Human capital attainment among workers plays an important role in determining firm’s output and labor productivity, hence enhances firm’s competitiveness. More educated workers are believed to be more efficient and productive, reduce cost of production and raise the capability of firms to compete especially in the global market.. The intention of the Malaysian government to create the Bumiputer...

In this paper, we study how the interplay between technology shocks and financial variables shapes the dynamics of economies characterized by heterogeneous agents. Most of standard economic literature has centered the analysis of decentralized economies on the representative agent hypothesis (REH), often treating short-run and long-run phenomena with distinct sets of models. However the recent ...

This paper examines (i) the relationship between the credit constraints faced by a firm and the unit value prices of its exports, as well as (ii) the relationship between the export prices of a firm and its productivity. The paper extends Melitz’s (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms by introducing endogenous quality, credit constraints and marketing costs. There are three key finding...

This paper examines the importance of learning-by-doing that is specific not just to individual firms, but to pairs of firms working together in a contracting relationship. Using new, detailed data from the oil and gas industry, I find that the joint productivity of an oil production company and its drilling contractor is enhanced significantly as they accumulate experience working together. Th...

Cross-country studies associate financial liberalization with increases in aggregate productivity. This paper argues that this finding can be mainly attributed to reductions in distortions in capital markets that promote competition and encourage firms’ investments in technology. I first develop a simple small open economy model in which capital controls distort access to international borrowin...

Age and Gender Composition of the Workforce, Productivity and Profits: Evidence from a New Type of Data for German Enterprises This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm’s workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germ...

This paper extends the literature on trade liberalization and firm productivity by examining the complementarities between the speed of contract enforcement and the productivity gains from input tariff liberalization. It does so by using firm-level panel data from India along with objective measures of judicial efficiency at the state level. Consistent with the main proposition derived from a s...

Immigration and Labor Productivity: New Empirical Evidence for Spain The purpose of this paper of this paper is to explore the immigration and productivity in Spain. We estimate the effect of immigration on labor productivity from 2004 until 2008 for Spain. Using firms (SABI) and individuals data (Social Security Records) we calculate the effect by sector and municipality for the two big Spanis...

a r t i c l e i n f o This paper presents a theoretical model of firm-specific productivity growth that incorporates technological knowledge by electrification and tests the model empirically. Our theoretical explanations suggest that the energy-transformation from fossil fuel to electricity by electrification could cause a decrease in the short-term level of productivity but an increase in the...