Wage inequality has risen in many countries over recent decades. At the same time, production has become increasingly concentrated in a small number of firms. In this paper, we show that these two phenomena are linked. Theoretically, we show that shocks that increase concentration will also lead...

The Great Recession, which was preceded by the financial crisis, resulted in higher unemployment and inequality. We propose a simple model where firms producing varieties face labor-market frictions and credit constraints. In the model, tighter credit leads to lower output, lower number of...

Governments around the world want to develop their ICT and digital industries. Policymakers thus need a clear sense of the size and characteristics of digital businesses, but this is hard to do with conventional datasets and industry codes. This paper uses innovative 'big data' resources to...

Using North American data, we revisit the question first broached by Krueger (1993) and reexamined by DiNardo and Pischke (1997) of whether there exists a real wage differential associated with computer use. Employing a mixed effects model to correct for both worker and workplace unobserved...

We review the empirical literature about the implications of the computerization of the labor market to see whether it can explain observed computer adoption patterns and (long-term) changes in the wage structure. Evidence from empirical micro studies turns out to be inconsistent with macro...

We analyze a large stratified random sample of firms that provide us with measures ofperformance and each firm’s top manager’s perception of the severity of businessenvironment constraints faced by his/her firm. Unlike most existing studies that rely onexternal and aggregated proxy measures of...

Institutions are now widely believed to be important in explaining performance. In this paper, we analyze whether commonly used measures of institutions have any significant, measurable impact on performance, whether of countries or firms. We look at three 'levels' of institutions and associated...

Changes in medical expenses may force hospitals to reallocate their resources, which potentially come at the detriment of healthcare quality. Using data on the universe of German hospitals, I investigate resource reallocations between capital stock, human resources, services and the...