This paper examines the economic performance of the Chinese industrial sector in the post-reform period 1980-1985. A multifactor productivity model is used to isolate the contributions of labor, capital, and technical efficiency to growth in industrial output. Using information from the National Industrial Census of China (1988) for large and medium-size enterprises, we find that growth in industrial labor productivity in the post-reform period is attributable to increases in capital intensity not technical efficiency. Moreover, collective and other nonstate enterprises show higher partial labor and multifactor productivity gains than do state enterprises. We also find that multifactor productivity gains are closely tied to increases in retained profits and the proportion of total employees that are technical workers. Surprisingly, labor bonuses have a near zero or negative effect on multifactor productivity growth although this result is not very robust.
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Exploring The Role Of Acquisition In The Performance Of Firms: Is The "Firm" The Right Unit Of Analysis?
November 1995
Working Paper Number:
CES-95-13
In this article, we examine the effect of acquisitions on productivity performance of acquiring firms using the conventional regression analysis and a method of productivity decomposition. Our empirical work uses both plant- and firm-level data taken from the Longitudinal Research Database (LRD) on the entire population of U.S. food manufacturing firms that operated continuously during 1977-87. We find that (1) acquisitions had a significant, positive effect on acquiring firms' productivity growth, but this effect becomes insignificant when only firm-level data on multi-unit firms are included in the regressions; and (2) the decomposition results show that while the productivity contribution of the external component (acquired plants) is positive, the contribution of the internal component (existing plants) is negative; the two components offset each other leaving productivity of multi-unit acquiring firms virtually unchanged after acquisitions. These results suggest that assessing the impact of acquisitions on the structure and performance of firms requires a careful look at the individual components (i.e., plants) of the firms, particularly for large multi-unit firms.
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TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND LABOR SHARES IN CHINA
May 2014
Working Paper Number:
CES-14-24
We estimate the extent to which firms responded to tariff reductions associated with China's WTO entry by altering labor's share of value. Firm-level regressions indicate that firms in industries subject to tariff cuts raised labor's share relative to economy-wide trends, both through input choices and rent sharing. Labor's share of value is an estimated 12 percent higher in 2007 than it would be if tariffs had remained at their 1998 levels. There is significant variation across firms: the impact is larger where market access is better and it is influenced by union presence and state ownership.
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Factor Substitution In U.S. Manufacturing: Does Plant Size Matter
April 1998
Working Paper Number:
CES-98-06
We use micro data for 10,412 U.S. manufacturing plants to estimate the degrees of factor substitution by industry and by plant size. We find that (1) capital, labor, energy and materials are substitutes in production, and (2) the degrees of substitution among inputs are quite similar across plant sizes in a majority of industries. Two important implications of these findings are that (1) small plants are typically as flexible as large plants in factor substitution; consequently, economic policies such energy conservation policies that result in rising energy prices would not cause negative effects on either large or small U.S. manufacturing plants; and (2) since energy and capital are found to be substitutes; the 1973 energy crisis is unlikely to be a significant factor contributing to the post 1973 productivity slowdown. of Substitution
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Mergers and Acquisitions and Productivity in the U.S. Meat Products Industries: Evidence from the Micro Data
March 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-07
This paper investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. meat products industry from1977-92. Results show that acquired meat and poultry plants were highly productive before mergers, and that meat plants significantly improved productivity growth in the post-merger periods, but poultry plants did not.
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The Dynamics Of Productivity In The Telecommunications Equipment Industry
February 1992
Working Paper Number:
CES-92-02
Technological change and deregulation have caused a major restructuring of the telecommunications equipment industry over the last two decades. We estimate the parameters of a production function for the equipment industry and then use those estimates to analyze the evolution of plant-level productivity over this period. The restructuring involved significant entry and exit and large changes in the sizes of incumbents. Since firms choices on whether to liquidate and the on the quantities of inputs demanded should they continue depend on their productivity, we develop an estimation algorithm that takes into account the relationship between productivity on the one hand, and both input demand and survival on the other. The algorithm is guided by a dynamic equilibrium model that generates the exit and input demand equations needed to correct for the simultaneity and selection problems. A fully parametric estimation algorithm based on these decision rules would be both computationally burdensome and require a host of auxiliary assumptions. So we develop a semiparametric technique which is both consistent with a quite general version of the theoretical framework and easy to use. The algorithm produces markedly different estimates of both production function parameters and of productivity movements than traditional estimation procedures. We find an increase in the rate of industry productivity growth after deregulation. This in spite of the fact that there was no increase in the average of the plants' rates of productivity growth, and there was actually a fall in our index of the efficiency of the allocation of variable factors conditional on the existing distribution of fixed factors. Deregulation was, however, followed by a reallocation of capital towards more productive establishments (by a down sizing, often shutdown, of unproductive plants and by a disproportionate growth of productive establishments) which more than offset the other factors' negative impacts on aggregate productivity.
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The Impact Of Ownership Change On Employment, Wages, And Labor Productivity In U.S. Manufacturing 1977-87
April 1995
Working Paper Number:
CES-95-08
This paper reports on the impact of ownership change on productivity, wages, and employment in U.S. food manufacturing for the period 1977-87. Our analysis is based on both firm and plant level data taken from the U. S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Research Database (LRD). Three principal results emerge from the analysis. First, ownership change is positively associated with productivity and wage growth, although the effects are significantly smaller for large plants. Second, ownership change appears to be associated with increases, not decreases, in employment at operating plants. Third, plants changing ownership show a greater likelihood of survival than those that do not change owners. These findings run counter to the notion that mergers and acquisitions cut wages and reduce employment. Finally, neither of the first two results are observed when firm level data are used for the analysis. This suggests that firm level data hide important dynamic activities within the firm. Thus, plant level data are necessary for studying the structure and performance of firms over time.
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Capital-Energy Substitution Revisted: New Evidence From Micro Data
April 1997
Working Paper Number:
CES-97-04
We use new micro data for 11,520 plants taken from the Census Bureau=s 1991 Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECS) and 1991 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) to estimate elasticities of substitution between energy and capital. We found that energy and capital are substitutes. We also found that estimates of Allen elasticities of substitution -- which have been used as a standard measure of substitution -- are sensitive to varying data sets and levels of aggregation. In contrast, estimates of Morishima elasticities of substitution -- which are theoretically superior to the Allen elasticities -- are more robust (except when two-digit level data are used). The results support the views that (i) the Morishima elasticity is a better measure of factor substitution and (ii) micro data provide more accurate elasticity estimates than those obtained from aggregate data. Our findings appear to resolve the long-standing conflict among the estimates reported in the many previous studies regarding energy-capital substitution/complementarity.
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On Productivity and Plant Ownership Change: New Evidence From the LRD
November 1993
Working Paper Number:
CES-93-15
This paper investigates the questions of what type of establishment experiences ownership change, and how the transferred properties perform after acquisition. Are they the profitable operations suggested by Ravenscraft and Scherer (1986), or the poorly operating ones found by Lichtenberg and Siegel (1992)? Is the primary motive of ownership change the rehabilitation of low productivity plants as suggested by Lichtenberg and Siegel? Our empirical work is based on an unbalanced panel of 28,294 plants taken from the U.S. Bureau of the Census' Longitudinal Research Database ( LRD ). The data set provides complete coverage of the food manufacturing industry (SIC 20) for the period 1977-1987. Our principle findings are that (1) ownership change is generally associated with the transfer of plants with above average productivity, however, large plants, empirically, those with more than 200 employees, are more likely to be purchased than closed when they are performing poorly; and (2) transferred plants experience improvement in productivity performance following the ownership change.
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The Trend to Smaller Producers in Manufacturing in Canada and the U.S.
March 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-06
This paper examines the trend in the importance of small producers in the Canadian and U.S. manufacturing sectors from the early 1970s to the late 1990s in order to investigate whether there was a common North American trend in changes in plant size. It finds that small plants in both countries increased their share of employment up to the 1990s, but their share remained stable in the 1990s. Small plants increased their share of output up to the 1990s, but then saw their share of output decline. Over the entire time period, their share of output increased less than their share of employment and, therefore, their relative labour productivity has fallen. The similarity in the trends in the two countries suggests that causes of this phenomenon should be sought in similarities such as the technological environment rather than in country-specific factors like unionization or trade intensities.
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Are We Undercounting Reallocation's Contribution to Growth?
January 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-55R
There has been a strong surge in aggregate productivity growth in India since 1990, following
significant economic reforms. Three recent studies have used two distinct methodologies to decompose the sources of growth, and all conclude that it has been driven by within-plant increases in technical efficiency and not between-plant reallocation of inputs. Given the nature of the reforms, where many barriers to input reallocation were removed, this finding has surprised researchers and been dubbed 'India's Mysterious Manufacturing Miracle.' In this paper, we show that the methodologies used may artificially understate the extent of reallocation. One approach, using growth in value added, counts all reallocation growth arising from the movement of intermediate inputs as technical efficiency growth. The second approach, using the Olley-Pakes decomposition, uses estimates of plant-level total factor productivity (TFP) as a proxy for the marginal product of inputs. However, in equilibrium, TFP and the marginal product of inputs are unrelated. Using microdata on manufacturing from five countries ' India, the U.S., Chile, Colombia, and Slovenia ' we show that both approaches significantly understate the true
role of reallocation in economic growth. In particular, reallocation of materials is responsible for over half of aggregate Indian manufacturing productivity growth since 2000, substantially larger than either the contribution of primary inputs or the change in the covariance of productivity and size.
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