In the large literature on firm performance, economists have given little attention to entrepreneurs. We use deaths of more than 500 entrepreneurs as a source of exogenous variation, and ask whether this variation can explain shifts in firm performance. Using longitudinal data, we find large and...

In the large literature on firm performance, economists have given little attention to entrepreneurs. We use deaths of more than 500 entrepreneurs as a source of exogenous variation, and ask whether this variation can explain shifts in firm performance. Using longitudinal data, we find large and...

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms’ investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms’ subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and...

The object under consideration is the Ukrainian cement industry, which has undergone a serious change in many dimensions, including ownership structure and market structure. We analyze the dynamics of the output market structure and test the hypothesis of a possible collusive behavior introduced...

The observable outcomes of post-Soviet economic reforms have generated large interest and controversy in the transition debate. Privatization and market competition are the two primary forces to induce changes in the firm behavior. The author investigates how firm performance responds to these...

A number of factors influence the efficiency, productivity, and welfare of a transportation network. Travel demand, user costs, and facility supply costs equilibrate on various time scales under a set of pricing (taxes and tolls), investment and ownership policies. Two types of equilibria exist...

This paper studies the relationship between productivity and export orientation of Uruguayan manufacturing firms in 1997-2001, trying to explore the self-selection and learning by exporting hypotheses. We use a constant prices plant level data panel for 1997-2001. First, we estimate a production...

This thesis consists of five papers, four of them basically concerning environmental issues, while the fifth paper addresses the issue of measuring output from the educational sector. <p> The first paper starts from the fact that industrial activity causes environmental damage. Therefore, public...</p>

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a procedure to empirically test the Porter hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that environmental regulation not only increases environmental quality, but also brings the polluting producers information that makes them more resource efficient, as well as...

This article examines the effects of public infrastructure on the productive performance of 12 two-digit Canadian manufacturing industries. A flexible cost function incorporating public capital infrastructure is estimated for each industry separately using annual time series data for...