When data on actual choices are not available, researchers studying preferences sometimes pose choice scenarios and ask respondents to state the actions they would choose if they were to face these scenarios. The data on stated choices are then used to estimate random utility models, as if they...

This paper analyzes the interaction among Ramp;D, capital investment , and the stock market rate of return for 191 firms in science-based industries for the period 1973-1981. Using a framework based on dynamic factor analysis, we show how several prominent hypotheses about the determination of...

Is there any empirical evidence that firms become more efficient after becoming exporters? Do firms that become exporters generate positive spillovers for domestically-oriented producers? In this paper we analyze the causal links between exporting and productivity using firm-level panel data...

Most of the theoretical literature on price-setting behavior deals with the special case in which only a single price is changed. At the retail-store level, at least, where dozens of products are sold by a single price-setter, price-setting policies are not formulated for individual products....

After the initial breakthrough in the research phase of R&D a new product undergoes a process of change, improvement and adaptation to market conditions. We model the strategic behavior of firms in this development phase of R&D. We emphasize that a key dimension to this competition is the...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported an extraordinary increase in temporary help supply (THS) employment during the late 1980s and the 1990s. However, little is known about the venues where these THS employees actually work. Our estimates indicate that the proportion of THS employees in...

Using a unique data set on store-level monthly prices of four homogenous products sold in Israel, I study the existence and characteristics of the dispersion of prices across stores, as well as its persistence over time. I find that price dispersion prevails even after controlling for observed...

Several analysts claim that firms have been using more flexible work arrangements in order to contain the costly adjustment of labor to changes in economic conditions. In particular, temporary help supply (THS) employment has increased dramatically in the last ten years. However, there is only...

In evaluating the effect of an R&D subsidy we need to know what the subsidized firm would have spent on R&D had it not received the subsidy. Using data on Israeli manufacturing firms in the 1990s we find evidence suggesting that the R&D subsidies granted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade...

This paper studies how random product innovations affect the time series properties of aggregates. It posits that recurring inventions of new intermediate goods differ in quality, and that their usage spreads gradually through the economy. It examines how fluctuations in per capita GNP are...