We study how increased import competition affects the evolution of productivity in a small open economy. We use a production survey of Belgian firms where we observe quarterly firm-product data at the 8-digit level on value and quantities sold together with firm-level labor, capital, and...

The Autonomous Province of Trento (Trentino) is among the most productive regions in Europe, but over the past two decades its productivity growth has stagnated. As a result, the productivity gap of Trentino widened by over 20% compared to regions with the same productivity level in 2000. The...

A wide variety of retailers (supermarkets, home electronics, Internet shops, etc.) provide scanner data containing information at the level of the barcode, e.g. the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). As scanner data provide complete transaction information, we may use the expenditure shares of...

Das Coronavirus hat viele alte Gesetzmäßigkeiten in Frage gestellt. Das gilt auch für die Vermessung ökonomischer Aktivitäten. Verfahren aus der Hochzeit der Industrialisierung werden dem strukturellen Wandel zunächst zu einer Dienstleistungsgesellschaft, später zu einer Digitalwirtschaft...

Software engineering is prototypical of knowledge work in the digital economy and exhibits strong geographic concentration, with Silicon Valley as the epitome of a tech cluster. We investigate productivity effects of knowledge worker agglomeration. To overcome existing measurement challenges, we...