ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, many developing countries including Bangladesh embarked on trade and industrial policy reforms, following the structural adjustment policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These policy reforms have been widely discussed in the development economics literature but their impact on the productive performance of an economy is still inconclusive. This chapter provides an empirical analysis of the productive performance of manufacturing firms of three key industry groups before, during and after economic reforms in Bangladesh. It identifies a number of firm-specific and policy related factors which influenced capacity realization and contributed to differentials in realization rates across firms. Total factor productivity growth as a source of sustained economic growth has become major issue on the analysis of economic performances in developing countries in the context of market-oriented economic reforms and globalization. Policy reforms adopted in Bangladesh are partial or half-hearted, and remain at the implementation stage.
