Firm and regional factors of productivity: a multilevel analysis of Tunisian manufacturing

In this paper, we use multilevel models to simultaneously analyze individual, sectoral and regional characteristics that might affect the total factor productivity of Tunisian manufacturing firms for the period 1998-2004. Our results show that the individual characteristics of the firm have an important effect on both total factor productivity and labor productivity. We find that the oldest small firms are more productive than larger firms. Regional context has a significant direct impact on firms' performance. More specifically, industrial density has a positive influence on total factor productivity. Our results show also that interaction effects or indirect effects are mostly driven by sectoral characteristics. The intra-industrial wage disparities are beneficial only for firms with higher human capital and R&D. The interaction effects also show that larger and older firms will benefit more from industrial agglomeration. We conclude that multilevel models better fit our research questions that combine firm and contextual characteristics simultaneously, because they allow firm-specific characteristics to be differently associated to their regional and sectoral contexts.