This paper documents the extent and characteristics of plants and firms in the US that are outside the manufacturing sector according to official government statistics but nonetheless are heavily involved in activities related to the production of manufactured goods. Using new data on...

Multinational firms (MNEs) accounted for 42 percent of US manufacturing employment, 87 percent of US imports, and 84 of US exports in 2007. Despite their disproportionate share of global trade, MNEs' input sourcing and final-good production decisions are often studied separately. Using newly...

We document the role of intangible capital in manufacturing firms' substantial contribution to non-manufacturing employment growth from 1977-2019. Exploiting data on firms' "auxiliary" establishments, we develop a novel measure of proprietary in-house knowledge and show that it is associated...

This paper documents how US firms organize goods production across firm and country boundaries. Most US firms that perform physical transformation tasks in-house using foreign manufacturing plants in 2007 also own US manufacturing plants; moreover manufacturing comprises their main domestic...