Includes bibliographical references (p. 359-378) and indexes.

1. Introduction -- Management, accounting, economics, and the business press -- Productivity and financial performance -- Productivity drivers, dispersion, and persistence -- Distribution of the fruits of productivity growth -- The intellectual influence of Hiram S. Davis and John W. Kendrick -- Some useful technical material -- The organization of the book -- Some useful sources of data and other relevant information -- Part I: Productivity and profitability -- 2. Profitability change: Its generation and distribution -- Introduction -- Early recognition of profitability as a performace indicator -- Theoretical decomposition of profitability change -- Empirical decomposition of profitability change -- Empirical estimation of theoretical indexes -- Combining approximation to and estimation of theoretical indexes -- Distribution of the financial impacts of productivity change -- Additional productivity indexes -- A dual productivity index -- Exchange rate movements -- 3. Decomposing the productivity change and price recovery change components of profitability change -- Introduction -- Pairing empirical productivity and price recovery indexes -- Pairing theoretical productivity and price recovery indexes -- Pairing a theoretical index with an empirical index -- Conclusions on ration models of profitability change -- Part II: Productivity and profit -- 4. Profit change: Its generation and distribution -- Introduction -- Early recognition of profit as a performance indicator -- Empirical decomposition of profit change -- Distribution of the financial impacts of quantity change -- A numerical illustration -- 5. Decomposing the quantity change and price change components of profit change -- Introduction -- Empirical indicators of quantity change and price change -- The analytical framework -- Incorporating investor input into the analytical framework -- A family of dual productivity indicators -- A numerical illustration -- 6. Decomposing the productivity change component of profit change -- Introduction -- Decomposing productivity change with investor input incorporated -- Decomposing productivity change without investor input: A margin effect approach -- Decomposing productivity change without investor input: An activity effect approach -- Relating the margin effect approach and the activity effect approach -- Conclusions on difference models of profit change -- Part III: Productivity, cost, and return on assets -- 7. Productivity and cost -- Introduction -- Variance analysis -- A cost frontier: A Konüs framework -- A cost frontier: A Bennet framework -- A unit cost frontier -- Unit cost change, total factor productivity, and partial factor productivities -- A unit labor cost frontier -- Summary and conclusions -- 8. Productivity, capacity utilization, and return on assets -- Introduction -- Decompositions of return on assets -- The duPont triangle -- The European productivity agency pyramids -- The pyramids of Gold, Eilon, and their associates -- Remaining challenges -- Incorporating capacity utilization into a duPont triangle -- Capacity utilization at duPont and General Motors -- Output-oriented capacity utilization measures -- Input-oriented capacity utilization measures -- Incorporating capacity utilization into a duPont triangle -- Drivers of change in return on assets in a duPont triangle framework -- The theoretical CCD Malmquist productivity index strategy -- The empirical index number strategy -- Summary and conclusions.

Productivity Accounting offers in-depth analysis of variation in business performance, providing an analytical framework which accounts for causes and consequences.