CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Manufacturing Extension And Productivity Dynamics

June 1998

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The 10 most similar working papers to the working paper 'Manufacturing Extension And Productivity Dynamics' are listed below in order of similarity.

• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  Measuring the Impact of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
  

  September 1996

  Authors: Ron Jarmin

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-96-08

  In this paper, I measure the impact of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) on productivity and sales growth at manufacturing plants. To do this, I match MEP client data to the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Research Database (LRD). The LRD contains data for all manufacturing establishments in the U.S. and provides a number of measures of plant performance and characteristics that are measured consistently across plants and time. This facilitates valid comparisons between both client and non-client plants and among clients served by different MEP centers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) administers the MEP as part of their effort to improve the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. The program provides business and technical assistance to small and medium sized manufacturers much as agricultural extension does for farmers. The goal of the paper is to see if measures of plant performance (e.g., productivity and sales growth) are systematically related to participation in the MEP, while controlling for other factors that are known or thought to influence performance. Selection bias is often a problem in evaluation studies so I specify an econometric model that controls for selection. I estimate the model with data from 8 manufacturing extension centers in 2 states. The control group includes all plants from each state in the LRD. Preliminary results indicate that MEP participation is systematically related to productivity growth but not to sales growth.
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• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  GOVERNMENT TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS* AND PLANT SURVIVAL: THE ROLE OF PLANT OWNERSHIP TYPE
  

  February 1999

  Authors: Ron Jarmin

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-99-02

  This paper compares the survival rates of plants participating in manufacturing extension programs to nonparticipating plants. Participating plants receive technical and business assistance from one of a nationwide network of extension centers intended to assist smaller manufacturers. Results suggest that plant survival is related to plant size, age, productivity, capital intensity and ownership type. Importantly, the impact of extension services differs across ownership types. Participating in extension increases the probability of survival for single unit plants, but not for multi units. This result is consistent with the notion that single unit plants have less access to information on new technologies and would, therefore, benefit more from technical assistance programs such as manufacturing extension.
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• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  Using Matched Client And Census Data To Evaluate The Performance Of The Manufacturing Extension Partnership
  

  April 1995

  Authors: Ron Jarmin

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-95-07

  This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). The MEP is administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of its effort to improve the global competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing industries. As the name implies, the MEP is modelled after agricultural extension. Rather than farmers the MEP's target population is small and medium sized manufacturers, generally those with less than 500 employees. The MEP currently supports 44 manufacturing extension centers around the country. These centers provide technical and business assistance for manufacturers much as county extension agents do for farmers. The goal of evaluation is to see if MEP engagements lead to positive outcomes from the view of important MEP stakeholders (e.g., MEP clients, MEP centers, NIST, state and local governments and Congress). These outcomes are discussed in McGuckin and Redman (1995) and include: Process Outcomes (e.g., adoption of a new technology by a client); Intermediate Outcomes (e.g., reduction in the clients defect rate); Business Outcomes (e.g., survival and profits) and Policy Outcomes (increases in employment,wages and/or exports). The evaluation framework described in this paper has two components. The first component is an evaluation dataset which contains measures of many of the program outcomes listed above for both MEP clients and a representative control group of non- clients. This dataset will be constructed by linking MEP client records with plant level Census data housed at the Center for Economic Studies of the Census Bureau. The Census data provides measures of several outcome and control variables which are comparable across both plants and time. The Census data include observations for all manufacturing plants in the U.S. from which representative control groups can be constructed. The MEP client records provide data on the type and intensity of extension engagements. Linking these rich sources of information yields a comprehensive and powerful dataset for MEP evaluation. The second component is an evaluation methodology which exploits this rich dataset to make statistical inferences about the impact of MEP services, while carefully controlling for other influences. By using this methodology, we can address many of the shortcomings which plagued previous attempts to evaluate extension services. In addition to evaluation, the dataset described in this paper may be used to profile the characteristics of MEP clients and compare them to non-clients. The Census data contain the complete universe of manufacturing establishments in the U.S.
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• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  Measuring The Performance Of Government Technology Programs: Lessons From Manufacturing Extension
  

  December 1997

  Authors: Ron Jarmin, J. Bradford Jensen

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-97-18

  Managers of government technology programs are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs. In this paper we examine the issues involved in credibly evaluating such programs in the context of recent efforts to evaluate manufacturing extension programs in the U.S. We provide a stylized model of the dynamic competitive environment in which the plants and firms targeted by these programs operate and discuss its implications for evaluation. We compare and contrast the various methodologies and data sets used to evaluate manufacturing extension. We conclude that the best currently available method for measuring the overall effectiveness of programs such as manufacturing extension is to combine program administrative data with existing panel data sets.
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• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  Evaluating the Impact of MEP Services on Establishment Performance: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation
  

  July 2012

  Authors: Christopher Ordowich, David Cheney, Jan Youtie, Andrea Fernández-Ribas, Philip Shapira

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-12-15

  This work examines the impact of manufacturing extension services on establishment productivity. It builds on an earlier study conducted by Jarmin in the 1990s, by matching the Census of Manufacturers (CMF) with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) customer and activity datasets to generate treatment and comparison groups for analysis. The scope of the study is the period 1997 to 2002, which was a period of economic downturn in the manufacturing sector and budgetary challenges for the MEP. The paper presents some preliminary findings from this analysis. Both lagged dependent variable (LDV) and difference in difference (DiD) models are employed to estimate the relationship between manufacturing extension and labor productivity. The results presented are inconclusive and paint a mixed picture as they demonstrate the benefits and limitations of using Census microdata in program evaluation. They also point to the need to conduct analyses that could help to better understand the dynamic impact of MEP services.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Evaluating the Long-Term Effect of NIST MEP Services on Establishment Performance
  

  March 2015

  Authors: Jan Youtie, Philip Shapira, Clifford A. Lipscomb, Sanjay Arora, Andy Krause

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-15-09

  This work examines the effects of receipt of business assistance services from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) on manufacturing establishment performance. Several measures of performance are considered: (1) change in value-added per employee (a measure of productivity); (2) change in sales per worker; (3) change in employment; and (4) establishment survival. To analyze these relationships, we merged program records from the MEP's client and project information files with administrative records from the Census of Manufacturers and other Census databases over the periods 1997'2002 and 2002'2007 to compare the outcomes and performance of 'served' and 'unserved' manufacturing establishments. The approach builds on, updates, and expands upon earlier studies comparing matched MEP client and non-client performance over time periods ending in 1992 and 2002. Our results generally indicate that MEP services had positive and significant impacts on establishment productivity and sales per worker for the 2002'2007 period with some exceptions based on employment size, industry, and type of service provided. MEP services also increased the probability of establishment survival for the 1997'2007 period. Regardless of econometric model specification, MEP clients with 1'19 employees have statistically significant and higher levels of labor productivity growth. We also observed significant productivity differences associated with MEP services by broad sector, with higher impacts over the 2002'2007 time period in the durable goods manufacturing sector. The study further finds that establishments receiving MEP assistance are more likely to survive than those that do not receive MEP assistance. Detailed findings of the study, as well as caveats and limitations, are discussed in the paper.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Industry Learning Environments and the Heterogeneity of Firm Performance
  

  December 2006

  Authors: Natarajan Balasubramanian, Marvin Lieberman

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-06-29

  This paper characterizes inter-industry heterogeneity in rates of learning-by-doing and examines how industry learning rates are connected with firm performance. Using data from the Census Bureau and Compustat, we measure the industry learning rate as the coefficient on cumulative output in a production function. We find that learning rates vary considerably among industries and are higher in industries with greater R&D, advertising, and capital intensity. More importantly, we find that higher rates of learning are associated with wider dispersion of Tobin's q and profitability among firms in the industry. Together, these findings suggest that learning intensity represents an important characteristic of the industry environment.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Learning by Doing and Plant Characteristics
  

  August 1996

  Authors: Ron Jarmin

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-96-05

  Learning by doing, especially spillover learning, has received much attention lately in models of industry evolution and economic growth. The predictions of these models depend on the distribution of learning abilities and knowledge flows across firms and countries. However, the empirical literature provides little guidance on these issues. In this paper, I use plant level data on a sample of entrants in SIC 38, Instruments, to examine the characteristics associated with both proprietary and spillover learning by doing. The plant level data permit tests for the relative importance of within and between firm spillovers. I include both formal knowledge, obtained through R&D expenditures, and informal knowledge, obtained through learning by doing, in a production function framework. I allow the speed of learning to vary across plants according to characteristics such as R&D intensity, wages, and the skill mix. The results suggest that (a) Ainformal@ knowledge, accumulated through production experience at the plant, is a much more important source of productivity growth for these plants than is Aformal@ knowledge gained via research and development expenditures, (b) interfirm spillovers are stronger than intrafirm spillovers, (c) the slope of the own learning curve is positively related to worker quality, (d) the slope of the spillover learning curve is positively related to the skill mix at plants, (e) neither own nor spillover learning curve slopes are related to R&D intensities. These results imply that learning by doing may be, to some extent, an endogenous phenomenon at these plants. Thus, models of industry evolution that incorporate learning by doing may need to be revised. The results are also broadly consistent with the recent growth models.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Local Environmental Regulation and Plant-Level Productivity
  

  September 2010

  Authors: Randy Becker

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-10-30R

  This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation on the productivity of manufacturing plants in the United States. Establishment-level data from three Censuses of Manufactures are used to estimate 3-factor Cobb-Douglas production functions that include a measure of the stringency of environmental regulation faced by manufacturing plants. In contrast to previous studies, this paper examines effects on plants in all manufacturing industries, not just those in 'dirty' industries. Further, this paper employs spatial-temporal variation in environmental compliance costs to identify effects, using a time-varying county-level index that is based on multiple years of establishment-level data from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey and the Annual Survey of Manufactures. Results suggest that, for the average manufacturing plant, the effect on productivity of being in a county with higher environmental compliance costs is relatively small and often not statistically significant. For the average plant, the main effect of environmental regulation may not be in the spatial and temporal dimensions.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  PRODUCTIVITY AND ACQUISITIONS IN U.S. COAL MINING
  

  December 1999

  Authors: David R Merrell

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-99-17

  This paper extends the literature on the productivity incentives for mergers and acquisitions. We develop a stochastic matching model that describes the conditions under which a coal mine will change owners. This model suggests two empirically testable hypotheses: i. acquired mines will exhibit low productivity prior to being acquired relative to non-acquired mines and ii. extant acquired mines will show post-acquisition productivity improvements over their pre-acquisition productivity levels. Using a unique micro data set on the universe of U.S. coal mines observed from 1978 to 1996, it is estimated that acquired coal mines are significantly less productive than non-acquired mines prior to having been acquired. Additionally, there is observable and significant evidence of post-acquisition productivity improvements. Finally, it is found that having been acquired positively and significantly influences the likelihood that a coal mine fails.
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