Avaliação do crescimento da produtividade e progresso tecnológico dos estados do Nordeste com o uso da fronteira de produção estocástica

Abstract

Analyzing the productivity growth of Northeast states in the period 1977/95 is the main concern of this paper. Stochastic production frontier provides the theoretical background to generate the Malmquistís index, which can be decomposed into two components of measurements: technological and efficiency variations. From the stochastic frontier model it was estimated that the technical efficiency of states increases with state government expenditures. The Malmquistís index indicated that, on the average, total productivity growth of every state is much more dependent upon technological variation than upon efficiency variation. The estimates also point out that no state is productive enough to shift the regional productivity frontier upward.