Convergence to the Managerial Frontier

Maloney, William F. ; Sarrias, Mauricio

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS;    BENCHMARK;    COLLEGE GRADUATES;    COMPANY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6822
RP-ID  :  WPS6822

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using detailed survey data on managementpractices, this paper uses recent advances in unconditionalquantile analysis to study the changes in the within countrydistribution of management quality associated with countryconvergence to the managerial frontier. It then decomposesthe contribution of potential explanatory factors to thedistributional changes. The United States emerges as thefrontier country, not because of better management onaverage, but because its best firms are far better thanthose of its close competitors. Part of the process ofconvergence to the frontier across the development processrepresents a trimming of the left tail, much is movement ofthe central mass and, for rich countries, it is actually thebest firms that lag the frontier benchmark. Amongpotential explanatory variables that may drive convergence,ownership and human capital appear critical, the formerespecially for poorer countries and that latter for richercountries suggesting that the mechanics of convergencechange across the process. These variables lose theirexplanatory power as firm and average country managementquality rises.Hence, once in the advanced country range,the factors that improve management quality are less easy todocument and hence influence.