Total factor productivity growth and the spillover hypothesis: an empirical analysis for the Italian manufacturing using non parametric frontiers, 1989-1994

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new test of the spillover hypothesis of the endogenous growth literature and to apply it to a panel of firms from the Italian manufacturing over the period 1989- 1994. I depart from previous literature into two respects: first, I measure total factor productivity growth by the Malmquist index com- puted with Data Envelopment Analysis; second, I use as a measure of the knowledge spillover the actual technical change registered by firms with a high proportion of R&D expenditure and I test whether it can explain the total factor productivity change of firms with a low proportion R&D spending where productivity change is measured by DEA.