Papers Containing Tag(s): 'Ordinary Least Squares'
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Viewing papers 291 through 300 of 301
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Working PaperPrimary Versus Secondary Production Techniques in U.S. Manufacturing
October 1994
Working Paper Number:
CES-94-12
In this paper we discuss and analyze a classical economic puzzle: whether differences in factor intensities reflect patterns of specialization or the co-existence of alternative techniques to produce output. We use observations on a large cross-section of U.S. manufacturing plants from the Census of Manufactures, including those that make goods primary to other industries, to study differences in production techniques. We find that in most cases material requirements do not depend on whether goods are made as primary products or as secondary products, which suggests that differences in factor intensities usually reflect patterns of specialization. A few cases where secondary production techniques do differ notably are discussed in more detail. However, overall the regression results support the neoclassical assumption that a single, best-practice technique is chosen for making each product.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperRegulation and Firm Size, Foreign-Based Company Market Presence, Merger Choice In The U.S. Pesticide Industry
June 1994
Working Paper Number:
CES-94-06
This paper uses Two-Stage Least Squares to examine the impact of pesticide product regulation on the number of firms and the foreign-based company market share of U.S. Pesticide Companies. It also investigates merger choice with a multinomial logit model. The principal finding is that greater research and regulatory costs affected small innovative pesticide companies more than large ones and encouraged foreign company expansion in the U.S. pesticide market. It was also found that the stage of the industry growth cycle and farm sector demand influenced the number of innovative companies and foreign-based company market share. Finally, firms that remain in the industry were found to have greater price cost margins, lower regulatory penalties costs, and a much greater multinational business presence than those that departed.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Span of the Effect of R&D in the Firm and Industry
May 1994
Working Paper Number:
CES-94-07
Previous studies have found that the firm's own research and spillovers of research by related firms increase firm productivity. In contrast, in this paper we explore the impact of firm R&D on the productivity of its individual plants. We carry out this investigation of within firm R&D effects using a unique set of Census data. The data, which are from the chemicals industry, are a match of plant level productivity and other characteristics with firm level data on R&D of the parent company, cross-classified by location and applied product field. We explore three aspects of the span of effect of the firm's R&D: (i), the degree to which its R&D is "public" across plants; (ii), the extent of its localization in geographic space, and (iii), the breadth of its relevance outside the applied product area in which it is classified. We find that (i), firm R&D acts more like a private input which is strongly amortized by the number of plants in the firm; (ii), firm R&D is geographically localized, and exerts greater influence on productivity when it is conducted nearer to the plant; and (iii), firm R&D in a given applied product area is of limited relevance to plants producing outside that product area. Moreover, we find that while geographic localization remains significant, it diminishes over time. This trend is consistent with the effect of improved telecommunications on increased information flows within organizations. Finally, we consider spillovers of R&D from the rest of industry, finding that the marginal product of industry R&D on plant productivity, though positive and significant, is far smaller than the marginal product of parent firm's R&D.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Long-Run Demand for Labor: Estimates From Census Establishment Data
September 1993
Working Paper Number:
CES-93-13
This paper estimates long-run demand functions for production workers, production worker hours, and nonproduction workers using micro data from U.S. establishment surveys. The paper focuses on estimation of the wage and output elasticities of labor demand using data on over 41,000 U.S. manufacturing plants in 1975 and more than 30,000 plants in 1981. Particular attention is focused on the problems of unobserved producer heterogeneity and measurement errors in output that can affect labor demand estimates based on establishment survey data. The empirical results reveal that OLS estimates of both the own-price elasticity and the output elasticity of labor demand are biased downward as a result of unobserved heterogeneity. Differencing the data as a solution to this problem greatly exaggerates measurement error in the output coefficients. The use of capital stocks as instrumental variables to correct for measurement error in output significantly alters output elasticities in the expected direction but has no systematic effect on own-price elasticities. All of these patterns are found in estimates that pool establishment data across industries and in industry-specific regressions for the vast majority of industries. Estimates of the output elasticity of labor demand indicate that there are slight increasing returns for production workers and production hours, with a pooled data estimate of .92. The estimate for nonproduction workers in .98. The variation in the output elasticities across industries is fairly small. Estimates of the own-price elasticity vary more substantially with the year, type of differencing used, and industry. They average -.50 for production hours, -.41 for production workers, and -.44 for nonproduction workers. The price elasticities vary widely across manufacturing industries: the interquartile range for the industry estimates is approximately .40.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperDeterminants Of Survival And Profiability Among Asian Immigrant-Owned Small Businesses
August 1993
Working Paper Number:
CES-93-11
The immigrant entrepreneur is often seen as a member of supportive peer and community subgroups. These networks assist in the creation and successful operation of firms by providing social resources in the form of customers, loyal employees and financing. This study provides evidence that the success and survival patterns of Asian immigrant firms derive from their large investments of financial capital and the impressive educational credentials of the business owners. Heavy utilization of social support networks typifies the less profitable, more failure-prone small businesses owned by Asian immigrants.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperGender Segregation Small Firms
October 1992
Working Paper Number:
CES-92-13
This paper studies interfirm gender segregation in a unique sample of small employers. We focus on small firms because previous research on interfirm segregation has studied only large firms and because it is easier to link the demographic characteristics of employers and employees in small firms. This latter feature permits an assessment of the role of employer discrimination in creating gender segregation. Our first finding is that interfirm segregation is prevalent among small employers. Indeed men and women rarely work in fully integrated firms. Our second finding is that the education and gender of the business owner strongly influence the gender composition of a firm's workforce. This suggests that employer discrimination may be an important cause of workplace gender segregation. Finally, we estimate that interfirm segregation can account for up to 50% of the gender gap in annual earnings.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperTHE AGGREGATE IMPLICATIONS OF MACHINE REPLACEMENT: THEORY AND EVIDENCE
October 1992
Working Paper Number:
CES-92-12
This paper studies an economy in which producers incur resource costs to replace depreciated machines. The process of costly replacement and depreciation creates endogenous fluctuations in productivity, employment and output of a single producer. We also explore the spillover effects of machine replacement on other sectors of the economy and provide conditions for synchronized machine replacement by multiple, independent producers. The implications of our model are generally consistent with observed monthly output, employment and productivity fluctuations in automobile plants. Synchronization of retooling across plants within the auto industry is widespread so that the fluctuations observed at the plant level have aggregate implications.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperPrice Dispersion In U.S. Manufacturing: Implications For The Aggregation Of Products And Firms
March 1992
Working Paper Number:
CES-92-03
This paper addresses the question of whether products in the U.S. Manufacturing sector sell at a single (common) price, or whether prices vary across producers. Price dispersion is interesting for at least two reasons. First, if output prices vary across producers, standard methods of using industry price deflators lead to errors in measuring real output at the industry, firm, and establishment level which may bias estimates of the production function and productivity growth. Second, price dispersion suggests product heterogeneity which, if consumers do not have identical preferences, could lead to market segmentation and price in excess of marginal cost, thus making the current (competitive) characterization of the Manufacturing sector inappropriate and invalidating many empirical studies. In the course of examining these issues, the paper develops a robust measure of price dispersion as well as new quantitative methods for testing whether observed price differences are the result of differences in product quality. Our results indicate that price dispersion is widespread throughout manufacturing and that for at least one industry, Hydraulic Cement, it is not the result of differences in product quality.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe 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.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Effects Of Leveraged Buyouts On Productivity And Related Aspects Of Firm Behavior
July 1989
Working Paper Number:
CES-89-05
We investigate the economic effects of leveraged buyouts (LBOs) using large longitudinal establishment and firm-level Census Bureau data sets linked to a list of LBOs compiled from public data sources. About 5 percent, or 1100, of the manufacturing plants in the sample were involved in LBOs during 1981-1986. We find that plants involved in LBOs had significantly higher rates of total-factor productivity (TFP) growth than other plants in the same industry. The productivity impact of LBOs is much larger than our previous estimates of the productivity impact of ownership changes in general. Management buyouts appear to have a particularly strong positive effect on TFP. Labor and capital employed tend to decline (relative to the industry average) after the buyout, but at a slower rate than they did before the buyout. The ratio of nonproduction to production labor cost declines sharply, and production worker wage rates increase, following LBOs. LBOs are production-labor-using, nonproduction-labor-saving, organizational innovations. Plants involved in management buyouts (but not in other LBOs) are less likely to subsequently close than other plants. The average R&D- intensity of firms involved in LBOs increased at least as much from 1978 to 1986 as did the average R&D-intensity of all firms responding to the NSF/Census survey of industrial R&D.View Full Paper PDF
