We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in ex... more We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in exporting and productivity. Our model extends basic Ricardian theory to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect competition. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United States and its 46 major trade partners, we see how well it can explain basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) productivity dispersion, (ii) the productivity advantage of exporters, (iii) the small fraction who export, (iv) the small fraction of revenues from exporting among those that do, and (v) the much larger size of exporters. We pick up all these basic qualitative features, and go quite far in matching them quantitatively. We examine counterfactuals to assess the impact of various global shifts on productivity, plant entry and exit, and labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing.
Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant region... more Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill premia produce different sets of manufacturing industries than regions with high skill premia. Relative wages are also linked to subsequent economic development: over time, increases in the employment share of skill-intensive industries are greater in regions with lower initial skill premia. Both results suggest firms adjust production across and within regions in response to relative wage differences.
model,that abstracts from serial correlation in consumer,tastes and productivity. Though this set... more model,that abstracts from serial correlation in consumer,tastes and productivity. Though this setup does not give rise to scale and age dependence in product dropping, it neverthe- less provides insight into many,of the other features of product,switching found in the more general model and observed in our census data. Section E characterizes the model’s implica- tions for revenue and quantity-based measures,of productivity. Section F reports additional empirical results. An appendix,at the end of this document,contains technical derivations and the proofs of propositions. B,Dynamic,Firm-Product,Selection Model In this section, we develop in further detail the model of multi-product …rms and product
Theory suggests that market forces should bring the relative pay of skilled workers into line in ... more Theory suggests that market forces should bring the relative pay of skilled workers into line in different regions within a country. Andrew Bernard, Stephen Redding, Peter Schott and Helen Simpson show that this is not the case for the UK and argue that regional industrial policy needs to take this into account.
This working paper deals with the question how international trade can lead to economic growth. S... more This working paper deals with the question how international trade can lead to economic growth. Since only technical progress can lead to sustained economic growth international trade has to accelerate the rate of technical progress to promote economic growth. Technical progress is mainly generated by the production and the use of ideas. It can be shown that international trade fosters the production of ideas in industrialised countries and that it enables the use of ideas in developing countries. Therefore international trade can promote growth at least in the short run. This is demonstrated via theoretical models and empirical evidence as well as a separate empirical analysis concerning the variety of imported capital goods.
This paper is about how firms choose products. Product changes are frequent events at US manufact... more This paper is about how firms choose products. Product changes are frequent events at US manufacturing plants. Over two thirds of surviving plants add and/or drop at least one product every five years. We develop a theoretical model that integrates endogenous product choice into a dynamic analysis of industry evolution with entry and exit and heterogeneous firms. In equilibrium, firm productivity is correlated with product-level fixedcosts,withthemostproductive firms endogenously choosing to make the products with the highest fixed costs. Changes in market structure result in systematic patterns of firm entry/exit and product switching.
This Paper presents a model of international trade that features heterogeneous firms, relative en... more This Paper presents a model of international trade that features heterogeneous firms, relative endowment differences across countries, and consumer taste for variety. The Paper demonstrates that firm reactions to trade liberalization generate endogenous Ricardian productivity responses at the industry level that magnify countries’ comparative advantage. Focusing on the wide range of firm-level reactions to falling trade costs, the model also shows that, as trade costs fall, firms in comparative advantage industries are more likely to export, that relative firm size and the relative number of firms increases more in comparative advantage industries and that job turnover is higher in comparative advantage industries than in comparative disadvantage industries.
This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its f... more This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its fair share of Olympic medals? Why does China win 6% of the medals even though it has 1/5 of the world's population? We consider the role of population and economic development in determining medal totals from 1960-1996. We also provide out of sample predictions for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. * 100 Tuck Hall, Hanover, NH 03755,
This paper examines how prices set by multinational firms vary across arm's-length and relate... more This paper examines how prices set by multinational firms vary across arm's-length and related-party customers. Comparing prices within firms, products, destination countries, modes of transport and month, we find that the prices U.S. exporters set for their arm's-length customers are substantially larger than the prices recorded for related-parties. This price wedge is smaller for commodities than for differentiated goods, is
Do New York and Nashville face the same pressures from increased trade? This paper considers the ... more Do New York and Nashville face the same pressures from increased trade? This paper considers the role of international trade in shaping the product mix and relative wages for regions within the US. Using the predictions from a Heckscher-Ohlin trade model, we ask whether all the regions in the US face the same relative factor prices. Using the production side
ABSTRACT This paper explores role of multi-product plants and product switching in the Japanese m... more ABSTRACT This paper explores role of multi-product plants and product switching in the Japanese manufacturing sector. While a substantial body of work has explored the importance of the extensive margins of plant entry and exit in employment and output flows, only recently has research begun to examine the adjustment across products within establishments and its importance for plant and aggregate output and employment flows. Using a novel, annual plant-product data set covering all Japanese manufacturing plants with more than 4 employees from 1992 to 2006, we provide the first evidence on the role of multi-product plants in Japanese manufacturing and how the product mix and the plant mix have changed over time. Unlike previous studies we are able to track annual changes in the product mix. The period covers a major decline in manufacturing activity and we show that the mix of products and output shifted strongly towards larger multi-product plants that are part of multi-establishment manufacturing firms.
This paper derives consistent standard errors for a panel Tobit model in the presence of correlat... more This paper derives consistent standard errors for a panel Tobit model in the presence of correlated errors. The problem is framed in the context of , considering the Tobit model as a special case of a GMM estimator.
Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant region... more Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill premia produce different sets of manufacturing industries than regions with high skill premia. Relative wages are also linked to subsequent economic development: over time, increases in the employment share of skill-intensive industries are greater in regions with lower initial skill premia. Both results suggest firms adjust production across and within regions in response to relative wage differences.
This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavio... more This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavior during trade liberalization. Firm productivity in a given product is modeled as a combination of firm-level “ability” and firmproduct-level “expertise”, both of which are stochastic and unknown prior to the firm’s payment of a sunk cost of entry. Higher firm-level ability raises a firm’s productivity across all products, which induces a positive correlation between a firm’s intensive (output per product) and extensive (number of products) margins. Trade liberalization fosters productivity growth within and across firms and in aggregate by inducing firms to shed marginally productive products and forcing the lowest-productivity firms to exit. Though exporters produce a smaller range of products after liberalization, they increase the share of products sold abroad as well as exports per product. All of these adjustments are shown to be relatively more pronounced in countries’ comparative...
This paper examines the decision to enter the export market by German firms. While exports have p... more This paper examines the decision to enter the export market by German firms. While exports have played an important role in recent German business cycle movements, little is known about the export supply response of German firms. This paper presents a dynamic model of the export decision by a profit-maximizing firm. Using a panel of German manufacturing plants, we test
Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and ... more Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and one in December, will report dramatically different annual sales for the first calendar year of operations. This partial year effect in annual data leads to downward biased observations of the level of activity upon entry and upward biased growth rates between the year of entry and the following year. This paper examines the implications of partial year effects using Peruvian export data. The partial year bias is very large: the average level of first-year exports of new exporters is understated by 65 percent and the average growth rate between the first and second year of exporting is overstated by 112 percentage points. This paper re-examines a number of stylized facts about firm size and growth that have motivated rapidly expanding theoretical and empirical literatures on firm export dynamics. Correcting the partial year effect eliminates unusually high growth rates in the first year ...
We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in ex... more We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in exporting and productivity. Our model extends basic Ricardian theory to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect competition. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United States and its 46 major trade partners, we see how well it can explain basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) productivity dispersion, (ii) the productivity advantage of exporters, (iii) the small fraction who export, (iv) the small fraction of revenues from exporting among those that do, and (v) the much larger size of exporters. We pick up all these basic qualitative features, and go quite far in matching them quantitatively. We examine counterfactuals to assess the impact of various global shifts on productivity, plant entry and exit, and labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing.
Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant region... more Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill premia produce different sets of manufacturing industries than regions with high skill premia. Relative wages are also linked to subsequent economic development: over time, increases in the employment share of skill-intensive industries are greater in regions with lower initial skill premia. Both results suggest firms adjust production across and within regions in response to relative wage differences.
model,that abstracts from serial correlation in consumer,tastes and productivity. Though this set... more model,that abstracts from serial correlation in consumer,tastes and productivity. Though this setup does not give rise to scale and age dependence in product dropping, it neverthe- less provides insight into many,of the other features of product,switching found in the more general model and observed in our census data. Section E characterizes the model’s implica- tions for revenue and quantity-based measures,of productivity. Section F reports additional empirical results. An appendix,at the end of this document,contains technical derivations and the proofs of propositions. B,Dynamic,Firm-Product,Selection Model In this section, we develop in further detail the model of multi-product …rms and product
Theory suggests that market forces should bring the relative pay of skilled workers into line in ... more Theory suggests that market forces should bring the relative pay of skilled workers into line in different regions within a country. Andrew Bernard, Stephen Redding, Peter Schott and Helen Simpson show that this is not the case for the UK and argue that regional industrial policy needs to take this into account.
This working paper deals with the question how international trade can lead to economic growth. S... more This working paper deals with the question how international trade can lead to economic growth. Since only technical progress can lead to sustained economic growth international trade has to accelerate the rate of technical progress to promote economic growth. Technical progress is mainly generated by the production and the use of ideas. It can be shown that international trade fosters the production of ideas in industrialised countries and that it enables the use of ideas in developing countries. Therefore international trade can promote growth at least in the short run. This is demonstrated via theoretical models and empirical evidence as well as a separate empirical analysis concerning the variety of imported capital goods.
This paper is about how firms choose products. Product changes are frequent events at US manufact... more This paper is about how firms choose products. Product changes are frequent events at US manufacturing plants. Over two thirds of surviving plants add and/or drop at least one product every five years. We develop a theoretical model that integrates endogenous product choice into a dynamic analysis of industry evolution with entry and exit and heterogeneous firms. In equilibrium, firm productivity is correlated with product-level fixedcosts,withthemostproductive firms endogenously choosing to make the products with the highest fixed costs. Changes in market structure result in systematic patterns of firm entry/exit and product switching.
This Paper presents a model of international trade that features heterogeneous firms, relative en... more This Paper presents a model of international trade that features heterogeneous firms, relative endowment differences across countries, and consumer taste for variety. The Paper demonstrates that firm reactions to trade liberalization generate endogenous Ricardian productivity responses at the industry level that magnify countries’ comparative advantage. Focusing on the wide range of firm-level reactions to falling trade costs, the model also shows that, as trade costs fall, firms in comparative advantage industries are more likely to export, that relative firm size and the relative number of firms increases more in comparative advantage industries and that job turnover is higher in comparative advantage industries than in comparative disadvantage industries.
This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its f... more This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its fair share of Olympic medals? Why does China win 6% of the medals even though it has 1/5 of the world's population? We consider the role of population and economic development in determining medal totals from 1960-1996. We also provide out of sample predictions for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. * 100 Tuck Hall, Hanover, NH 03755,
This paper examines how prices set by multinational firms vary across arm's-length and relate... more This paper examines how prices set by multinational firms vary across arm's-length and related-party customers. Comparing prices within firms, products, destination countries, modes of transport and month, we find that the prices U.S. exporters set for their arm's-length customers are substantially larger than the prices recorded for related-parties. This price wedge is smaller for commodities than for differentiated goods, is
Do New York and Nashville face the same pressures from increased trade? This paper considers the ... more Do New York and Nashville face the same pressures from increased trade? This paper considers the role of international trade in shaping the product mix and relative wages for regions within the US. Using the predictions from a Heckscher-Ohlin trade model, we ask whether all the regions in the US face the same relative factor prices. Using the production side
ABSTRACT This paper explores role of multi-product plants and product switching in the Japanese m... more ABSTRACT This paper explores role of multi-product plants and product switching in the Japanese manufacturing sector. While a substantial body of work has explored the importance of the extensive margins of plant entry and exit in employment and output flows, only recently has research begun to examine the adjustment across products within establishments and its importance for plant and aggregate output and employment flows. Using a novel, annual plant-product data set covering all Japanese manufacturing plants with more than 4 employees from 1992 to 2006, we provide the first evidence on the role of multi-product plants in Japanese manufacturing and how the product mix and the plant mix have changed over time. Unlike previous studies we are able to track annual changes in the product mix. The period covers a major decline in manufacturing activity and we show that the mix of products and output shifted strongly towards larger multi-product plants that are part of multi-establishment manufacturing firms.
This paper derives consistent standard errors for a panel Tobit model in the presence of correlat... more This paper derives consistent standard errors for a panel Tobit model in the presence of correlated errors. The problem is framed in the context of , considering the Tobit model as a special case of a GMM estimator.
Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant region... more Relative wages vary considerably across regions of the United Kingdom, with skill-abundant regions exhibiting lower skill premia than skill-scarce regions. This paper shows that the location of economic activity is correlated with the variation in relative wages. U.K. regions with low skill premia produce different sets of manufacturing industries than regions with high skill premia. Relative wages are also linked to subsequent economic development: over time, increases in the employment share of skill-intensive industries are greater in regions with lower initial skill premia. Both results suggest firms adjust production across and within regions in response to relative wage differences.
This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavio... more This paper develops a general equilibrium model of multi-product firms and analyzes their behavior during trade liberalization. Firm productivity in a given product is modeled as a combination of firm-level “ability” and firmproduct-level “expertise”, both of which are stochastic and unknown prior to the firm’s payment of a sunk cost of entry. Higher firm-level ability raises a firm’s productivity across all products, which induces a positive correlation between a firm’s intensive (output per product) and extensive (number of products) margins. Trade liberalization fosters productivity growth within and across firms and in aggregate by inducing firms to shed marginally productive products and forcing the lowest-productivity firms to exit. Though exporters produce a smaller range of products after liberalization, they increase the share of products sold abroad as well as exports per product. All of these adjustments are shown to be relatively more pronounced in countries’ comparative...
This paper examines the decision to enter the export market by German firms. While exports have p... more This paper examines the decision to enter the export market by German firms. While exports have played an important role in recent German business cycle movements, little is known about the export supply response of German firms. This paper presents a dynamic model of the export decision by a profit-maximizing firm. Using a panel of German manufacturing plants, we test
Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and ... more Two otherwise identical firms that enter the same market in different months, one in January and one in December, will report dramatically different annual sales for the first calendar year of operations. This partial year effect in annual data leads to downward biased observations of the level of activity upon entry and upward biased growth rates between the year of entry and the following year. This paper examines the implications of partial year effects using Peruvian export data. The partial year bias is very large: the average level of first-year exports of new exporters is understated by 65 percent and the average growth rate between the first and second year of exporting is overstated by 112 percentage points. This paper re-examines a number of stylized facts about firm size and growth that have motivated rapidly expanding theoretical and empirical literatures on firm export dynamics. Correcting the partial year effect eliminates unusually high growth rates in the first year ...
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