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The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organize production. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing plants, we show that production and sourcing decisions appear systematically distorted in states with weaker enforcement. Specifically, we document that in...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012480592
Synchronized expansions and contractions across sectors define business cycles. Yet synchronization is puzzling because productivity across sectors exhibits weak correlation. While previous work examined production complementarity, our analysis explores complementarity in information...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012466105
We estimate productivities at the sector level for 72 countries and 5 decades, and examine how they evolve over time in both developed and developing countries. In both country groups, comparative advantage has become weaker: productivity grew systematically faster in sectors that were initially...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012461851
Violent conflicts, particularly at election times in Africa, are a common cause of instability and economic disruption. This paper studies how firms react to electoral violence using the case of Kenyan flower exporters during the 2008 post-election violence as an example. The violence induced a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012629517
Understanding inventory movements is central to an understanding of business cycles. This paper presents an empirical study of the behavior of inventories in the automobile industry. It finds that inventory behavior is well explained by the assumption of intertemporal optimization with rational...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478217
This paper uses quasi-experimental variation in payroll taxes to estimate their incidence and investigate how firms use their input factors. We find that higher payroll tax rates lead to large employment responses and have no effects on employee earnings. As payroll taxes increase, firms...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012479164
Over the course of the nineteenth century manufacturing in the United States shifted from artisan shop to factory production. At the same time United States experienced a "transportation revolution", a key component of which was the building of extensive railroad network. Using a newly created...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464237
This paper presents new annual estimates of U.S. production of pig iron and imports of pig iron products dating back to 1827. These estimates are used to assess the vulnerability of the antebellum iron industry to foreign competition and the role of the tariff in fostering the industry's early...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012465198
This paper examines how devaluations affect the relative costs of labor and capital and therefore influence production, profitability, investment, and stock returns for firms in the 'crisis' country as well as competitors in the rest of the world. After developing these ideas in a small,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012469660
We explore the rise and fall of pellagra, a disease caused by inadequate niacin consumption, in the American South, focusing on the first half of the twentieth century. We first consider the hypothesis that the South's monoculture in cotton undermined nutrition by displacing local food...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012453981