrea Dall’Olio Mariana Iootty Naoto Kanehira Federica Saliola_ The World Bank Europe and Central Asia Region Finance and Private Sector Development Department April 2013
Policy Research Working Paper 6425

# **Abstract**

This paper tests whether structural or firm-specific characteristics contributed more to (labor) productivity growth in the European Union between 2003 and 2008. It combines the Amadeus firm-level data on productivity and firm characteristics with country-level data describing regulatory environments from the World Bank’s Doing Business surveys, foreign direct investment data from Eurostat, infrastructure quality assessments from the Global Competitiveness Report, and credit availability from the World Development Indicators. It finds that among the 12 newest members of the European Union, country characteristics are most important for firm productivity growth, particularly the stock of inward foreign direct investment and the availability of credit. By contrast, among the more developed 15 elder European Union member countries, firm-level characteristics, such as industry, size, and international affiliation, are most important for growth. The quality of the regulatory environment, measured by Doing Business indicators, is importantly correlated with productivity growth in all cases. This finding suggests that European Union nations can realize significant benefits from improving regulations and encouraging inward and outward foreign direct investment.

This paper is a product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Department, Europe and Central Asia Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank. org. The author may be contacted at adallolio@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Productivity Growth in Europe**

**By Andrea Dall’Olio, Mariana Iootty, Naoto Kanehira and Federica Saliola**<sup>**1**</sup>

Key words: productivity, regulation, firm performance, foreign direct investment, global value chains, firm characteristics, Doing Business, European Union.

## JEL: D22, H11, O47, O52

Sector Board: Finance and Private Sector, 1 The authors are economists at the World Bank. Jared Fronk (Georgetown University) provided valuable research assistantship to the team. We are grateful to the World Bank for financial support of this project. The paper benefitted from the guidance by Indermit Gill,Martin Raiser (World Bank) and Juan Zalduendo (IMF). The authors would like to thank Louise Grogan (University of Guelph) and Miriam Bruhn (World Bank) for useful comments and contributions to the paper and to the staff of Eurostat and of the Bureau van Dijk for providing inputs and clarification on the data. Views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be held to represent those of the World Bank Group or its Executive Directors.
# **1. Introduction and Main Findings**

Between 2002 and 2008, the European Union (EU) experienced significant structural changes, including the introduction of the Euro, the 2004 expansion of the European Union, and the proliferation of international linkages worldwide. Responses to these changes among the EU member states included technological upgrades, adoption of new management processes, and regulatory reform.<sup>2</sup> Recent research efforts have revealed extensive heterogeneity in productivity growth across countries and sectors, even within narrowly defined industries.<sup>3</sup> The twelve newest members of the European Union (EU12, the “New Europe”)<sup>4</sup> experienced vigorous productivity growth, three to four times greater than the growth of the fifteen elder members of the European Union (EU15)<sup>5</sup> . However, as New Europe raced to catch up with Old, the southernmost states of Western Europe fell drastically behind, and experienced productivity contractions. What factors led to these disparate outcomes across members of the European Union? This paper disentangles the effects of country- and firm-level variables on productivity to answer the policy question of what countries may do to encourage greater productivity growth.

We use the 2010 Amadeus database,<sup>6</sup> which provides firm-level data on employment, sector, age, and international affiliations. We augment this with country-level business environment indicators from the World Bank’s Doing Business (DB) database, foreign direct investment (FDI) data from Eurostat, infrastructure quality indicators from the Global Competitiveness Report, and credit availability data from the World Development Indicators (WDI). Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, we estimate the contribution of each factor to productivity growth between 2003 and 2008, both individually and as sets of either firm- or country-level variables.

For the EU12, country-level characteristics contribute the most toward explaining productivity growth. Of the variables included, the most influential are DB indices of government business regulation, the availability of credit, and the stock of inward foreign direct investment. The FDI is especially important in manufacturing sectors. Firms with international owners or affiliates grew significantly faster than purely domestic firms.<sup>7</sup> These two effects suggest a role for government policies promoting FDI in improving productivity growth.

Among the EU15, we find that firm-level variables are the most important determinants of productivity—specifically, firm size and ownership. Smaller firms grow more quickly than large firms. Meanwhile, foreign-affiliated firms show much greater productivity gains compared with purely domestic firms: global headquarters grow most quickly, followed by domestic

> 2 Aghion, Acemoglu, and Zilibotti (2006).

> 3 For surveys of the literature, see Wagner (2007); Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan (2001); Bartelsman, Haltiwanger, and Scarpetta (2004); Barba Navaretti and Venables (2004).

> 4 The EU12 consists of Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. However, Cyprus and Malta are excluded from the analysis due to lack of data.

> 5 The EU15 consists of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. However, Luxembourg and Ireland are excluded from the analysis due to lack of data.

> 6 Amadeus is a comprehensive firm-level database containing financial information for over 11 million public and private companies throughout Europe produced from the Bureau van Dijk

> 7This result is common in the literature. See Dunne, Roberts, and Samuelson (1989); Ilmakunnas and Maliranta (2004); Smarzynska Javorcik (2004).

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subsidiaries. Of the country-level variables, outward FDI and the quality of government regulation explain much of the variation across member nations, indicating that policy again plays a significant role in productivity growth.

The southern economies of the EU15—Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain (EU15 South)—stand out as exceptions to the general European trend toward productivity growth, experiencing falling productivity between 2003 and 2008. This decline is most likely explained by these nations’ distribution of firms, which is skewed toward small and domestic producers, relative to the rest of the EU15. This context correlates strongly with regulatory regimes disadvantageous to the expansion of private industry.<sup>8</sup> These small firms are less likely to have international affiliates, as evidenced by EU15 South’s lower rates of outward FDI. This situation in turn reduces these states’ ability to benefit from technology and knowledge transfers, accordingly reducing their potential for growth.

A key policy implication of this paper is that improving government regulation and encouraging FDI could help flagging European countries catch up to their neighbors. These policies may potentially be implemented more easily and more quickly than corresponding investments in infrastructure and education.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides motivation and a survey of the current literature. Section 3 describes the data in detail, while Section 4 explains the methodology of the analysis. Section 5 contains a discussion of the results, broken up into three subsections. The first section describes the results for the EU12, the second for the EU15, and the third discusses the EU15 South. Section 6 concludes and offers suggestions for future research.

# **2. Motivation and Related Literature**

The persistence of productivity differences—measured as either labor productivity or total factor productivity—across firms, even within narrowly defined industries, has inspired extensive research into its causes.<sup>9</sup> At the national level, economists have posited explanations of productivity differences based on the country’s business environment determined by government regulation, taxation, industrial support, and openness to international trade and FDI. Based on a set of 12 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and using industry-level data, Nicoletti and Scarpetta (2003) find that restrictive regulation in manufacturing tends to reduce multifactor productivity (MFP) growth. The authors suggest that such restrictive regulations reduce competitive pressures to invest in productivity-enhancing technologies. Using related approaches, Conway et al. (2006) and Arnold, Nicoletti, and Scarpetta (2008) reach similar conclusions for European countries, especially for technology-driven productivity improvements.<sup>10</sup> We expand on these results by including eleven more European countries,

> 8 See Ateriodo, Hallward-Driemeir, and Carmen (2007).

> 9 Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan (2001) provide a seminal and rich review of the literature on productivity dynamics. This paper focuses on firm- and country-level variables. For analysis using product-level variables, see Bernard, Redding, and Schott (2006).

> 10 These studies use the framework proposed by Aghion and Griffith (2005) in which productivity growth within a country/sector is calculated in relation to the pace of the country/sector leader. This growth, in turn, depends on the business environment and policies in the follower country, especially those policies that promote firm rivalry and market entry. Arnold, Nicoletti and Scarpeta (2008) use firm-level data and focus on MFP growth. Nicoletti and

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controlling for more country- and firm-level factors, and employing a resampling technique to ensure that the sample accurately reflects the population.

Wagle (2010) investigates the effects of regulation on FDI and concludes that FDI-increasing regulations prompt beneficiary firms to grow more quickly, through either selection effects or knowledge transfers.<sup>11</sup> We test for these effects using business environment variables.

Burda and Hunt (2001) take a different approach, investigating the effects on productivity when countries integrate their economies. They find evidence that less productive members of economic unions benefit from productivity transfers from their partners.<sup>12</sup> Winston (1993), Harrison (1994), and Meyer and Vickers (1997) suggest that integration improves productivity growth by increasing competition. This competition leads to the expectation of convergence. This paper considers both integration and international affiliations.

In this paper, we test for the effects of firm size, age, and ownership structure on laborproductivity growth.<sup>13</sup> Dunne, Roberts, and Samuelson (1989), using a dataset including 200,000 U.S. manufacturing firms from 1967–1977, find that size is negatively correlated with growth, and that the expected growth rate of a firm declines with size for firms owned by single-plant firms, but increases with size for firms owned by multi-plant firms, suggesting synergies from FDI. The importance of FDI for growth is a persistent result throughout the literature,<sup>14</sup> and one further supported by our findings.

The research most similar to that presented in this paper is the work of Anos Casero and Udomsaph (2009). The authors show a direct correlation between productivity growth and the quality of institutions and government policies. They also use the Amadeus dataset and employ principal component analysis to determine the business environment. However, their analysis covers only eight European countries, and their sample is somehow biased by the data availability in Amadeus.<sup>15</sup> We improve on this by using resampling techniques and a larger universe of countries and firms.

This paper offers several novel additions to the literature. The Amadeus database is used in conjunction with a resampling technique to represent the underlying population and generate a representative, cross-country sample. By combining firm-, industry-, and country-level variables

> Scarpetta (2003) also measure MFP but use industry-level information, while Conway et al. (2006) use industrylevel data but measure labor productivity growth. All of these studies rely on OECD country samples. 11 For more on FDI and growth, see Barba Navaretti and Venables (2004), Bernard and Jensen (1995), and Vogel and Wagner (2009).

> 12 Specifically, Burda and Hunt (2001) suggest five mechanisms for productivity transfers: (1) capital accumulation, (2) migration, (3) FDI, (4) Hecksher-Ohlin factor price equalization, and (5) knowledge/technology spillovers. See also Ackerlof et al. (1991).

> 13 There has been considerable disagreement among studies as to the causes of productivity growth. On one hand, using a panel of fourteen OECD countries for 1970–1987, Bernard and Jones (1993) find growth in total factor productivity (TFP) due to within-firm technological improvement and capital accumulation. Olley and Pakes (1996) and Restuccia and Rogerson (2007), on the other hand, find that productivity gains are primarily the result of reallocation of resources to high-productivity firms from low. Still other studies have found net entry to be the most influential motor.

14 Wagner (2011) suggests several pathways by which firms may benefit from inward FDI, including knowledge transfers and spillover effects. See Smarzynska Javorcik (2004) for growth effect from outward FDI; Barba Navaretti and Venables (2004) for a survey of empirical studies on productivity differences between foreign owned firms and domestic firms.

> 15 Over half of the firms included into the sample are from Romania.

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removed from the database after at least five years of non-reporting.<sup>22</sup> It is therefore impossible to distinguish between firms that exit the dataset due to failure or for some other reason, such as employment reduction or merger. The analysis is therefore focused on a balanced sample of surviving firms—firms present for the entire date range. We note that this precludes productivity growth due to firm entry and exit and could imply that the sample firms are likely to be more productive than the population average because firms too unproductive to survive drop out.

Table 1 shows the final samples’ compositions and compares their derived aggregate labor productivity growth rates with those derived from Eurostat for 2003–2007, the years for which Eurostat and Amadeus overlap. Evidence suggests that the samples mirror productivity trends at the macro level, lending credence to the use of micro data to explain macroeconomic growth.<sup>23</sup>

**Table 1 Aggregate Annual Productivity Growth, 2002–2007: Amadeus and Eurostat**

|||**Sample**|**1(10+ empl**|**oyees)**<br>**Serv**|**ices**||**Sample**|**2(50+ empl**|**oyees)**<br>**Serv**|**ices**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Obs**|**Manufa**|**cturing**|**(w/o cons**|**truction)**|**Obs**|**Manufa**|**cturing**|**(w/o cons**|**truction)**|
|**EU12**||**Amadeus**|**Eurostat**|**Amadeus**|**Eurostat**||**Amadeus**|**Eurostat**|**Amadeus**|**Eurostat**|
|Bulgaria<br>|-|-|12.81%|-|9.75%|256|9.20%|13.66%|8.10%|8.18%|
|Czech|||||||||||
|Rep.|2,410|6.00%|8.22%|6.20%|5.65%|532|6.80%|8.42%|7.30%|5.71%|
|Estonia|561|9.10%|10.76%|8.70%|6.41%|85|6.80%|10.47%|6.50%|3.70%|
|Poland|3,811|3.20%|1.14%|7.20%|4.28%|1,267|1.20%|0.37%|2.10%|3.75%|
|Romania<br>Slovak|4,249|5.90%|7.47%|2.80%|4.84%|853|5.30%|8.44%|5.50%|5.03%|
|Rep.|-|-|9.60%|-|1.66%|196|8.40%|9.87%|15.30%|1.28%|
|Slovenia|526|5.70%|10.49%|2.80%|6.34%|104|6.40%|10.04%|5.60%|1.26%|
|**EU15**|||||||||||
|Belgium|2,485|1.60%|2.89%|0.80%|0.54%|366|2.70%|3.46%|1.50%|0.40%|
|Finland|1,036|11.10%|7.03%|4.80%|2.92%|147|4.30%|7.02%|9.80%|2.78%|
|France|15,029|4.40%|3.89%|2.60%|1.10%|2,322|3.70%|3.77%|4.80%|0.41%|
|Germany|-|-|3.38%|-|0.99%|2,733|2.50%|3.67%|2.20%|1.58%|
|Great|||||||||||
|Britain|-|-|3.61%|-|3.21%|2,408|3.00%|3.76%|1.20%|3.68%|
|Italy|17,143|2.40%|1.92%|1.90%|0.73%|1,788|1.10%|1.99%|-0.70%|-0.12%|
|Norway|1,523|-6.60%|-3.90%|5.60%|7.10%|189|2.20%|4.70%|-4.40%|-3.80%|
|Portugal|-|-|2.85%|-|-0.80%|493|2.70%|3.53%|-2.20%|-2.54%|
|Spain|16,850|1.50%|1.48%|0.90%|0.14%|1,884|1.10%|1.15%|-1.30%|-0.08%|
|Sweden|2,436|4.30%|6.03%|2.10%|1.72%|383|4.40%|6.48%|2.50%|1.74%|
|**Total**|68,059|||||16,006|||||

World Bank staff calculations based on Eurostat _and Amadeus_ _Note_ : Aggregate figures from Amadeus for each country are computed defining labor productivity as total valueadded divided by total number of employees.

22 Firms that stop reporting their financial statements are represented as "not available/missing" for four years following the last available filing.

23 Appendix II shows the kernel density estimations of annualized growth of labor productivity (2003–2008) for each sample for two regional cuts: EU15 and EU12. Both estimations use the Epanechnikov kernel function with a bandwidth of 0.5. Appendix III presents the corresponding firm-level summary statistics. For both samples, the distribution for EU12 firms is higher than for EU15, suggesting that EU12 firms realized greater productivity growth. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for equality of distribution functions rejects the null hypothesis at the 1 percent.

7
We include several variables to account for country-level variation. From the WDI database, we define access to credit as measured by the ratio of private sector credit to GDP and skills as measured by the percent of the workforce with tertiary education. Quality of infrastructure is measured by an index taken from the Global Competitiveness Report,<sup>24</sup> a survey of business leaders published by the World Economic Forum. Foreign direct investment inward and outward stock are measured as the ratios of stock to GDP for manufacturing and for service sectors, from the Eurostat SBS.

To assess the regulatory environment within each country, we employ the World Bank’s Doing Business<sup>25</sup> (DB) database. Using principal component analysis, we construct a comprehensive index of all regulatory policies, _all_DB_ .<sup>26</sup> A second variable, _DB_business_startup_ , indexes barriers to entry and exit, including the costs of starting a business, registering property, and closing a business. _DB_business_operations_ indexes the difficulty of operating a firm, including securing construction permits, paying taxes, trading across borders, and employing workers. Finally, _DB_institutional_environment_ is an index of the quality of the legal and institutional framework for enterprises, including the level of protection for minority shareholders, the quality of the credit information systems, and the cost and speed of contract enforcement. All indices are coded such that higher values indicate better regulation.<sup>27</sup> Summary statistics are provided in Appendix XII.

# **4. Methodology**

We use the following specification to analyze productivity growth in Europe.

The variable _∆_ ln(Prodi)03-08 is the annualized growth rate of labor productivity (defined as value-added per employee) for firm _i_ from 2003 to 2008.<sup>28</sup> _Size_ , is expressed in terms of number of employees on the company’s payroll, and is divided into five previously mentioned categories. Microenterprises are mostly family-owned and have a limited division of tasks. Flexibility in labor usage and minimal overhead costs allow microenterprises to reach a baseline level of efficiency. However, limited access to capital

> 24 World Economic Forum. _Global Competitiveness Report_ . http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-competitiveness.

> 25 World Bank. _Doing Business_ . http://doingbusiness.org/.

> 26 For a discussion of principal component analysis, see Appendix V.

> 27 Given that the principal component analysis is built on the basis of indicators, it shares the indicators’ methodological limitations. To verify the quality of the principal component analysis indicator, we compare it with an alternative measure of the quality of business regulation, the Product Market Regulation indicator constructed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The correlation between the comprehensive principal component analysis index of _Doing Business_ indicators and the economy-wide Product Market Regulation indicator is very high (-0.74) using 2008 data (World Bank 2009) for the 39 countries for which both indicators are available.

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investments constrains microenterprises from scaling up operations, especially in capitalintensive sectors, suggesting that smaller firms grow more slowly.<sup>29</sup> _Age_ in years is divided into categories of 1–5 years old, 6–10, 11–20, 21–30, and older than 31. Learning and selection effects imply that younger firms will grow more quickly<sup>30</sup> .

_Ownership type_ is operationalized as a categorical variable denoting whether the firm is a _global headquarters_ with foreign subsidiaries<sup>31</sup> , a _foreign-affiliated_ firm<sup>32</sup> , or a _purely domestic_ firm.<sup>33</sup> The coefficients on ownership categories capture the effects of foreign affiliation. Specifically, the coefficient on _foreign_ captures the productivity benefits that a foreign-owned firm realizes from intra-organizational transfers and integration in global markets. The coefficient on _global headquarters_ captures benefits to firms from investing abroad to expand their consumer base and increase efficiency. We expect that global headquarters will grow most quickly, followed by foreign-affiliates. Purely domestic firms will have the slowest growth.

j j ∆(InwFDI)03−08 measures the change in the inward stock of FDI in country _j._ ∆(OutFDI)03−08 j measures the same for outward stock of FDI. ∆(Credit)03−08 measures changes in the ratio of j private sector credit to GDP. ∆(Skills)03−08 measures changes in the percentage of the workforce j with a tertiary education. ∆(Bus.Reg)03−08 measures changes in business regulation. We predict that better regulations will be positively correlated with more rapid productivity growth.

j ∆(Infra)03−08 measures variation in the quality of infrastructure. The log of productivity in 2003 is included to control for initial firm characteristics: firms that begin with higher productivity levels may realize slower growth rates.<sup>34</sup> We include country and sector fixed-effects, which account for unobserved country- and industry-specific characteristics that might affect productivity growth. _Sector_ m is a vector of sector dummy variables defined at the NACE 1.1 level, while _Country_ is a vector of country dummy variables. j We employ ordinary least squares (OLS) with errors clustered by country in order to allow for possible correlations in growth rates between co-national firms. Regressions are run separately for EU15 and EU12 countries to investigate the sources of the differences between the two

> 29 This is a common prediction in the literature. See Bartelsman, Haltiwanger, and Scarpetta (2009); Ayyagari, Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic (2011)

> 30 Various studies have shown that conditional on size and survival rate, young firms tend to grow faster than older firms due to diminishing returns to learning. See Klepper and Thompson, 2007; Dunne, Roberts and Samuelson, 1989.

> 31 Due to an idiosyncrasy of the Bureau van Dijk, co-national affiliates of headquarters firms with foreign subsidiaries are also listed as global headquarters.

> 32 Foreign-owned firms are classified as those which have at least 51 percent foreign ownership. For 34 percent of firms classified as foreign affiliated by Bureau van Dijk, we cannot identify the exact ownership stake. However, as they are mostly small firms, we assume they are not publicly traded firms in which the parent's ownership could be diluted and are therefore managerially fully in control of the foreign parent.

33Given that the sample excludes all firms that were involved in merger and acquisitions operations, the ownership structure of a firm observed in 2009 is assumed to be the same as in 2003. We follow Brown and Earle (2002) in using the latest ownership status to create ownership dummies for 2003. However, it is worth noting that we are not able to control for cases in which the firm ownership structure has changed due to a joint venture.

34 The inclusion of this variable may reflect convergence as proposed by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992). We expect the coefficient of baseline productivity level to be negative.

9
groups.<sup>35</sup> We also separate manufacturing and services to illuminate the drivers of productivity growth in different sectors. The construction sector is excluded from the analysis given its cyclical nature (Burns and Grebler, 1982). Results are then presented separately for EU12 and EU15 as well as for manufacturing and services industries. Within manufacturing and services, the model distinguishes between firms belonging to different NACE 1.1 categories.

Two samples were defined according to the ratio between the targeted number of companies (in the population) and the number of sampled firms: Sample 1 contains firms with at least 10 employees, covers fewer countries, but has more firms; Sample 2 contains firms with at least 50 employees, covers more countries, but fewer companies.<sup>36</sup> Once these samples were drawn, we excluded extreme outliers<sup>37</sup> and then defined two _final_ samples. Regressions are performed for Sample 1. Sample 2 is used as a robustness check, the results of which are found in Appendices VI–IX.

# **5. Results**

In this section, we present the results of our analysis for the EU12, EU15, and EU15 South.

# **5.1 EU12**

The first question to answer is which category of determinants—country or firm—matters most in explaining productivity growth in the EU12. Our results indicate that for these less developed economies, country is still the dominant factor in growth. The exclusion of firm characteristics from the regression for manufacturing sectors reduces the explanatory power of the model by 8 percent. However, when country dummies are excluded, the model loses roughly four times as much predictive power (33 percent). For service sectors, a similar pattern emerges since the explanatory power of the model falls more when dropping country-fixed effects (23 percent) than when excluding firm characteristics variables (8 percent). Country dummies presented in columns (1) and (7) of Table 2 indicate that firms similar in terms of size, age, ownership and industry perform differently across countries in EU12 region. For example, the productivity of a manufacturing firm in the Czech Republic on average grows at a rate 3.8 percentage points higher than a similar manufacturer in Slovenia (see column 1). For more, see Appendix VI.<sup>38</sup> The more relevant question for policy is which factor within country correlates best with growth. The results point to ownership. We observe that global headquarters firms grow 6.7 percent more quickly than purely domestic firms in manufacturing and 3.1 percent more quickly in services,

> 35 The separations observed in the kernel densities presented in Appendix II suggest that the performance of firms is in fact different in these two regions.

> 36 See Appendix IV for more details on how these samples were defined.

> 37 A three-step procedure was implemented to control for extreme outliers. First, firms involved in merger and acquisitions operations were excluded from analysis: growth via merger is outside the scope of this paper. Second, companies whose annual productivity growth was more than three standard deviations away from the mean in each country were excluded. Third, in order to control for extreme outliers in terms of employment, we adopted criteria conditioned on firm size. For firms with fewer than 50 employees, we dropped observations for which the annual change in employment in any year was greater than 300 percent. For firms with more than 50 employees, we dropped those observations with an annual change greater than 50 percent. We also dropped observations for which the annual growth rate in any year exceeded 1000 percent.

> 38 For a discussion of results from Sample 2, see Appendix VIII.1.

10
ceteris paribus. Surprisingly, the age of the firm is never statistically significant. In both manufacturing and service sectors, size is negatively correlated with productivity growth.<sup>39</sup> **Figure 3 FDI Flows into Europe, All Sectors, 1985–2009** <!-- Start of picture text --> Europe total 1,200<br>FDI inflow 1,000<br>($ billion) 800<br>600<br>400<br>200<br>0<br>100%<br>Inflow share EU15 South<br>among<br>subregions 80% EU15 North,<br>(percent) Continental,<br>60% European Free<br>Trade Area<br>40%<br>EU candidates/<br>eastern<br>20%<br>partnership<br>EU12<br>0%<br>1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009<br>Source: World Bank staff calculations based on United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data.<br><!-- End of picture text --> Table 2 presents the estimation results for Eq. (1) for the EU12. Columns (1) and (7) show the results of the complete model split into manufacturing and services industries, while the remaining columns present the results using the various sub-indices of business operations.

Productivity gains are correlated with increases in the availability of private credit, stock of inward FDI, workforce education, and business environment—especially trade and taxes. A one standard deviation increase in the overall business regulation index is conditionally correlated with a 6.35 percent increase in productivity growth for the average manufacturing firm and 7.93 percent for the average service firm. A one standard deviation improvement in the tax regulations index is correlated with 4.77 percent and 7.10 percent increases in labor productivity for manufacturing and service firms, respectively. A one standard deviation increase in the trade regulation index is associated with a 7.48 percent increase for the average service firm, but is not statistically significant in the manufacturing industry.

> 39 For a second method of evaluating the relative impact of firm-level variables, see Appendix XII.

11
# **Table 2 Firm-level Productivity** **<u>Growth and Changes in Country Characteristics in the EU</u>**

||||**Manufa**|**cturing**|||||**Service**|**s (except const**|**ruction)**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|(10)|(11)|(12)|
|**Ln(prod)2003**|-0.1237***|-0.1237***|-0.1237***|-0.1237***|-0.1237***|-0.1237***|-0.1122***|-0.1122***|-0.1122***|-0.1122***|-0.1122***|-0.1122***|
||(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|
|**Size(50-249)**<sup>**1**</sup>|-0.0156**|-0.0156**|-0.0156**|-0.0156**|-0.0156**|-0.0156**|-0.0130***|-0.0130***|-0.0130***|-0.0130***|-0.0130***|-0.0130***|
||(0.007)|(0.007)|(0.007)|(0.007)|(0.007)|(0.007)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|
|**Size(250-499)**<sup>**1**</sup>|-0.0530***|-0.0530***|-0.0530***|-0.0530***|-0.0530***|-0.0530***|-0.0269***|-0.0269***|-0.0269***|-0.0269***|-0.0269***|-0.0269***|
||(0.012)|(0.012)|(0.012)|(0.012)|(0.012)|(0.012)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|
|**Size(500-999)**<sup>**1**</sup>|-0.0229|-0.0229|-0.0229|-0.0229|-0.0229|-0.0229|-0.014|-0.014|-0.014|-0.014|-0.014|-0.014|
||(0.019)|(0.019)|(0.019)|(0.019)|(0.019)|(0.019)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|
|**Size(1000+)**<sup>**1**</sup>|-0.0582**|-0.0582**|-0.0582**|-0.0582**|-0.0582**|-0.0582**|-0.0217|-0.0217|-0.0217|-0.0217|-0.0217|-0.0217|
||(0.029)|(0.029)|(0.029)|(0.029)|(0.029)|(0.029)|(0.032)|(0.032)|(0.032)|(0.032)|(0.032)|(0.032)|
|**Age(6-10)**<sup>**2**</sup>|-0.001|-0.001|-0.001|-0.001|-0.001|-0.001|0.0013|0.0013|0.0013|0.0013|0.0013|0.0013|
||(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|
|**Age(11-20)**<sup>**2**</sup>|-0.0027|-0.0027|-0.0027|-0.0027|-0.0027|-0.0027|-0.0017|-0.0017|-0.0017|-0.0017|-0.0017|-0.0017|
||(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.009)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|
|**Age(21-30)**<sup>**2**</sup>|0.0102|0.0102|0.0102|0.0102|0.0102|0.0102|-0.0132|-0.0132|-0.0132|-0.0132|-0.0132|-0.0132|
||(0.021)|(0.021)|(0.021)|(0.021)|(0.021)|(0.021)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|
|**Age(>=31)**<sup>**2**</sup>|0.0079|0.0079|0.0079|0.0079|0.0079|0.0079|-0.0036|-0.0036|-0.0036|-0.0036|-0.0036|-0.0036|
||(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|
|**Global Head.**<sup>**3**</sup>|0.0670**|0.0670**|0.0670**|0.0670**|0.0670**|0.0670**|0.0309*|0.0309*|0.0309*|0.0309*|0.0309*|0.0309*|
||(0.033)|(0.033)|(0.033)|(0.033)|(0.033)|(0.033)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|(0.018)|
|**Foreign aff.**<sup>**3**</sup>|0.0298***|0.0298***|0.0298***|0.0298***|0.0298***|0.0298***|0.0276***|0.0276***|0.0276***|0.0276***|0.0276***|0.0276***|
||(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.010)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|
|**var0308_instock_gdp**<sup>**4**</sup>|0.0199***|0.0166***|0.0167***|0.0165***|0.0157***|0.0182***|0.0062***|0.0032***|0.0039***|0.0091***|0.0037***|0.0012***|
||(0.001)|(0.002)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.002)|(0.001)|(0.002)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.000)|
|**var0308_credit_gdp**|0.0017***|0.0017***|0.0018***|0.0018***|0.00167**|0.0019***|0.0011***|0.0005***|0.0006***|0.0012***|0.0007***|0.0004***|
||(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.001)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|
|**var0308_skills**|0.0123***|0.0128**|0.0139***|0.0164**|0.0118**|0.0146*|0.0139***|0.0121***|0.0133***|0.0106|0.0136***|0.0125***|

12
||(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.000)|(0.001)|(0.002)|(0.001)|(0.000)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**var0308_all_DB**|0.010***<br>(0.000)||||||0.012***<br>(0.002)||||||
|**var0308_Busin_Oper.**||0.0051***||||||0.0095***|||||
|||(0.000)||||||(0.001)|||||
|**var0308_Permit**|||-0.031||||||-0.0341***||||
||||(0.004)||||||(0.004)||||
|**var0308_Tax**||||0.014***||||||0.0206***|||
|||||(0.000)||||||(0.004)|||
|**var0308_Trade**|||||0.006||||||0.0068***||
||||||(0.004)||||||(0.001)||
|**var0308_Empl**||||||0.0039***||||||0.0045***|
|||||||(0.000)||||||(0.001)|
|**_cons**|1.4740***|1.4601***|1.5082***|1.5064***|1.4581***|1.5367***|0.5355***|0.7963***|1.4579***|1.6703***|0.6826***|1.2818***|
||(0.064)|(0.071)|(0.062)|(0.061)|(0.072)|(0.077)|(0.093)|(0.066)|(0.047)|(0.065)|(0.077)|(0.040)|
|**NACE dummies**|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|**Country dummies**|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|**R-squared**|0.2185|0.2185|0.2185|0.2185|0.2185|0.2185|0.2007|0.2007|0.2007|0.2007|0.2007|0.2007|
|**N. obs**|3925|3925|3925|3925|3925|3925|5927|5927|5927|5927|5927|5927|

> ~~1~~ (10-49) is the omitted size category.

2 (1-5) is the omitted age category.

3 Purely domestic is the omitted ownership category.

4 var0308_instock_gdp is related to the stock of inward FDI in the manufacturing industry. var0308_instock_gdp is related to the stock of inward FDI in the services industry. _Note 1_ : The variables for infrastructure and stock of outward FDI were excluded due to multicollinearity.

_Note 2_ : All PCA indices of business regulation (all_DB, DB_business_startup, DB_business_operations, and DB_institutional_environment) were included in the analysis.

However, only all_DB and DB_business_operations were statistically significant. The sub-indicators for DB_business_operations (permit, tax, trade, and employment) are also included in the results above.

Significance: *** 1%, ** 5%, * 10%.

13
The combination of the importance of foreign ownership and the positive effect of inward FDI on productivity growth suggests a prominent role for FDI in the emerging European economies. Indeed, Eastern Europe has received large volumes of FDI since the 2004 EU expansion. Theory and experience indicate that openness to foreign investment helped these economies generate employment, upgrade technology, and improve managerial knowledge to accelerate productivity growth. In this regard, business regulations play an important role in attracting FDI, even after controlling for market size and factor endowments (Wagle, 2010; Demekas et al., 2007).

# **5.2 EU15 Results**

Among the more developed nations of the EU15, firm-level characteristics predominate over country-level variables. The exclusion of country dummies from the regression on manufacturing firms reduces the explanatory power of the model by 19 percent; for the service firms, the model loses 11 percent. Running the regression without firm characteristics reduces its explanatory power by 25 percent in both manufacturing and service (see Appendix VII).

Ownership, size, and age are important correlates of productivity growth in the EU15 region.<sup>40</sup> Global headquarters firms grow more quickly than purely domestic firms: 2.3 percentage points more quickly in manufacturing industries and 2.9 percentage points in service industries. Foreign-owned firms also perform better than their purely domestic counterparts: 1.8 percent better in manufacturing and 2.4 percent in services. Unlike in the EU12, size does matter in the EU15: larger firms realize greater productivity growth. Firms that have between 50 and 500 employees grow more than firms with 10 to 49 employees: 1.5 percent more in manufacturing, and 1.2 percent in services. Older firms in service sectors grow more quickly than the younger firms; in manufacturing, age is not statistically significant.

Country-level variables remain a factor: locating in one country or another can net productivity gains of up to 7 percent for manufacturing firms and 5 percent for services firms. However, country performances differ widely across sectors: Norway realized the greatest productivity growth in services but also the least growth in manufacturing.<sup>41</sup> Table 3 presents the EU15 estimation results for Eq. (1). In manufacturing, productivity gains are correlated with increases in workforce education and stock of outward FDI; in services, these are not significant. Improving business regulations—especially trade, tax, and labor regulations— produces gains in labor productivity growth, both in manufacturing and in services.

> 40 For a second method of evaluating the relative impact of firm-level variables, see Appendix XIII.

> 41 For a discussion of results from Sample 2, see Appendix VIII.2.

14
# **<u>Table 3 Firm-level Productivity Growth and Changes in Country Characteristics in the EU15</u>**

||||**Manufa**|**cturing**||||**S**|**ervices (exce**|**pt constructio**|**n)**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|(9)|(10)|(11)|(12)|
|**Ln(Prod)2003**|-0.0904***|-0.0904***|-0.0904***|-0.0904***|-0.0904***|-0.0895***|-0.0850***|-0.0850***|-0.0850***|-0.0850***|-0.0850***|-0.0850***|
||(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|
|**Size(50-249)**<sup>**1**</sup>|0.0053*|0.0053*|0.0054*|0.0053*|0.0053*|0.0060**|0.0057***|0.0057***|0.0057***|0.0057***|0.0057***|0.0057***|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**Size(250-499)**<sup>**1**</sup>|0.0149*|0.0149*|0.0149*|0.0149*|0.0149*|0.0148*|0.0118*|0.0118*|0.0118*|0.0118*|0.0118*|0.0118*|
||(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.006)|(0.006)|(0.006)|(0.006)|(0.006)|(0.006)|
|**Size(500-999)**<sup>**1**</sup>|-0.0051|-0.0051|-0.0049|-0.005|-0.005|-0.0047|-0.0081|-0.0081|-0.0081|-0.0081|-0.0081|-0.0081|
||(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|(0.008)|
|**Size(1000+)**<sup>**1**</sup>|0.0035|0.0035|0.0036|0.0036|0.0036|0.0036|0.0256*|0.0256*|0.0256*|0.0256*|0.0256*|0.0256*|
||(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.013)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|(0.015)|
|**Age(6-10)**<sup>**2**</sup>|-0.0012|-0.0011|-0.0013|-0.0012|-0.0012|-0.0017|-0.003|-0.003|-0.003|-0.003|-0.003|-0.003|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**Age(11-20)**<sup>**2**</sup>|0.002|0.002|0.002|0.002|0.002|0.0022|0.0016|0.0016|0.0016|0.0016|0.0016|0.0016|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**Age(21-30)**<sup>**2**</sup>|0.0054|0.0054|0.005|0.0053|0.0052|0.003|0.0049**|0.0049**|0.0049**|0.0049**|0.0049**|0.0049**|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**Age(>=31)**<sup>**2**</sup>|0.0053|0.0053|0.0058*|0.0055*|0.0057*|0.0042|0.0065***|0.0065***|0.0065***|0.0065***|0.0065***|0.0065***|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**Global Head.**<sup>**3**</sup>|0.0213***|0.0213***|0.0216***|0.0214***|0.0215***|0.0228***|0.0287***|0.0287***|0.0287***|0.0287***|0.0287***|0.0287***|
||(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.005)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|
|**Foreign aff.**<sup>**3**</sup>|0.0175***|0.0175***|0.0179***|0.0176***|0.0177***|0.0184***|0.0236***|0.0236***|0.0236***|0.0236***|0.0236***|0.0236***|
||(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.004)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|(0.002)|
|**var0308_instock_gdp**<sup>**4**</sup>|-0.0152***|-0.0148***|-0.0196***|-0.0145***|-0.0182***|-0.0213***|-0.0022**|-0.0023**|-0.0023**|-0.0024*|-0.0023**|-0.0022**|
||(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.003)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|
|**var0308_outstock_gdp**<sup>**4**</sup>|0.005***|0.008***|0.007***|0.005***|0.008***|0.0024***|0.003|0.001|0.003|0.003|0.002|0.001|
||(0.001)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.00)|(0.000)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.002)|(0.001)|(0.001)|(0.000)|
|**var0308_credit_gdp**|-0.0004**|-0.0004**|-0.0008**|-0.0005**|-0.0011**|-0.0006**|-0.0005***|-0.0005***|-0.0005***|-0.0005***|-0.0005***|-0.0005***|
||(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|

15
|**var0308_skills**|0.0015***|0.0010***|0.0013***|0.0004*|0.0013***|0.0025***|0.0011|0.0011|0.0010|0.0009|0.0011|0.0008|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|(0.000)|
|**var0308_all_DB**|0.0052***||||||0.003**||||||
||(0.000)||||||(0.000)||||||
|**var0308_Busin. Oper**||0.0041***||||||0.002**|||||
|||(0.000)||||||(0.000)|||||
|**var0308_Permit**|||-0.0163***||||||-0.0024||||
||||(0.002)||||||(0.009)||||
|**var0308_Tax**||||0.0192***||||||0.0129**|||
|||||(0.001)||||||(0.000)|||
|**var0308_Trade**|||||0.0030***||||||0.002**||
||||||(0.000)||||||(0.000)||
|**var0308_Empl**||||||0.0031***||||||0.0029**|
|||||||(0.000)||||||(0.000)|
|**_cons**|1.0152***|1.0143***|1.0137***|1.0149***|1.0134***|0.9790***|0.9571***|0.9570***|0.9566***|0.9569***|0.9567***|0.9576***|
||(0.049)|(0.049)|(0.049)|(0.049)|(0.049)|(0.049)|(0.034)|(0.034)|(0.034)|(0.034)|(0.034)|(0.034)|
|**NACE dummies**|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|**Country dummies**|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|**R-squared**|0.1318|0.1318|0.1327|0.1321|0.1324|0.136|0.1115|0.1115|0.1115|0.1115|0.1115|0.1115|
|**N. obs**|16,800|16,800|16,800|16,800|16,800|16,800|28,360|28,360|28,360|28,360|28,360|28,360|

> ~~1~~ (10-49) is the omitted size category.

2 (1-5) is the omitted age category.

3 Purely domestic is the omitted ownership category.

4 var0308_instock_gdp(var0308_outstock_gdp) is related to the stock of inward (outward) FDI in the manufacturing industry. var0308_instock_gdp(var0308_outstock_gdp) is related to the stock of inward (outward) FDI in the services industry.

_Note 1_ : The variables for infrastructure and stock of outward FDI were excluded due to multicollinearity.

_Note 2_ : All PCA indices of business regulation (all_DB, DB_business_startup, DB_business_operations, and DB_institutional_environment) were included in the analysis.

However, only all_DB and DB_business_operations were statistically significant. The sub-indicators for DB_business_operations (permit, tax, trade, and employment) are also included in the results above.

Significance: *** 1%, ** 5%, * 10%.

16
A one standard deviation increase in the overall business regulation index leads to a 3.4 percent productivity increase for the average manufacturing firm and a 1.7 percent increase for the average service firm. A one standard deviation increase in the tax index correlates to a 3 percent increase in manufacturing and 2 percent in services. A one standard deviation increase of the trade index leads to 3.16 and 2.10 percent increases for manufacturing firms and service firms, respectively. A one standard deviation increase in the employment regulation index raises labor productivity by 1.52 in manufacturing and 1.42 percent in services.<sup>42</sup>

# **5.3 EU15 South**

While the majority of the EU15 countries experienced positive productivity growth from 2003 to 2008, the southernmost countries—Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain—experienced a contraction. Given the results of the previous section on the importance of firm size, foreignaffiliation, and outward FDI for productivity, the answer may lie in their mix of firms.

**Figure 4 Share of Foreign Firms (% of total)  in EU15, 2008**

<!-- Start of picture text --> EU15 North EU15 Continental EU15 South<br>Sweden Finland Norway Belgium France Italy Spain<br>Firm<br>9 5 4 13 6 2 2<br>population<br>Employment 40 14 10 37 26 10 8<br>Value add 33 20 14 57 35 11 12<br>Value add<br>11 8 5 37 16 7 -9<br>growth<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source_ : World Bank staff calculations based on Amadeus.

Amadeus data show that less than 3 percent of Italian and Spanish firms are global headquarters (Figure 4). The distribution of firm size in the EU15 South is skewed towards microenterprises; very small, family-operated firms play a much greater role in the economies of Southern Europe than in the other developed economies of Western Europe. Microenterprises account for roughly one third of all value-added generated in the EU15 South and employ roughly half the workforce. When small and medium enterprises are added to microenterprises, they together employ four out of five workers in Southern Europe. These figures are nearly double those in the rest of Europe, where larger enterprises play a more significant role (Figure 5).

> 42 Results for the second sample are similar in sign and magnitude; See Appendix XI.

17
**Figure 5 Distribution of Firm Population, Employment, and Value-added, 2007**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Firm population Employment Value added<br>million firms millions of individuals billions of 2005 US$<br>2.6 5.6 8.3 3.1 0.7 0.3 23.9 46.7 35.5 15.4 5.9 2.0 1,715 3,099 1,583 332 53 32<br>1% 9% 0%1 % 9% 0%1 5% % 0% 1% 4% 0% 2% 9% 0% 11%2% 0% 43% 38% 20% 31% 29% 22% 45% 43% 28% 43% 41% 27% Large(250+)<br>14%<br>19% 24% 26% 17% 29% Medium<br>18% 23% (50–249)<br>90% 89% 94% 95% 89% 87% 16% 15% 18% 19% 24% 21% 23%<br>23% 27%<br>19% 22% 17% 19% 15% 20% 26% Small(10–49)<br>44%<br>35% 31%<br>22% 23% 24% 24% 20% 19% 21% 16% 17% Micro(1–9)<br>EU15 EU12 EU15 EU12 EU15 EU12<br>North Continental South Continental South North North Continental South Continental South North North Continental South Continental South North<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ World Bank staff calculations based on Eurostat.

The EU15 South also suffers from unfavorable domestic business environments. In comparison to rest of the EU15, the EU15 South rated consistently lower in regulatory indices and in outward FDI (Figure 6). Successful countries in Northern and Continental Europe were able not only to nurture domestic firms that invested abroad, but also to attract foreign firms to invest domestically, as reflected in their FDI stocks. This situation in turn allowed greater access to foreign markets and increased demand (Antras and Helpman, 2004). This finding implies that Southern Europe may realize productivity improvements by loosening restrictive regulatory requirements, encouraging competition, and supporting both outward and inward FDI.

**Figure 6 Policy Variables in the EU15**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Business<br>Operations Skills of Quality of Access to Inward FDI Outward FDI<br>Index workforce infrastructure credit stock stock<br>2012 Percentage with Index by World Credit to private Manufacturing and Manufacturing and<br>tertiary education, Economic Forum, sector, percentage services, services,<br>2009 2008 of GDP, 2008 percentage of percentage of<br>GDP, 2008 GDP, 2008<br>Finland 88 35 6 86 18 32<br>Sweden 84 30 6 127 38 45<br>France 82 29 7 108 28 38<br>Spain 73 32 6 203 25 21<br>Italy 75 16 4 105 7 6<br><!-- End of picture text --> 18
_Source:_ World Bank staff calculations based on _Doing Business_ , World Economic Forum, World Development Indicators, Eurostat.

# **6. Conclusion**

Using a panel of micro-data on firms from 12 EU countries<sup>43</sup> from 2003 to 2008, this paper addresses the confusing proliferation of suggested determinants of productivity growth and seeks to provide clear policy implications. The literature has generated theories attributing growth to country, industry, firm, and even product characteristics. Studies have thus far found support for each of these, but have failed to determine which among the many correlates are most critical for growth. We specify a model incorporating initial conditions, firm age, size, international affiliation, business environment indices, and FDI to assess the relative importance of each in explaining growth in labor productivity. We divide our sample into two groups, New Europe and Old, and obtain results for each.

In the economies of the EU12, country-level variables dominate—the most important of which are the stock of inward FDI, business regulations facilitating foreign investment, and the availability of private credit. The most important firm-level characteristic is international affiliation, either as headquarters of a multinational corporation or as subsidiary of a foreign firm. These results suggest that accession to the EU has been beneficial for new members because the ease with which foreign firms may now penetrate these new markets has facilitated the transfer of technology and the diffusion of best practices. The clear policy implication is that developing countries may realize significant productivity gains by taking the relatively easy steps of improving their regulatory regimes and creating environments attractive to inward FDI before addressing the more costly requirements of improving infrastructure and better educating their workforces.

With the EU15, firm-level characteristics dominate. Among these, the most critical are international affiliation and firm size. The most important country-level factor is outward FDI. Taken together, these results argue strongly for the role played by multinational corporations in driving productivity growth in developed countries. Thus, it is not surprising that firm size contributes to productivity growth in the EU15: as the large amount of FDI shows, firms in Western Europe are transforming themselves into headquarters of multinational corporations, and thus require more personnel to manage their global interests.

However, the success of the EU15 was not shared equally by all member countries. The four southernmost nations of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain suffered productivity losses. Our analysis suggests that the failure of these nations to perform may be attributed to disadvantageous and restrictive regulatory regimes, leading to a relative preponderance of smalland medium-size firms. These factors discourage international participation and sharply limit the EU15 South’s ability to benefit from knowledge transfers from abroad, economies of scale, and production-reallocation efficiencies. However, these states may still achieve gains by reforming their regulatory regimes to encourage the expansion of outward FDI.

The experience of the EU15 South in relation to the rest of the EU15 raises an interesting implication for the EU12. While this paper divides Old and New Europe into two separate regions, implying at some level a fundamental difference, it may be that this difference is not necessarily intrinsic. Indeed, as Demekas et al. (2007) suggest, it may simply be the case that different characteristics matter more at different levels of economic development. The research

> 43 For sample 2 (with firms with at least 50 employees), the sample comprises 17 countries.

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remains to be done to find exactly at what point of development country-level attributes become less important than firm-level characteristics in predicting productivity growth, and how all these factors interact.

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