Productivity differences in Hungary and mechanisms of TFP growth slowdown. Competitiveness Report

Slow post-crisis total factor productivity growth is a significant policy challenge for many European countries in general and for Hungary in particular. This report aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of the processes behind productivity growth slowdown in Hungary based on micro data from administrative sources between 2001 and 2016. In particular, the report aims to contribute to four ongoing debates: First, it attempts to document the productivity growth slowdown in detail to uncover potential sources of heterogeneity. The second overarching question, related to frontier and non-frontier firms, is the idea of the so-called duality in Hungary. The concept of duality emphasises the large differences in terms of productivity and wages between globally oriented, often foreign-owned, large firms and the rest of the economy. Duality also refers to the lack of interconnectedness between these two groups of firms, in terms of supplier-buyer linkages and worker flows, which limits positive intergroup spillovers. The third group of questions relates to how efficiently resources are allocated across firms. Similarly to other countries, within-industry productivity differences are at least a magnitude larger than between-industry differences. This implies that the efficiency of the allocation of resources within an industry (i.e., whether more productive firms have access to more labour and capital) matters much for aggregate productivity. Finally, the report is interested in the extent to which sectors and industries differ in terms of productivity and firm dynamics.