CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Asymmetric Learning Spillovers

April 1993

Abstract

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The 10 most similar working papers to the working paper 'Asymmetric Learning Spillovers' are listed below in order of similarity.

• Working Paper

  🔥

  
  
  Learning By Doing And Competition In The Early Rayon Industry
  

  February 1993

  Authors: Ron Jarmin

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-93-04

  In this paper, I derive a structural econometric model of learning by doing from a dynamic oligopoly game. Unlike previous empirical models, this model is capable of testing hypotheses concerning both the technological nature and behavioral implications of learning. I estimate the model with firm level data from the early U.S. rayon industry. The empirical results show that there were considerable differences across firms in both proprietary and spillover learning. The results also indicate that two of the three firms took their rival's reactions into account when choosing their strategies.
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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

  
  
  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

  
  
  Entry, Exit, and the Determinants of Market Structure
  

  September 2009

  Authors: Timothy Dunne, Mark Roberts, Shawn Klimek, Daniel Yi Xu

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-09-23

  Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. These decisions are driven by expectations of future profits which, in turn, depend on the nature of competition within the market. In this paper we estimate a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and use it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. We find that entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price competition are all important determinants of long run firm values and market structure. As the number of firms in the market increases, the value of continuing in the market and the value of entering the market both decline, the probability of exit rises, and the probability of entry declines. The magnitude of these effects differ substantially across markets due to differences in exogenous cost and demand factors and across the dentist and chiropractor industries. Simulations using the estimated model for the dentist industry show that pressure from both potential entrants and incumbent firms discipline long-run profits. We calculate that a seven percent reduction in the mean sunk entry cost would reduce a monopolist's long-run profits by the same amount as if the firm operated in a duopoly.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Technology Locks, Creative Destruction And Non-Convergence In Productivity Levels
  

  April 1995

  Authors: Douglas W Dwyer

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-95-06

  This paper presents a simple solution to a new model that seeks to explain the distribution of plants across productivity levels within an industry, and empirically confirms some key predictions using the U.S. textile industry. In the model, plants are locked into a given productivity level, until they exit or retool. Convex costs of adjustment captures the fact that more productive plants expand faster. Provided there is technical change, productivity levels do not converge; the model achieves persistent dispersion in productivity levels within the context of a distortion free competitive equilibrium. The equilibrium, however, is rather turbulent; plants continually come on line with the cutting edge technology, gradually expand and finally exit or retool when they cease to recover their variable costs. The more productive plants create jobs, while the less productive destroy them. The model establishes a close link between productivity growth and dispersion in productivity levels; more rapid productivity growth leads to more widespread dispersion. This prediction is empirically confirmed. Additionally, the model provides an explanation for S-shaped diffusion.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Building New Plants or Entering by Acquisition? Estimation of an Entry Model for the U.S. Cement Industry
  

  April 2010

  Authors: Hector Perez-Saiz

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-10-08

  In many industries, firms usually have two choices when expanding into new markets: They can either build a new plant (greenfield entry) or they can acquire an existing incumbent. The U.S. cement industry is a clear example. For this industry, I study the effect of two policies on the entry behavior and industry equilibrium: An asymmetric environmental policy that creates barriers to greenfield entry and a policy that creates barriers to entry by acquisition (like an antitrust policy). In the U.S. cement industry, the comparative advantage (e.g., TFP or size) of entrants versus incumbents and the regulatory entry barriers are important factors that determine the means of expansion. To model this industry, I use a perfect information static entry game. To estimate the supply and demand primitives of my model, I apply a recent estimator of discrete games to a rich database of the U.S. Census of Manufactures for the years 1963-2002. In my counterfactual analyses, I find that a less favorable environment for mergers during the Reagan-Bush administration would decrease the acquired plants by 70% and increase the new plants by 20%. Also, I find that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 increased the number of acquisitions by 7.8%. Furthermore, my simulations suggest that regulations that create barriers to greenfield entry are less favorable in terms of welfare than regulations that create barriers to entry by acquisition. Finally, I demonstrate how my parameter estimates change when I apply the traditional approach in the entry literature where entry by acquisition is not considered, and when using a simple OLS estimation.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  The Dynamics of Market Structure and Market Size in Two Health Services Industries
  

  October 2007

  Authors: Timothy Dunne, Mark Roberts, Shawn Klimek, Yi Xu

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-07-26

  The relationship between the size of a market and the competitiveness of the market has been of long-standing interest to IO economists. Empirical studies have used the relationship between the size of the geographic market and both the number of firms in the market and the average sales of the firms to draw inferences about the degree of competition in the market. This paper extends this framework to incorporate the analysis of entry and exit flows. A key implication of recent entry and exit models is that current market structure will likely depend upon history of past participation. The paper explores these issues empirically by examining producer dynamics for two health service industries, dentistry and chiropractic services. We find that the number of potential entrants and past number of incumbent firms are correlated with current market structure. The empirical results also show that as market size increases the number of firms rises less than proportionately, firm size increases, and average productivity increases. However, the magnitude of the correlations are sensitive to the inclusion of the market history variables.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  Capital Structure And Product Market Rivalry: How Do We Reconcile Theory And Evidence?
  

  February 1995

  Authors: Dan Kovenock, Gordon M Phillips

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-95-03

  This paper presents empirical evidence on the interaction of capital structure decisions and product market behavior. We examine when firms recapitalize and increase the proportion of debt in their capital structure. The evidence in this paper shows that firms with low productivity plants in highly concentrated industries are more likely to recapitalize and increase debt financing. This finding suggests that debt plays a role in highly concentrated industries where agency costs are not significantly reduced by product market competition. Following the empirical evidence we introduce the "strategic investment" effects of debt and argue that this effect, in conjunction with agency costs, appears to fit the data.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  "It's Not You, It's Me": Breakup In U.S.-China Trade Relationships
  

  February 2014

  Authors: Ryan Monarch

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-14-08

  This paper uses confidential U.S. Customs data on U.S. importers and their Chinese exporters toinvestigate the frictions from changing exporting partners. High costs from switching partners can affect the efficiency of buyer-supplier matches by impeding the movement of importers from high to lower cost exporters. I test the significance of this channel using U.S. import data, which identifies firms on both sides (U.S. and foreign) of an international trade relationship, the location of the foreign supplier, and values and quantities for the universe of U.S. import transactions. Using transactions with China from 2003-2008, I find evidence suggesting that barriers to switching exporters are considerable: 45% of arm's-length importers maintain their partner from one year to the next, and one-third of all switching importers remain in the same city as their original partner. In addition, importers paying the highest prices are the most likely to change their exporting partner. Guided by these empirical regularities, I propose and structurally estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of exporter choice, embedded in a heterogeneous firm model of international trade. In the model, importing firms choose a future partner using information for each choice, but are subject to partner and location-specific costs if they decide to switch their current partner. Structural estimates of switching costs are large, and heterogeneous across industries. For the random sample of 50 industries I use, halving switching costs shrinks the fraction of importers remaining with their partner from 57% to 18%, and this improvement in match efficiency leads to a 12.5% decrease in the U.S.-China Import Price Index.
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• Working Paper

  
  
  An Option-Value Approach to Technology in U.S. Maufacturing: Evidence from Plant-Level Data
  

  July 2000

  Authors: Adela Luque

  Working Paper Number:

  CES-00-12

  Numerous empirical studies have examined the role of firm and industry heterogeneity in the decision to adopt new technologies using a Net Present Value framework. However, as suggested by the recently developed option-value theory, these studies may have overlooked the role of investment reversibility and uncertainty as important determinants of technology adoption. Using the option-value investment model as my underlying theoretical framework, I examine how these two factors affect the decision to adopt three advanced manufacturing technologies. My results support the option-value model's prediction that plants operating in industries facing higher investment reversibility and lower degrees of demand and technological uncertainty are more likely to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies.
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