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...

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...

Over the past several years, Ohio’s employment has grown much more slowly than the national average. If we look at patterns of job creation and destruction in the state, we can start to get a handle on why. In the late 1990s, not only was the rate of job creation sluggish relative to the...

As companies and consumers adapt to a changing marketplace, jobs are eliminated and new ones are created. Rates at which this happens vary across states and reflect the flexibility of the labor market. More flexible markets are associated with faster growth.

Competition among state and local governments to lure businesses has attracted considerable interest from economists, as well as legislators and policymakers. 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...

Procyclical productivity plays an important role in many models of aggregate fluctuations. However, recent studies using aggregate data to directly measure technology shocks in the Solow residual find that technology shocks are not procyclical. This paper provides new evidence that, due to...

This paper summarizes relocation patterns in the U.S. manufacturing industry over the period 1972-1992, using plant- and firm-level data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures. This study contributes to the existing literature on firm dynamics by distinguishing entry due to relocation from entry...