This paper explores the combined effects of reductions in trade frictions, tariffs, and firing costs on firm dynamics, job turnover, and wage distributions. It uses establishment-level data from Colombia to estimate an open economy dynamic model that links trade to job flows in a new way. The...

This paper examines executive turnover -- both for management and supervisory boards - - and its relation to firm performance in the largest companies in Germany in the 1980s. The management board turns over slowly -- at a rate of 10% per year -- implying that top executives in Germany have...

This study uses a 10-year longitudinal database on U.S. manufacturing establishments to analyze the dynamics of the adoption and termination of employee involvement programs (EI). We show that firms' use of EI has not grown continuously, but rather introduce and terminate EI policies in ways...

This paper utilizes a unique dataset collected through site visits to extend the analysis of the relationship between the human resource management environment and establishment performance to the service sector, specifically the branch operations of a large bank. Case studies of several...

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem and motivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of human resource policies in the performance of employee ownership companies, using employee survey data from 14 companies and a national...

Traditional human capital theory emphasizes a worker's investment in knowledge. However, when a worker is faced with day-to-day problems on the job, the solutions to the problems often require more knowledge from a team of experts within the firm. When a worker taps into the knowledge of...

How do regions acquire the knowledge they need to diversify their economic activities? How does the migration of workers among firms and industries contribute to the diffusion of that knowledge? Here we measure the industry, occupation, and location specific knowledge carried by workers from one...

During the past two decades, there has been a dramatic change in IPO activity around the world. Though vibrant IPO activity, attributed to better institutions and governance, used to be a strength of the U.S., it no longer is. IPO activity in the U.S. has fallen compared to the rest of the world...

Within-industry differences in measured plant-level productivity are large. A large literature has been devoted to explaining the causes and consequences of these differences. In the U.S. Census Bureau's manufacturing data, the Bureau imputes for missing values using methods known to result in...

U.S. companies are often criticized for being overly short-term oriented. This paper documents that those criticisms have a long history, going back at least thirty-five years. The paper then considers the implications of sustained short-termism for corporate profits, venture capital investments...