This paper argues that regional variation in the efficiency of labor allocation among German manufacturing plants plays a critical role in explaining regional disparities in productivity. In fact, we show that over 50% of the East-West productivity gap is associated with a less efficient labor...

This paper examines the duties, skills and training of the technicians who work in the various parts of UK industry that make use of composite materials. It examines how employers in the relevant industry strive to fill technician roles whose occupants must make, and /or use, composites, and...

Relying on linked employer-employee datasets from 10 countries, this paper documents that the skills and the diversity of the workforce and of managers – the human side of businesses – account on average for about one third of the labour productivity gap between firms at the productivity...

We use micro data on skills to analyze the human capital of entrepreneurial and incumbent plants in U.S. manufacturing over 2005-2013. We find a large drop in cognitive skills in entrepreneurial plants. This has long-term implications since initial cognitive skills at the plant level predict...