Costs and Productivity in Automobile Production : The Challenge of Japanese Efficiency (Paperback)

Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. International differences in output, productivity and wages in the automobile industry: the 1950s to the mid-1980s; 3. The cost-function approach to the analysis of cost and total factor productivity differences; 4. Data base sources and method of construction; 5. Empirical results: estimation of the cost function; 6. Productivity growth in the automobile industry, 1970?84: a comparison of the United States, Japan, Germany and Canada; 7. International comparisons of automobile industry cost and productivity levels: Japan, Germany and the United States; 8. International comparisons of automobile industry cost and productivity levels: Canadian with US, Japanese and German production; 9. Summary and conclusions; References; Index.