We study the leverage of U.S. firms over their life-cycles, and the connection between firm leverage, firm growth, and aggregate shocks. We construct a new dataset that combines private and public firms' balance sheets with firm-level data from U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database...

We provide a new model that generates persistent performance differences amongst seemingly similar enterprises. Our model provides a mechanism whereby efficient incumbent rivals can give permission for an inefficient firm to exist in the presence of efficient entrants. We demonstrate that, in a...

We argue that active management's popularity is not puzzling despite the industry's poor track record. Our explanation features decreasing returns to scale: As the industry's size increases, every manager's ability to outperform passive benchmarks declines. The poor track record occurred before...

Using transactions-level customs data from Colombia, we study firm-specific export patterns over the period 1996-2005. Our data allow us to track firms' entry and exit into and out of individual destination markets, as well as their revenues from selling there. We find that, in a typical year,...

This paper provides causal evidence of the impact of industrial policy on firms' long-term performance and quantifies industrial policy's long-term welfare effects. Using a natural experiment and unique historical data during the Heavy and Chemical Industry (HCI) Drive in South Korea, we find...

We argue that greater misallocation is a key driver of the worse management practices in Mexico compared to the US. These management practices are strongly associated with higher productivity, growth, trade, and innovation. One indicator of greater misallocation in Mexico is the weaker...

How managers frame the adoption of organizational practices may impact the returns to such practices, but managerial justification is often correlated with the use of particular practices or other dimensions of managerial quality. Using a randomized control trial, we study how the causal impacts...

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...

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...