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The Icelandic Economy: A Victim of the Financial Crisis or Simply Inefficient?

Author

Listed:
  • Dong-hyun Oh
  • Hans Loof
  • Almas Heshmati

    (Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program (TEMEP); Seoul National University)

Abstract
Iceland, one of the smallest European economies, was hit severely by the 2008-financial crisis. This paper uses a firm-level Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data set to consider the economy in the period preceding the collapse of its financial system. We examine the linkage between the crisis and innovativeness from the perspective of technical efficiency by means of the Data Envelopment Analysis of 204 randomly selected firms. The results suggest that a substantial fraction of the Icelandic firms can be classified as non-efficient in their production process. The production scale of many manufacturing firms is too small to be considered technically efficient, while services firms typically use excessive resources in their production process. A remarkably weak performance in transforming R&D and labor efforts into successful innovations is observed. Based on the empirical results, suitable policy implications are suggested to remedy the inoptimal production structure and help economic recovery.

Suggested Citation

  • Dong-hyun Oh & Hans Loof & Almas Heshmati, 2009. "The Icelandic Economy: A Victim of the Financial Crisis or Simply Inefficient?," TEMEP Discussion Papers 200916, Seoul National University; Technology Management, Economics, and Policy Program (TEMEP), revised Sep 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:snv:dp2009:200916
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Technical efficiency; R&D; innovation; productivity; manufacturing; services; Iceland.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C67 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Input-Output Models
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D57 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Input-Output Tables and Analysis
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • L80 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - General

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