This paper employs industry-level U.S. Census data from 1980-2000 to assess the aggregate effects of racial diversity. While most international accounts find that diversity reduces productivity, I argue that the U.S. experience is more nuanced. Unqualified statements about the costs and merits...

Recently collected data show that, within any manufacturing industry, vertically integrated firms tend to have larger, higher productivity plants, account for the bulk of sales, and also sell externally most of the inputs they produce. In a weak contracting environment characteristic of...