Recent studies have documented extensive heterogeneity in firm performance within countries, and innovation has been found as an important determinant. This paper addresses the issue of innovation firm performance across countries. A growing number of national firm level studies on the...

The modern manufacturing firm competes with product quality improvements rather than cost efficient production of simpler products. R&D spending, marketing, availability of spare parts and service facilities, customs designs, etc. embody the product quality enhancing process, requiring...

Unlike previous analyses, we consider (i) that IT may affect productivity growth both directly and indirectly, through human capital interactions, and (ii) possible externalities in the use of IT. Examining, hypothetically, the statistical consequences of erroneously disregarding (i) and (ii) we...

The paper studies how social connections affect firm-level hiring decisions and performance. We characterize the social connections of firms' employees using register data and for causal identification we use job displacements, which create directed positive shocks towards connected firms by...

Rapid price decreases for ICT-products in the 1990s have been largely attributed to the introduction of hedonic price indexes. Would hedonic price indexing also have large effects on measured price and productivity during other technological breakthroughs? This paper investigates the impact of...

This paper investigates labor productivity growth and the contribution to labor productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing during electrification and the ICT revolution. The paper distinguishes between technology-producing, intensive and less intensive technology-using industries during these...

The paper estimates the causal effect of trade liberalisation on aggregate productivity through mechanisms related to firm selection. The construction of a bridge in 2000 across the Öresund Strait linking Copenhagen with Malmö, Sweden's third largest city, provided a natural experiment with...

Entry of large ("big-box") stores along with a drastic fall in the total number of stores is a striking trend in retail markets. We use a dynamic structural model to estimate retail productivity in a local market setting. In particular, we provide a general strategy of how to measure the causal...