Papers Containing Tag(s): 'Metropolitan Statistical Area'
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Viewing papers 81 through 90 of 163
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Working PaperProduct Quality and Firm Heterogeneity in International Trade
March 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-08
I develop and implement a methodology for obtaining plant-level estimates of product quality from revenue and physical output data. Intuitively, firms that sell large quantities of output conditional on price are classified as high quality producers. I use this method to decompose cross-plant variation in price and export status into a quality and an efficiency margin. The empirical results show that prices are increasing in quality and decreasing in efficiency. However, selection into exporting is driven mainly by quality. The finding that changes in quality and efficiency have different impact on the firm's export decision is shown to be inconsistent with the traditional iceberg trade cost formulation and points to the importance of per unit transport costs.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Dynamics of House Price Capitalization and Locational Sorting: Evidence from Air Quality Changes
September 2012
Working Paper Number:
CES-12-22
Despite extensive use of housing data to reveal valuation of non-market goods, the process of house price capitalization remains vague. Using the restricted access American Housing Survey, a high-frequency panel of prices, turnover, and occupant characteristics, this paper examines the time path of capitalization and preference-based sorting in response to air quality changes caused by differential regulatory pressure from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The results demonstrate that owner-occupied units capitalize changes immediately, whereas rent capitalization lags. The delayed but sharp rent capitalization temporally coincides with evidence of sorting, suggesting a strong link between location choices and price dynamics.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperEvaluating the Impact of MEP Services on Establishment Performance: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation
July 2012
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.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Slow Growth of New Plants: Learning about Demand?
March 2012
Working Paper Number:
CES-12-06
It is well known that new businesses are typically much smaller than their established industry competitors, and that this size gap closes slowly. We show that even in commodity-like product markets, these patterns do not reflect productivity gaps, but rather differences in demand-side fundamentals. We document and explore patterns in plants' idiosyncratic demand levels by estimating a dynamic model of plant expansion in the presence of a demand accumulation process (e.g., building a customer base). We find active accumulation driven by plants' past production decisions quantitatively dominates passive demand accumulation, and that within-firm spillovers affect demand levels but not growth.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperLEHD Data Documentation LEHD-OVERVIEW-S2008-rev1
December 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-43
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Working PaperImpacts 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.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperLEHD Infrastructure Files in the Census RDC: Overview of S2004 Snapshot
April 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-13
The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau, with the support of several national research agencies, has built a set of infrastructure files using administrative data provided by state agencies, enhanced with information from other administrative data sources, demographic and economic (business) surveys and censuses. The LEHD Infrastructure Files provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of workers, employers, and their interaction in the U.S. economy. This document describes the structure and content of the 2004 Snapshot of the LEHD Infrastructure files as they are made available in the Census Bureau's Research Data Center network.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperWhat Do I Take With Me: The Impact of Transfer and Replication of Resources on Parent and Spin-Out Firm Performance
February 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-06
Focusing on entrepreneurial ventures created by employees leaving a firm, our study examines the differential impact of knowledge transfer and knowledge spillovers on both parent and spin-out performance. While extant research often uses knowledge transfer and spillover interchangeably, our study distinguishes between the two based on the 'rivalness' of the relevant knowledge. We theorize that both knowledge transfer (proxied by the size of the exiting employee team) and knowledge spillovers (proxied by the experience of the exiting employee team) will aid spin-out performance. However, knowledge transfer, being more rival, will have a greater adverse impact than knowledge spillovers on parent firm performance. Using U.S. Census Bureau linked employee-employer data from the legal services industry, we find support for our hypotheses. Our study thus contributes to extant literature by highlighting a key dimension of knowledge ' rivalness ' and the differential competitive dynamics effect of resources with varying degrees of rivalness.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperBeyond Cobb-Douglas: Estimation of a CES Production Function with Factor Augmenting Technology
February 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-05
Both the recent literature on production function identification and a considerable body of other empirical work on firm expansion assume a Cobb-Douglas production function. Under this assumption, all technical differences are Hicks neutral. I provide evidence from US manufacturing plants against Cobb-Douglas and present an alternative production function that better fits the data. A Cobb Douglas production function has two empirical implications that I show do not hold in the data: a constant cost share of capital and strong comovement in labor productivity and capital productivity (revenue per unit of capital). Within four digit industries, differences in cost shares of capital are persistent over time. Both the capital share and labor productivity increase with revenue, but capital productivity does not. A CES production function with labor augmenting differences and an elasticity of substitution between labor and capital less than one can account for these facts. To identify the labor capital elasticity, I use variation in wages across local labor markets. Since the capital cost to labor cost ratio falls with local area wages, I strongly reject Cobb-Douglas: capital and labor are complements. Now productivity differences are no longer neutral, which has implications on how productivity affects firms' decisions to expand or contract. Non neutral technical improvements will result in higher stocks of capital but not necessarily more hiring of labor. Specifying the correct form of the production function is more generally important for empirical work, as I demonstrate by applying my methodology to address questions of misallocation of capital.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperJob Referral Networks and the Determination of Earnings in Local Labor Markets
December 2010
Working Paper Number:
CES-10-40
Referral networks may affect the efficiency and equity of labor market outcomes, but few studies have been able to identify earnings effects empirically. To make progress, I set up a model of on-the-job search in which referral networks channel information about high-paying jobs. I evaluate the model using employer-employee matched data for the U.S. linked to the Census block of residence for each worker. The referral effect is identified by variations in the quality of local referral networks within narrowly defined neighborhoods. I find, consistent with the model, a positive and significant role for local referral networks on the full distribution of earnings outcomes from job search.View Full Paper PDF
