Productivity change and its determinants: Application of the Malmquist index with bootstrapping in Iranian steam power plants

In this paper, the bootstrapping Malmquist index is used to derive the productivity levels of Iranian steam power plants for the period of 2007–2012. The research shows that the average level of productivity has significantly decreased. It was also indicated that technological changes have had more effects on productivity than efficiency changes. To study the influence of various explanatory factors, the truncated regression method was used. The results show that factors such as liberalization of energy carrier prices, the ratio of the number of technicians to the total number of staff, and the age of power plants affect levels of productivity.