This paper examines the relationship between employer-sponsored offers of health insurance and establishments’ labor productivity. Our empirical work is based on unique plant level data that links the 1997 and 2002 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component with the 1992, 1997, and...

Numerous studies have documented a positive association between information technology (IT) investments and business- and establishment-level productivity, but these studies usually pay sole or disproportionate attention to small- or medium-sized entities. In this paper, we revisit the evidence...

Processing plants in eight major food industries were highly productive before being acquired and they significantly improved their labor productivity afterward, Economic Research Service and U.S. Census Bureau researchers found in their analysis of Census data. The plant-level data on...

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on wages, employment, and plant closures in the meat packing, prepared meat products, and poultry slaughter and processing industries during two merger periods, 1977-1987 and 1982-1992. The analysis relies...

Measuring energy input plays an important role in many empirical studies, such as analyses of energy demand, efficiency, and productivity. Yet energy is a complex concept and difficult to measure. As a result, energy studies have used energy aggregates constructed based on different aggregation...

How do computers affect productivity? Many recent studies argue that using information technology, particularly computers, is a significant source of U.S. productivity growth. The specific mechanism remains elusive. Detailed data on the use of computers and computer networks have been scarce....

Consolidation and structural changes in the food industry have had profound impacts on firms, employees, and communities in many parts of the United States. Over 1972-92, eight important food industries underwent a structural transformation in which the number of plants declined by about...

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while...