In labor markets with worker and firm heterogeneity, the matching between firms and workers may be assortative, meaning that the most productive workers and firms team up. We investigate this with longitudinal population-wide matched employer-employee data from Portugal. Using dynamic panel data methods, we quantify a firm-specific productivity term for each firm, and we relate this to the skil...

We present a new DEA based method to analyze efficiency trends over time and differences across subgroups in a panel data setting. We employ a result that the aggregate technical and allocative inefficiency score equals the technical inefficiency when input quantities are aggregated into a single total input cost variable, and develop test procedures to evaluate the presence of allocative ineff...

This study estimates the change in productivity of Chinese state enterprises during 1983–87 using a panel data set of 403 firms. A new approach to productivity measurement is used. Under this approach, the production functions can differ arbitrarily across firms, important given the heterogeneity of the sample. The resulting coefficients estimate the marginal products of each factor as well as ...

D political connections buffer firms from or bind firms to the government? To examine this theoretical puzzle, we distinguish two types of managerial political connections, ascribed and achieved, and theorize that these different types of ties either buffer firms from or bind firms to government demands. Furthermore, we propose that these effects are contingent on both industrial and regional i...

Median voter theory applied to trade policy predicts positive tariffs in capital-abundant countries and negative tariffs in labor-abundant countries. Negative tariffs are rare, and this paper reconciles the median voter theory with observed protectionism across countries. By considering large countries, I show the optimal tariff is a sum of the median voter component and a positive in terms of ...

By using nonparametric and panel data econometrics, this paper re-assesses the effect of both the current level of economic activity and of future expected demand on the dynamics of the price mark-up over marginal cost in US manufacturing industries from 1958 to 1996. Consistently with previous results, the current level of economic activity has a negative impact on the mark-up and expectations...

1 This paper investigates the relationship between the growth of road net2 works and regional development. We test for mutual causality between the 3 growth of road networks (which are divided functionally into local roads and 4 highways) and changes in county-level population and employment. We 5 employ a panel data set containing observations of road mileage by type 6 for all Minnesota counti...

An important question for the development of the East German labour market in the transition to a market economy is whether wage differentials by qualification, industry or region which were relatively small in the former GDR adjust to those in market economies which are more in line with differences in productivities and economic conditions. We estimate empirical earnings functions to quantify...

This study investigates the firm-specific factors affecting the profitability of non-life insurance companies operating in Turkey. For this purpose, data of 24 non-life insurance companies operating in Turkey from the period 2006–2013 were brought together to obtain 192 observed panel data sets. In this study, profitability is measured by two different variables: technical profitability ratio a...