Economic theory predicts that outsourcing public services to private firms will reduce costs, but the effect on quality is ambiguous. We explore quality differences between publicly and privately owned ambulances in a setting where patients are as good as randomly assigned to ambulances of...

This paper estimates a dynamic model of store adjustments in product variety that considers multiproduct service technology to evaluate the impact of entry regulations on variety and long-run profits in Swedish retail. Using rich data on stores and product categories, we find that more liberal...

Liberalization is widely recognized to drive productivity growth. Retail trade is often thought to substantially contribute to the frequently debated productivity gap between Europe and the U.S. In Europe, entry regulations empower local authorities to decide on the entry of new stores. We use a...

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...

In this paper we develop a structural empirical model that allows us to estimate the impact of R&D on firm profitability through two channels. In the first channel, R&D investment by the firm can impact the firm's production efficiency and lower its marginal cost. This productivity channel...

This paper studies the factors underlying the heterogeneity in inventory behavior and performance across retail stores. We use a dynamic model of multi-product retailers and local competition to estimate store productivity and consumers' perceived quality of the shopping experience, and we...

Liberalization is widely recognized to drive productivity growth. Retail trade is often thought to substantially contribute to the frequently debated productivity gap between Europe and the U.S. In Europe, entry regulations empower local authorities to decide on the entry of new stores. We use a...