Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to examine how Chinese firms position themselves in global production lines and...

In the large literature on firm performance, economists have given little attention to entrepreneurs. We use deaths of more than 500 entrepreneurs as a source of exogenous variation, and ask whether this variation can explain shifts in firm performance. Using longitudinal data, we find large and...

Seminal theories of the firm posit that firm ownership is allocated to minimize contractual inefficiencies. Yet, it remains unclear how much the optimal ownership choice affects firm performance in practice. This paper provides a first quantification of the gains from optimal ownership within...

Corporate versus pass-through status trades off productivity benefits (related to perpetual identity, limited liability, public trading, and earnings retention) against tax wedges, estimated from U.S. federal taxes on corporate profits, dividends, and partnership income. In regressions,...

This paper uses unique Finnish firm-level micro data on service imports, work-force composition, and firm characteristics to examine changes in employment composition and performance of Finnish service importers during a period of a significant increase in services imports (2002-2012). We use...

This paper studies the impact of corporate acquisitions - both domestic and cross-border - on the uncertainty faced by acquiring firms. We use data for UK publicly-listed firms from 2004 to 2017 and employ a matching estimator combined with difference-in-differences to control for the endogenous...

This paper provides new insight into the firm-level employment impacts of trade cost changes at the industry level in the Austrian services sector. We apply a two-part model of firm survival (exit) and firm growth. Separate regressions for firm entry rates at the industry-region level complete...

Using a long-panel dataset of Japanese firms that contains firm-level sales forecasts, we provide evidence on firm-level uncertainty and imperfect information over their life cycle. We find that firms make non-negligible and positively correlated forecast errors. However, they make more precise...

This paper explores the relationship between trust and establishment performance. The outcome indicators are management’s assessment of the economic or financial situation of the workplace and its relative labor productivity. Trust is initially measured using the individual survey...

U.S. businesses can choose to be C-corporations or pass-through entities in the forms of S-corporations, partnerships (notably LLCs), and sole proprietorships. C-corporate status conveys benefits from perpetual legal identity, limited liability, potential for public trading of shares, and...