Driving Factors of Total Factor Productivity in Iranian Manufacturing Industries

The aim of this paper is decomposition of total factor productivity (TFP) growth to four factors technological progress, technical efficiency, allocative efficiency, scale effects in 21 manufacturing industries, using a panel data technique, during 2000-2011.Findings show that the production elasticity related to labor and capital is o.57 and 0.13, respectively and economy of scale is less than unit. Also, results indicate that productivity growth is positive only in 8 industries that include electronics, communications, paper, medical and optical industries. The decomposition reveals that, TP has been the main driving force of productivity growth- especially in chemical, non-metal mineral, primary metal, motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers- while negative efficiency changes, allocative efficiency and scales effects observed in certain industries have contributed to reduce average productivity growth.