We study the effectiveness of government aid to exporters by exploring an exogenous shock that affected the ability of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) to provide aid to U.S. exporters through loan guarantees to importers. We focus on Boeing, the largest individual recipient of...

Aggregate data show a large and decades-long decline in construction sector productivity. This decline in such a large sector has had a material effect on secular productivity growth for the economy as a whole. Prior work has focused on the role of potential measurement problems in construction,...

We construct measures of industry performance and welfare in the U.S. car and light truck market from 1980-2018. We estimate a differentiated products demand model for this market using product level data on market shares, prices, and product characteristics, and consumer level data on...

In this paper we present for the first time estimates of cost and efficiency differences between U.S. and Japanese producers based on an econometric cost function methodology rather than the accounting frameworks previously used. We demonstrate that the cost difference estimates for 1979 which...

In this paper we calculate and analyze the automobile industries cost and productivity experience during the 1970 's in Canada, the U.S.and Japan. Utilizing an econometric cost function methodology, we are able to isolate the major source of short-run disequilibrium in this industry-variations'...

This paper studies the impact of oil shocks on the U.S. economy--and on the motor vehicle industry in particular--and re-examines whether the relationship has changed over time. We find remarkable stability in the response of aggregate real variables to oil shocks once we account for the extra...

During the summer of 2005, the Big Three U.S. automobile manufacturers offered a customer promotion that allowed customers to buy new cars at the discounted price formerly offered only to employees. The initial months of the promotion were record sales months for each of the Big Three firms,...

This paper documents the dramatic changes in volatility that occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined significantly, the covariance of inventory investment and sales became much more negative, and adjustments to output, which in earlier decades...

This paper studies the domestic content decisions of auto makers in the U.S. between 1984 and 1993 using foreign trade zone activity as a tool by which one can observe individual sourcing and production. The results show that although the domestic content of Japanese firms is rising, differences...