The economics literature generally considers products as points in some characteristics space. With more products being flexible or self-customizable to some degree, it makes sense to model products with positive measure. I develop a model of firms which can offer interval-long 'fat' products in...

Nishimura, Nakajima, and Kiyota (2005) analyze the entry/exit behavior patterns of Japanese firms during the 1990s and find that relatively efficient (high total factor productivity (TFP)) firms exited while relatively inefficient (low TFP) firms survived during the banking-crisis period of...

This study focuses on the demand sector of smart factories, especially policies related to the introduction of smart factories by small and medium sized manufacturers. As will be explained later, discussions focusing on SMEs are important because the gap in capacity and resources between large...

Using firm-level data, we estimate the effects of the major wave of 1991 breakups of Czechoslovak state-owned enterprises on the subsequent performance of the "master enterprises" and spun-off divisions. We estimate the performance effects of spinoffs by comparing the performance of enterprises...

This paper models a generalized form of monopolistic competition such that consumers are differentiated horizontally by taste while firms are differentiated vertically by quality location. Consumers have quadratic transportation costs of disutility from consuming a non-ideal brand, and firms are...

The analysis focuses on the extent to which the production function of firms exhibits systematical differences regarding the employment size. We evaluate the extent to which differences in the elasticities of substitution between skill-groups are of the magnitude to explain the firm-size effect...

Productivity convergence among countries has been investigated extensively with mixed results. This paper extends the analysis to the firm level to shed light on the debate of convergence or non-convergence. We find productivity convergence among firms widely in Japan, in both manufacturing...

The empirical transition literature on the comparison of restructuring prior to privatization is quite limited. Macedonia is a specific case among transition economies where a large number of break-ups occurred at the beginning of privatization. Using firm-level data, we estimate the effects of...

We examine business dynamics following a natural experiment: the staggered roll-out of a new technology, broadband internet, throughout Norway. The new technology led to a large, almost 25% increase in per-capita startup rates. Quality measures for these startups did not decline. In contrast, we...

Products produced by a multiproduct firm can be linked through demand linkages or supply linkages. On the demand side, changes in the price of one product can affect the demand for a firm's other products through shifts in consumer expenditures. This is commonly referred to as the...