This paper investigates the linkages between the trade sector and the manufacturing sector as a possible source of complementarities generating cumulative processes and apparent increasing returns in manufacturing firms.

The advent of a growing share of small firms in modern economies raises some intriguing questions. The most intriguing question undoubtedly is why so many smaller firms, which have traditionally been classified as sub-optimal scale firms, can exist. The authors suggest that, through pursuing a...

This paper analyses the decline in unskilled employment in UK manufacturing.

The paper analyses the effects of the 1990 Brazilian trade liberalization on the total factor productivity, market share and profits of a sample of 349 large manufacturing firms. A panel data production function analysis.

In spite of the large and growing literature on producer heterogeneity and firm exit behavior, little attention has been paid to the vintage capital theory of firm exits as an alternative hypothesis to learning/selection. Interpreted at the firm level the vintage capital theory predicts that...

Although research and development is widely considered to be an important source of growth, relatively little is known about how its effects differ across industries. This is mainly because much reseach on the effect of R&D has used either cross-section or time-series data and the remainder has...

While Germany has a very open, export-oriented manufacturing sector, to date there has been little or no research on the role of exporting in German firm performance. This paper documents the significant differences between exporters and non-exporters and attemps to identify the sources of these...

In this paper we present new estimates of the degree of welfare loss in Australian manufacturing for the period 1982/3 - 1984/5.

We analyse the contribution of land to production activity for Japanese manufacturing industries employing panel data of the firms. Since land is not necessarily held for production purpose, we check the concavity of the cost function to see whether production is conducted efficiently.