This paper examines the impact of entry on the structure of the U.S. chemical industries in the period 1963-1982. The paper measures both the immediate impact of entrants in terms of number, size and market shares and their subsequent growth and/or exit. Particular attention is devoted to the examination of entrant heterogeneity. The paper finds that while a large number of entrants appear in the chemical industries, they have a relatively small long-run impact. In addition, compared to previous work entrants are less important in the chemical industries than in manufacturing sector as a whole. Finally, the post-entry performance of new firms varies significantly across different categories of entry.
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Crime's Impact on the Survival Prospects of Young Urban Small Businesses
October 2007
Working Paper Number:
CES-07-30
High prevailing levels of criminal activity have numerous impacts on the viability of urban small businesses and the various impacts are not uniformly negative. It is the negative impacts, however, that are most often noted. Either the perception or reality of rampant crime can scare away customers, potential employees, lending institutions, even casualty insurance underwriters. Yet, competitors may also be driven away. Operating in a high-crime area can be advantageous, on balance, for some firms. Our analysis of nearly 5,000 urban businesses started between 1986 and 1992 indicates that those most seriously impacted by crime exhibit no measureable disadvantage regarding firm size, capitalization, survival rates, or other traits, relative to firms whose owners report that crime has not impacted them negatively.
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Individual Changes in Identification with Hispanic Ethnic Origins: Evidence from Linked 2000 and 2010 Census Data
August 2018
Working Paper Number:
carra-2018-08
Population estimates and demographic profiles are central to both academic and public debates about immigration, immigrant assimilation, and minority mobility. Analysts' conclusions are shaped by the choices that survey respondents make about how to identify themselves on surveys, but such choices change over time. Using linked responses to the 2000 and 2010 Censuses, our paper examines the extent to which individuals change between specific Hispanic categories such as Mexican origin. We first examine how changes in identification affect population change for national and regional origin groups. We then examine patterns of entry and exit to understand which groups more often switch between a non-Hispanic, another specific origin, or a general Hispanic identification. Finally, we profile who is most likely to change identification. Our findings affirm the fluidity of ethnic identification, especially between categories of Hispanic origin, which in turn carries important implications for population and compositional changes.
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The Effects of Environmental Regulation on the Competiveness of U.S. Manufacturing
January 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-03
Whether and to what extent environmental regulations influence the competitiveness of firms remains a hotly debated issue. Using detailed production data from tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing plants drawn from Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate the effects of environmental regulations'captured by the Clean Air Act Amendments' division of counties into pollutant-specific nonattainment and attainment categories'on manufacturing plants' total factor productivity (TFP) levels. We find that among surviving polluting plants, a nonattainment designation is associated with a roughly 2.6 percent decline in TFP. The regulations governing ozone have particularly discernable effects on productivity, though effects are also seen among particulates and sulfur dioxide emitters. Carbon monoxide nonattainment, on the other hand, appears to increase measured TFP, though this appears to be concentrated among refineries. When we apply corrections for two likely sources of positive bias in these estimates (price mismeasurement and sample selection on survival), we estimate that the total TFP loss for polluting plants in nonattaining counties is 4.8 percent. This corresponds to an annual lost output in the manufacturing sector of roughly $14.7 billion in 1987 dollars ($24.4 billion in 2009 dollars). These costs have important implications for both the intensity and location of firm expansions.
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An Alternative Theory of the Plant Size Distribution with an Application to Trade
May 2010
Working Paper Number:
CES-10-10
There is wide variation in the sizes of manufacturing plants, even within the most narrowly defined industry classifications used by statistical agencies. Standard theories attribute all such size differences to productivity differences. This paper develops an alternative theory in which industries are made up of large plants producing standardized goods and small plants making custom or specialty goods. It uses confidential Census data to estimate the parameters of the model, including estimates of plant counts in the standardized and specialty segments by industry. The estimated model fits the data relatively well compared with estimates based on standard approaches. In particular, the predictions of the model for the impacts of a surge in imports from China are consistent with what happened to U.S. manufacturing industries that experienced such a surge over the period 1997'2007. Large-scale standardized plants were decimated, while small-scale specialty plants were relatively less impacted.
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The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs: An Update
January 2017
Working Paper Number:
CES-17-46
We provide an update on the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE), which is a relatively new Census Bureau business survey. About 290,000 employer firms in the private, non-agricultural U.S. economy are in the ASE sample. Its content is relatively constant over collections, allowing for comparability over time; however, each year there are approximately ten new questions in a changing topical module. Earlier topical modules covered innovation (2014) and management practices (2015). The topical module for reference year 2016 covers business advice and planning, finance, and regulations. The ASE is collected through a partnership of the Census Bureau with the Kauffman Foundation and the Minority Business Development Agency. Qualified researchers on approved projects may request access to the ASE micro data through the Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) network.
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Producing U.S. Population Statistics Using Multiple Administrative Sources
November 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-58
We identify several challenges encountered when constructing U.S. administrative record-based (AR-based) population estimates for 2020. Though the AR estimates are higher than the 2020 Census at the national level, they are over 15 percent lower in 5 percent of counties, suggesting that locational accuracy can be improved. Other challenges include how to achieve comprehensive coverage, maintain consistent coverage across time, filter out nonresidents and people not alive on the reference date, uncover missing links across person and address records, and predict demographic characteristics when multiple ones are reported or when they are missing. We discuss several ways of addressing these issues, e.g., building in redundancy with more sources, linking children to their parents' addresses, and conducting additional record linkage for people without Social Security Numbers and for addresses not initially linked to the Census Bureau's Master Address File. We discuss modeling to predict lower levels of geography for people lacking those geocodes, the probability that a person is a U.S. resident on the reference date, the probability that an address is the person's residence on the reference date, and the probability a person is in each demographic characteristic category. Regression results illustrate how many of these challenges and solutions affect the AR county population estimates.
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Small Business Pulse Survey Estimates by Owner Characteristics and Rural/Urban Designation
September 2021
Working Paper Number:
CES-21-24
In response to requests from policymakers for additional context for Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) measures of the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, we researched developing estimates by owner characteristics and rural/urban locations. Leveraging geographic coding on the Business Register, we create estimates of the effect of the pandemic on small businesses by urban and rural designations. A more challenging exercise entails linking micro-level data from the SBPS with ownership data from the Annual Business Survey (ABS) to create estimates of the effect of the pandemic on small businesses by owner race, sex, ethnicity, and veteran status. Given important differences in survey design and concerns about nonresponse bias, we face significant challenges in producing estimates for owner demographics. We discuss our attempts to meet these challenges and provide discussion about caution that must be used in interpreting the results. The estimates produced for this paper are available for download. Reflecting the Census Bureau's commitment to scientific inquiry and transparency, the micro data from the SBPS will be available to qualified researchers on approved projects in the Federal Statistical Research Data Center network.
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Impacts of Central Business District Location: A Hedonic Analysis of Legal Service Establishments
July 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-21
This analysis examines the business impacts on law firms of locating in Central Business Districts (CBDs) in major U.S. cities. Specifically, we measure the price premium that law firms pay to locate in CBDs. Using micro-level data from the 1992 and 2007 Census of Services, we find that after controlling for firm size, firm specialization characteristics, and MSA and county attributes, law firms within CBDs pay about 15 to 20 percent more in overhead compared to those firms outside CBDs ' a result consistent across time between 1992 and 2007. When including an important additional measure of firm quality, however, we find that this impact is reduced to about 7 to 9 percent, but still statistically significant. Additional results show that there is a significant correlation between firm quality and CBD location. We also find that firm size and firm specialization measures are important factors in the choice to locate within CBDs. We argue that these results indicate that CBD location for law firms may serve as networking, quality sorting, and branding mechanisms.
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Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D): Using Administrative and Census Records Data in Business Statistics
January 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-01
The quinquennial Survey of Business Owners or SBO provided the only comprehensive source of information in the United States on employer and nonemployer businesses by the sex, race, ethnicity and veteran status of the business owners. The annual Nonemployer Statistics series (NES) provides establishment counts and receipts for nonemployers but contains no demographic information on the business owners. With the transition of the employer component of the SBO to the Annual Business Survey, the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics series or NES-D represents the continuation of demographics estimates for nonemployer businesses. NES-D will leverage existing administrative and census records to assign demographic characteristics to the universe of approximately 24 million nonemployer businesses (as of 2015). Demographic characteristics include key demographics measured by the SBO (sex, race, Hispanic origin and veteran status) as well as other demographics (age, place of birth and citizenship status) collected but not imputed by the SBO if missing. A spectrum of administrative and census data sources will provide the nonemployer universe and demographics information. Specifically, the nonemployer universe originates in the Business Register; the Census Numident will provide sex, age, place of birth and citizenship status; race and Hispanic origin information will be obtained from multiple years of the decennial census and the American Community Survey; and the Department of Veteran Affairs will provide administrative records data on veteran status.
The use of blended data in this manner will make possible the production of NES-D, an annual series that will become the only source of detailed and comprehensive statistics on the scope, nature and activities of U.S. businesses with no paid employment by the demographic characteristics of the business owner. Using the 2015 vintage of nonemployers, initial results indicate that demographic information is available for the overwhelming majority of the universe of nonemployers. For instance, information on sex, age, place of birth and citizenship status is available for over 95 percent of the 24 million nonemployers while race and Hispanic origin are available for about 90 percent of them. These results exclude owners of C-corporations, which represent only 2 percent of nonemployer firms. Among other things, future work will entail imputation of missing demographics information (including that of C-corporations), testing the longitudinal consistency of the estimates, and expanding the set of characteristics beyond the demographics mentioned above. Without added respondent burden and at lower imputation rates and costs, NES-D will meet the needs of stakeholders as well as the economy as a whole by providing reliable estimates at a higher frequency (annual vs. every 5 years) and with a more timely dissemination schedule than the SBO.
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Modeling Single Establishment Firm Returns to the 2007 Economic Census
September 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-28
The Economic Census is one of the most important activities that the U.S. Census Bureau performs. It is critical for updating firm ownership/structure and industry information for a large number of businesses in the Census Bureau's Business Register, impacting most other economic programs. Also, it feeds into Bureau of Economic Analysis products, such as benchmark inputoutput accounts and Gross Domestic Product. The overall check-in rate for the 2007 Economic Census was just over 86%. Establishments owned by multi-location companies returned over 90% of their forms, as compared to the roughly two million single-establishment firms sampled in the Census that returned just over 80%. We model the check-in rate for single-establishment firms by using a large number of variables that might be correlated with whether or not a firm returns a form in the Economic Census. These variables are broadly categorized as the characteristics of firms, measures of external factors, and features of the survey design. We use the model for two purposes. First, by including many of the factors that may be correlated with returns we aim to focus limited advertising and outreach resources to low-return segments of the population. Second, we use the model to investigate the efficacy of an unplanned intervention expected to increase return rates: using certified mailing for one of the form follow-ups.
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