This paper provides new evidence that estimates based on aggregate data will understate the true procyclicality of total factor productivity. I examine plant-level data and show that some industries experience countercyclical reallocations of output shares among firms at different points in the...

Using plant-level data, I show that the dispersion of total factor productivity in U.S. durable manufacturing is greater in recessions than in booms. This cyclical property of productivity dispersion is much less pronounced in non-durable manufacturing. In durables, this phenomenon primarily...

Unemployment inflows fell from 4 percent of employment per month in the early 1980s to 2 percent or less by the mid 1990s and thereafter. U.S. data also show a secular decline in the job destruction rate and the volatility of firm-level employment growth rates. We interpret this decline as a...

Because plant deaths destroy specific capital with large local economic impacts and potentially important macroeconmic effects, understanding the causes of deaths and, in particular, why they are concentrated in cyclical downturns, is important. The reallocationtiming hypothesis posits that...

This paper analyzes the implications of plant-level dynamics over the business cycle. We first document basic patterns of entry and exit of U.S. manufacturing plants, in terms of employment and productivity, between 1972 and 1997. We show how entry and exit patterns vary during the business...

We build up from the plant level an "aggregate(d) Solow residual" by estimating every U.S. manufacturing plant's contribution to the change in aggregate final demand between 1976 and 1996. We decompose these contributions into plant-level resource reallocations and plant-level technical...

We develop a methodology for estimating the “tradability” of goods and services using data on U.S. establishments. Our results show that the average service industry is less tradable than the average manufacturing industry. However, there is considerable within-sector variation in estimated...

We develop a new rationale for IPO waves based on product market considerations. Two firms, with differing productivity levels, compete in an industry with a significant probability of a positive productivity shock. Going public, though costly, not only allows a firm to raise external capital...