This Working Paper challenges two widely held views: first that trade performance has been the primary reason for the declining share of manufacturing employment in the United States, and second that recent productivity growth in manufacturing has actually been quite rapid but is not accurately...

The rapid growth of offshoring has sparked a contentious debate over its impact on the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has recorded steep employment declines yet strong output growth—a fact reconciled by the notable gains in manufacturing productivity. We maintain, however, that the dramatic...

Based on the empirical firm growth literature and on heterogeneous (microeconomic) adjustment models, this paper empirically investigates the impact of European industry fluctuations and domestic business cycles on the growth performance of European firms. Since the implementation of the Single...