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Author
Weber, S. F. | Lippiatt, B. C.
Title
Productivity Measurement for the Construction Industry. Final report.
Coporate
National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC
Report
NBS TN 1172, February 1983, 42 p.
Distribution
Available from National Technical Information Service
Keywords
productivity | construction industry
Abstract
The fundamental concept underlying all productivity measures is a comparison of the output of a production process, an enterprise, an industry, or an economy with the corresponding factors of production (inputs) required to generate that output. Productivity measures are formulated as a ratio of output to one or more of the inputs. This report evaluates alternative productivity measures and concludes that the comprehensive Total Factor Productivity (TFP) method is preferred to the Single Factor Productivity method. To combine the multiple components in the denominator of a TFP index, a weighting system based on relative factor cost shares is recommended. A measurable index of the instantaneous rate of change in TFP between two time periods is derived from a general production function. The report also investigates the specific data requirements for implementing this TFP measure in the construction industry. An annotated bibliography is included.