We propose a novel nonparametric method for the structural identification of unobserved technological heterogeneity in production. We assume cost minimization as the firms' behavioral objective, and we model unobserved heterogeneity as an unobserved productivity factor on which firms condition...

This paper provides the first in-depth study of the organization of knowledge in multinational firms. In the theory, knowledge is a costly input for firms that they can acquire at their headquarters or their production plants. Communication costs impede the access of the plants to headquarter...

A framework for analyzing substitution and scale properties, and technical change from plant-level panel data is presented. Focus is on comparing the constant and random coefficient specification of the substitution and scale parameters and investigating the potential variation of the parameters...

This paper describes firms' output and factor demand before, during and after episodes of lumpy investments using a rich employer-employee panel data set for two manufacturing industries and one service industry. We focus on the simultaneous adjustment of capital, materials, man-hours, as well...

We extend the literature on the effects of managerial entrenchment to consider how safety-net subsidies and financial distress costs interact with managerial incentives to influence capital structure in U.S. commercial banking. Using cross-sectional data on publicly traded, highest-level U.S....

It has been frequently quoted in the literature that one decisive cause of the productive performance of an economy might be infrastructure investment. This paper provides a dual profit theoretical framework of measuring the effects of infrastructure on economic performance in terms of gains in...

This paper analyzes the optimal adjustment strategy of an inventory-holding firm facing price- and quantity-adjustment costs in an inflationary environment. The model nests both the original menu-cost model that allows production to be costlessly adjusted, and the later model that includes...

The decision of companies to enter international markets, either via exports or foreign direct investment (FDI), has been postulated by the self-sorting model of Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (HMY, 2004). In the strict sense, the theoretical predictions of HMY only apply to firms that become...

We provide a reason for the wider economics profession to take social preferences, a concern for the outcomes achieved by other reference agents, seriously. Although we show that student measures of social preference elicited in an experiment have little external validity when compared to...

This article examines the role of the interaction between product market and labor market imperfections in determining total factor productivity growth (TFPG). Embedding Dobbelaere and Mairesse's (2009) generalization of Hall's (1990) approach, allowing for the possibility that wages are...