What Determines Productivity?
Abstract
Economists have shown that large and persistent differences in productivity levels across businesses are ubiquitous. This finding has shaped research agendas in a number of fields, including (but not limited to) macroeconomics, industrial organization, labor, and trade. This paper surveys and evaluates recent empirical work addressing the question of why businesses differ in their measured productivity levels. The causes are manifold, and differ depending on the particular setting. They include elements sourced in production practices—and therefore over which producers have some direct control, at least in theory—as well as from producers' external operating environments. After evaluating the current state of knowledge, I lay out what I see are the major questions that research in the area should address going forward. (JEL D24, G31, L11, M10, O30, O47)
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There is substantial variation in worker productivity in customer support.
“yet as in many industries, there is substantial variation in worker productivity (Berg et al., 2018;Syverson, 2011).”
From Generative AI at Work (2023) · cites this paper as Syverson, 2011
Cites
Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries
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Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment *
Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qju032 · Cited by 1,991 · see citing works
Does Management Matter? Evidence from India *
Bloom, N., Eifert, B., Mahajan, A., McKenzie, D., & Roberts, J. (2013) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjs044 · Cited by 1,418 · see citing works
Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D., & Raymond, L. (2023) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w31161 · Cited by 995 · see citing works
Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D., & Raymond, L. (2025) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjae044 · Cited by 1,083 · see citing works
What Drives Differences in Management Practices?
Bloom, N., Brynjolfsson, E., Foster, L., Jarmin, R., Patnaik, M., Saporta-Eksten, I., & Van Reenen, J. (2019) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20170491 · Cited by 502 · see citing works
Teacher Effects and Teacher-Related Policies
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Innovation, competition and productivity: Firm‐level evidence for Eastern Europe and Central Asia
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The international empirics of management.
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Untitled work
Patterns, I. (2026) · Industrial Patterns
- Authors
- Syverson, C.
- Affiliations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Syverson, Chad
- ORCID
- Syverson, Chad
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Literature
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2011-06-01
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 326-365
- ISSN
- 0022-0515 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2162455264
- Cited by
- 2,942
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 249 · 2025: 224 · 2024: 185 · 2023: 203 · 2022: 178 · 2021: 242 · 2020: 204 · 2019: 222 · 2018: 194 · 2017: 181 · 2016: 191 · 2015: 171 · 2014: 176 · 2013: 130 · 2012: 107
- FWCI
- 351.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Economic Literature (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Firm Innovation and Growth
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Global trade and economics
- Keywords
- firm productivity, productivity dispersion, determinants of productivity, production practice, firm performance, productivity measurement
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