The paper looks at the effects of employment concentration on resource allocation with a particular focus on one-company towns in Russia: towns where a single company accounts for a significant share of total employment. Empirical analysis of firms’ production functions indicates that firms located in one-company towns are characterised by lower labour productivity, higher marginal capital prod...

We ask how export demand shocks associated with the Asian financial crisis affected Chinese exporters. We construct firm-specific exchange rate shocks based on the precrisis destinations of firms’ exports. Because the shocks were unanticipated and large, they are a plausible instrument for identifying the impact of exporting on firm productivity and other outcomes. We find that firms whose expo...

— Despite a dramatic rise in the instances of anti-dumping (AD) duties, their impact on the targeted firms is not clear. Using detailed firm level data we find robust evidence that the US AD duty led to over 12 (or five) percent decrease in labor productivity (or TFP) of targeted Chinese firms. We also find that firms with high initial export intensity experience both a higher decrease in expor...

What do we know about the relationship between innovation and productivity among firms? The workhorse model of this relationship is presented and the implications of analysis using this model and the usually available data on product and process innovation are derived. The recent empirical evidence on the relationship between innovation and productivity in firms is then surveyed. The conclusion...

We study the optimal combination of corporate tax rate and tax base in a model of a small open economy with heterogeneous firms. We show that it is optimal for the small country’s government to effectively subsidize capital inputs by granting a tax allowance in excess of the true costs of capital. Economic integration reduces the optimal capital subsidy and drives low-productivity firms from th...

We study the optimal combination of corporate tax rate and tax base in a model of a small open economy with heterogeneous firms. We show that it is optimal for the small country’s government to effectively subsidize capital inputs by granting a tax allowance in excess of the true costs of capital. Economic integration reduces the optimal capital subsidy and drives low-productivity firms from th...

Using data on a large sample of electronics firms in seven large states from a newly developed employer-employee matched database (Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics, LEHD), we examine the impact of human resource management (HRM) practices and technology on worker productivity. Motivated by extensive site visit research in the semiconductor industry in which we observe the interaction of...

How do different exporters react to exchange rate changes? Theory, empirics and aggregate implications This paper analyzes the reaction of exporters to exchange rate changes. We present a model where, in the presence of distribution costs in the export market, high and low productivity firms react differently to a depreciation . Whereas high productivity firms optimally raise their markup rathe...

W present evidence on components of productivity change in the public accounting industry toward the end of the 20th century. Using revenue and human resource data from 64 of the 100 largest public accounting firms in the United States for the 1995–1999 period, we analyze productivity change, technical progress, and relative efficiency change over time. The average public accounting firm experi...

This paper presents new microeconomic evidence on the link between financial sector development, financial globalization and productivity. Using data of Mexican manufacturing firms operating in 1991, 1998 and 2000 it is found that in general, larger firms benefit from FDI in their same region of activity. However, domestic firms only enjoy productivity increases from FDI if they are relatively ...