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...

We examine the relationship between import competition from low wage countries and the reallocation of US manufacturing from 1977 to 1997. Both employment and output growth are slower for plants that face higher levels of low wage import competition in their industry. As a result, US...

This paper develops a model of endogenous product selection by firms. The theory is motivated by new evidence we present on the importance of product switching by U.S. manufacturers. Two-thirds of continuing firms change their product mix every five years, and product switches involve more than...

This paper examines the frequency, pervasiveness and determinants of product switching among U.S. manufacturing firms. We find that two-thirds of firms alter their mix of five-digit SIC products every five years, that one-third of the increase in real U.S. manufacturing shipments between 1972...

This paper examines the causes of manufacturing plant deaths within and across industries in the U.S. from 1977-1997. The effects of international competition from low wage countries, exporting, ownership structure, product diversity, productivity, geography, and plant characteristics are...

When materials offshoring is measured by estimating imported intermediate inputs, a common assumption used is that an industry's imports of each input, relative to its total demand, is the same as the economy-wide imports relative to total demand: this is the so-called "import comparability" or...

This paper examines the effect of a change in U.S. trade policy on the domestic investment of U.S. manufacturers. Using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that industries more exposed to reductions in import tariff uncertainty exhibit relative declines in investment...

We study the effects of the progressive elimination of the system of industrial regulations on entry and production, known as the "license raj," on registered manufacturing output, employment, entry and investment across Indian states with different labor market regulations. The effects are...

This paper explores role of product adding and dropping within manufacturing firms over the business cycle. While a substantial body of work has explored the importance of the extensive margins of firm entry and exit in employment and output flows, only recently has research begun to examine the...

Manufacturing in high-income countries is on the decline and Denmark is no exception. Manufacturing employment and the number of firms have been shrinking as a share of the total and in absolute levels. This paper uses a rich linked employer-employee dataset to examine this decline from 1994 to...