The mix of companies in the economy is always changing. The more-productive ones expand, and the less-productive ones are driven out of the market, freeing resources such as labor and capital for new ventures. This reallocation contributes more to aggregate productivity growth than the...

Labor productivity growth, a measure of output per unit of work, is closely tied to gains in wages and living standards, and it provides a direct measure of a country’s competitive position over time. The same holds true for states. Since the last business cycle peak in 2000, states boosted...

This paper analyzes the implications of plant-level dynamics over the business cycle. We first document basic patterns of entry and exit of U.S. manufacturing plants, in terms of employment and productivity, between 1972 and 1997. We show how entry and exit patterns vary during the business...

This paper provides new evidence that estimates based on aggregate data will understate the true procyclicality of total factor productivity. I examine plant-level data and show that some industries experience countercyclical reallocations of output shares among firms at different points in the...

Competition among state and local governments to lure businesses has attracted considerable interest from economists, as well as legislators and policy makers. This paper quantifies the role of plant relocations in the geographic redistribution of manufacturing employment and examines the...

This paper analyzes the implications of plant-level dynamics over the business cycle. We first document basic patterns of entry and exit of U.S. manufacturing plants, in terms of employment and productivity, between 1972 and 1997. We show how entry and exit patterns vary during the business...

In gauging the health of state economies, arguably the two most important series to track are employment and output. While employment by state is available about three weeks after the end of a month, data on output, as measured by Gross State Product (GSP), are only available annually and with a...

How does openness affect economic development? This question is answered in the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model of the world economy, where countries have technological differences that are both sector neutral and specific to the investment goods sector. Relative to a benchmark...