We examine the largest cost component in offshore development projects, drilling rates, which have been high in recent years. To our knowledge, rig rates have not been analysed empirically before in the economic literature. Using econometric analysis, we examine the effects of gas and oil...

We investigate the effect of better access to foreign markets on innovation strategies of multi-product firms in industries with different scope for product differentiation. Industry-specific demand and cost linkages induce a distinction between the returns to innovation. In differentiated...

Multi-product exporters choose their product mix focusing on their best-performing products. Although their product mix varies across countries (the fickle fringe), the interdependence in demand or production technology making vectors of products systematically co-exported leads to commonalities...

This paper analyzes how exporters are affected by corporate tax reforms in destination markets. We introduce tax policy in a trade model of multi-product firms and show that producers face tougher competition in export markets with lower corporate tax rates. This competitive effect induces firms...

We study how increased import competition affects the evolution of productivity in a small open economy. We use a production survey of Belgian firms where we observe quarterly firm-product data at the 8-digit level on value and quantities sold together with firm-level labor, capital, and...

This paper develops a model framework and a corresponding empirical inference procedure for estimating long-run marginal cost in industries where production costs decline over time. In the context of the solar photovoltaic module industry, we rely on firm-level financial accounting data to...

How do firms adjust their output, inventories, employment and capital in response to demandsideshocks? To understand this, we estimate a reduced-form model using firm-level panel dataand we construct a theoretical model that can match the estimated impulse-response functions.A combination of...

In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium, while the membership fee amounts to 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to free-ride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union...

In this paper we use a transparent statistical methodology - synthetic control methods - to implement data-driven comparative studies about the impact of autocratic transition on real per capita GDP. The applied methodology compares the growth of countries that experienced a transition to...

Asymmetric persistence of accounting income is often tested in a regression of changes in earnings on lagged changes in earnings, including an interaction term for negative changes (see Basu [1997] or Ball et al. [2009] for a recent overview). In this note we propose an alternative, but closely...