Emir Malikov (Economics), together with Jingfang Zhang of Auburn University, Shunan Zhao of Oakland University and Subal Kumbhakar of Binghamton University, coauthored an article, "Accounting for Cross-Location Technological Heterogeneity in the Measurement of Operations Efficiency and Productivity," that has been accepted at the Journal of Operations Management.
Motivated by the long-standing interest in understanding the role of location for firm performance, the authors develop a novel methodology to accommodate cross-location heterogeneity in production analysis. Using it, they study China’s chemicals manufacturing industry and find that differences in technology (as opposed to in idiosyncratic firm heterogeneity) are the main source of the spatial differential in total productivity in this industry.
