In this paper, I measure the impact of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) on productivity and sales growth at manufacturing plants. To do this, I match MEP client data to the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Research Database (LRD). The LRD contains data for all manufacturing...

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the use of advanced technologies, such as information and communications technologies (ICT), and related business practices and outcomes such as productivity, employment, the skill mix of the workforce and wages using micro data for the U.S. and...

Managers of government technology programs are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs. In this paper we examine the issues involved in credibly evaluating such programs in the context of recent efforts to evaluate manufacturing extension programs in the U.S....

The recent growth of consumer retailing over the Internet draws attention to the electronic economy. However, businesses also conduct other business processes over computer networks, and many have been doing so for some time. Uses of computer networks attract attention because of assertions that...

This paper presents results from an investigation of the effects of manufacturing extension on the productivity dynamics of client plants. Previous econometric studies of manufacturing extension had very little time series information. This limited what researchers could say about the relative...

Learning by doing, especially spillover learning, has received much attention lately in models of industry evolution and economic growth. The predictions of these models depend on the distribution of learning abilities and knowledge flows across firms and countries. However, the empirical...

This paper compares the survival rates of plants participating in manufacturing extension programs to nonparticipating plants. Participating plants receive technical and business assistance from one of a nationwide network of extension centers intended to assist smaller manufacturers. Results...

This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). The MEP is administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of its effort to improve the global competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing industries. As the name implies,...

In this paper, I employ a linear-quadratic model of an industry characterized by learning by doing to examine the implications of asymmetric learning spillovers. Importantly, I show that distribution of spillover benefits can influence market structure in ways that can not be seen in models...

This paper examines the evolution of productivity in U.S. manufacturing plants from 1963 to 1992. We define a “vintage effect” as the change in productivity of recent cohorts of new plants relative to earlier cohorts of new plants, and a “survival effect” as the change in productivity of...