Dispersion in marginal revenue products of inputs across plants is commonly thought to reflect misallocation, i.e., dispersion is "bad." We document that most dispersion occurs across plants within rather than between firms. In a model of multi-plant firms, we then show that dispersion can be...

Almost two thirds of the cross-plant dispersion in marginal revenue products of capital occurs across plants within the same firm rather than between firms. Even though firms allocate invest- ment very differently across their plants, they do not equalize marginal revenue products across their...

The aggregate labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined dramatically over the last three decades: Since the mid-1980’s, the compensation for labor declined from 67% to 47% of value added which is unseen in any other sector of the U.S. economy. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing...

The aggregate labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined dramatically over the last three decades: Since the mid-1980's, the compensation for labor declined from 67% to 47% of value added which is unseen in any other sector of the U.S. economy. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing...

The labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined from 62 percentage points (ppts) in 1967 to 41 ppts in 2012. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing establishment, in contrast, rose by over 3 ppts during the same period. Using micro-level data, we document five salient facts: (1) since...

Dispersion in marginal revenue products of inputs across plants is commonly thought to reflect misallocation, i.e., dispersion is "bad." We document that most dispersion occurs across plants within rather than between firms. In a model of multi-plant firms, we then show that dispersion can be...

Almost two thirds of the cross-plant dispersion in marginal revenue products of capital occurs across plants within the same firm rather than between firms. Even though firms allocate investment very differently across their plants, they do not equalize marginal revenue products across their...

Using confidential Census data on U.S. manufacturing plants, we document that most of the dispersion in investment rates across plants occurs within firms instead of across firms. Between firm dispersion is almost acyclical, but within-firm dispersion is strongly procyclical. To investigate the...

Almost two thirds of the cross-plant dispersion in marginal revenue products of capital occurs across plants within the same firm rather than between firms. Even though firms allocate invest- ment very differently across their plants, they do not equalize marginal revenue products across their...

The aggregate labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined dramatically over the last three decades: Since the mid-1980's, the compensation for labor declined from 67% to 47% of value added which is unseen in any other sector of the U.S. economy. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing...