Papers Containing Tag(s): 'Cambridge University Press'
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Viewing papers 1 through 10 of 12
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Working PaperBusiness-Level Expectations and Uncertainty
December 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-41
The Census Bureau's 2015 Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) utilized innovative methodology to collect five-point forecast distributions over own future shipments, employment, and capital and materials expenditures for 35,000 U.S. manufacturing plants. First and second moments of these plant-level forecast distributions covary strongly with first and second moments, respectively, of historical outcomes. The first moment of the distribution provides a measure of business' expectations for future outcomes, while the second moment provides a measure of business' subjective uncertainty over those outcomes. This subjective uncertainty measure correlates positively with financial risk measures. Drawing on the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Census of Manufactures for the corresponding realizations, we find that subjective expectations are highly predictive of actual outcomes and, in fact, more predictive than statistical models fit to historical data. When respondents express greater subjective uncertainty about future outcomes at their plants, their forecasts are less accurate. However, managers supply overly precise forecast distributions in that implied confidence intervals for sales growth rates are much narrower than the distribution of actual outcomes. Finally, we develop evidence that greater use of predictive computing and structured management practices at the plant and a more decentralized decision-making process (across plants in the same firm) are associated with better forecast accuracy.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperPlant Exit and U.S. Imports from Low-Wage Countries
January 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-02
Over the past twenty years, imports to the U.S. from low-wage countries have increased dramatically. In this paper we examine how low-wage country import competition in the U.S. influences the probability of manufacturing establishment closure. Confidential data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census are used to track all manufacturing establishments between 1992 and 2007. These data are linked to measures of import competition built from individual trade transactions. Controlling for a variety of plant and firm covariates, we show that low-wage import competition has played a significant role in manufacturing plant exit. Analysis employs fixed effects panel models running across three periods: the first plant-level panels examining trade and exit for the U.S. economy. Our results appear robust to concerns regarding endogeneity.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperStatistics on the International Trade Administration's Global Markets Program
September 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-17
Recent mandates for evidence-based policy choices from both the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government underscore the importance of understanding the relationship between program participation and business outcomes. In this paper, we examine the correlations between participation in an export-promotion program and business outcomes. We use this experience to provide more general lessons learned about combining program data on treatments with Census Bureau micro data that can be used as a control. Note this paper does not evaluate a program, but instead provides critical information about a program. The mission of the Commercial Service/Global Markets program is to help companies either start or increase their exports of goods and services. It pursues this mission through advocacy, events, and counseling. This study looks at a very small part of the overall program. While we cannot rule-out several sources of bias in our results, we do observe several consistent patterns across our models. In particular, program participation is positively correlated with export growth and change and, for small businesses, also with positive employment growth. However, overall, and for large firms in particular, there is a negative correlation with employment growth and counseling. The paper concludes with a 'Lessons Learned' section that highlights areas where measurement can be improved.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperDo Market Leaders Lead in Business Process Innovation? The Case(s) of E-Business Adoption
April 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-10
This paper investigates the relationship between market position and the adoption of IT-enabled process innovations. Prior research has focused overwhelmingly on product innovation and garnered mixed empirical support. I extend the literature into the understudied area of business process innovation, developing a framework for classifying innovations based on the complexity, interdependence, and customer impact of the underlying business process. I test the framework's predictions in the context of ebuying and e-selling adoption. Leveraging detailed U.S. Census data, I find robust evidence that market leaders were significantly more likely to adopt the incremental innovation of e-buying but commensurately less likely to adopt the more radical practice of e-selling. The findings highlight the strategic significance of adjustment costs and co-invention capabilities in technology adoption, particularly as businesses grow more dependent on new technologies for their operational and competitive performance.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperDownsizing, Layoffs and Plant Closure: The Impacts of Import Price Pressure and Technological Growth on U.S. Textile Producers
April 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-10
Downsizing, layoffs and plant closure are three plant-level responses to adverse economic conditions. I provide a theoretical and empirical analysis that illustrates the sources of each phenomenon and the implications for production and employment in the textiles industry. I consider two potential causes of these phenomena: technological progress and increased import competition. I create a micro-founded model of plant-level decision-making and combine it with conditions for dynamic market equilibrium. Through use of detailed plant-level information available in the US Census of Manufacturers and the Annual Survey of Manufacturers for the period 1982-2001, along with price data on imports, I examine the relative contribution of technology and import competition to the decline in output, employment and number of plants in textiles production in the US in recent years. The market-clearing domestic price of textiles is identified as a crucial channel in transmitting technology or import price shocks to downsizing, layoffs and plant closure. The model is estimated on two 4-digit sectors of textiles production (SIC 2211, broadwoven cotton and SIC 2221, broadwoven man-made fiber). The results validate modeling the production sectors as monopolistically competitive, and the elasticity of substitution between foreign and domestic varieties is found to be quite high. The coefficients on the productive technology are sensible, as are the estimated parameters of the plant exit, entry and investment decision rules. In simulations for the broadwoven cotton industry, the effects of technological progress are shown to have a much larger impact on layoffs than on plant closure, with plant size as measured by output actually increasing. Falling foreign prices lead to greater relative magnitudes of plant closure than of downsizing or layoffs.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperImport Price Pressure on Firm Productivity and Employment: The Case of U.S. Textiles
March 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-09
Theoretical research has predicted three different effects of increased import competition on plant-level behavior: reduced domestic production and sales, improving average efficiency of plants, and increased exit of marginal firms. In empirical work, though, such effects are difficult to separate from the impact of exogenous technological progress (or regress). I use detailed plant-level information available in the US Census of Manufacturers and the Annual Survey of Manufacturers for the period 1983-2000 to decompose these effects. I derive the relative contribution of technology and import competition to the increase in productivity and the decline in employment in textiles production in the US in recent years. I then simulate the impact of removal of quota protection on the scale of operation of the average plant and the incentive to plant closure. The methodology employs a number of important innovations in examining the impact of falling import prices on the domestic production of an import-competing good. First, import competition is modeled directly through its impact on the relative prices of monopolistically competitive goods along the lines suggested by Melitz (2000). Second, the effect of technology is incorporated through structural estimation of plant-level production functions in four factors (capital, labor, energy and materials). Solutions to econometric difficulties related to missing capital data and unobserved productivity are incorporated into the estimation technique. The model is estimated for plants with primary product in SIC 2211 (broadwoven cotton cloth). Results validate modeling demand as for differentiated products. Technological coefficients are sensible, with exogenous technological progress playing a large role. In the simulations run, the effects of foreign price competition are orders of magnitude higher than those of technological progress for the period after quotas on imports are removed. The large-scale reduction in employment and output in the US is shown to be a combination of reduced employment and output at plants in continuous operation and of plant closures that exceed new entries.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperIs There Really an Export Wage Premium? A Case Study of Los Angeles Using Matched Employee-Employer Data
February 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-06
This paper investigates the effects of exporting on wages, specifically the claim that workers are paid higher wages if they are employed in manufacturing plants that export vis-'-vis plants that do not export. Past research on US plants has supported the existence of an export wage premium, though European studies dispute those results calling for more care in econometric investigation to control for worker characteristics. We answer this call developing a matched employee-employer data set linking worker characteristics from the one-in-six long form of the Decennial Household Census to manufacturing establishment data from the Longitudinal Research Database. Analysis focuses on 1990 and 2000 data for the Los Angeles Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area. Our results confirm that the average wage in manufacturing plants that export is greater than that in manufacturing plants that do not export. However, after controlling for worker characteristics such as age, gender, education, race and nationality, the export wage premium vanishes. That is, when comparing workers with similar characteristics, there is no wage difference between exporting and non-exporting plants. These results concord with recent findings from Europe and elsewhere.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperThe Work Disincentive Effects of the Disability Insurance Program in the 1990s
February 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-05
In this paper we evaluate the work disincentive effects of the Disability Insurance program during the 1990s. To accomplish this we construct a new large data set with detailed information on DI application and award decisions and use two different econometric evaluation methods. First, we apply a comparison group approach proposed by John Bound to estimate an upper bound for the work disincentive effect of the current DI program. Second, we adopt a Regression-Discontinuity approach that exploits a particular feature of the DI eligibility determination process to provide a credible point estimate of the impact of the DI program on labor supply for an important subset of DI applicants. Our estimates indicate that during the 1990s the labor force participation rate of DI beneficiaries would have been at most 20 percentage points higher had none received benefits. In addition, we find even smaller labor supply responses for the subset of 'marginal' applicants whose disability determination is based on vocational factors.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperLarge Plant Data in the LRD: Selection of a Sample for Estimation
March 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-06
This paper describes preliminary work with the LRD during our tenure at the Census Bureau as participants in the ASA/NSF/Census Research Program. The objective of the work described here were two-fold. First, we wanted to examine the suitableness of these data for the calculation of plant-level productivity indexes, following procedures typically implemented with time series data. Second, we wanted to select a small number of 2-digit industry groups that would be well suited to the estimation of production functions and systems of factor share equations and factor demand forecasting equations with system-wide techniques. This description of our initial work may be useful to other researchers who are interested in the LRD for the analysis of productivity growth and/or the estimation of systems of factor equations, because the specific results reported in this memo suggest that the data are of good quality, or because the nature of the tasks undertaken provides insight into issues that arise in the analysis of longitudinal establishment data.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperProductivity Adjustments and Learning-by-Doing as Human Capital
November 1997
Working Paper Number:
CES-97-17
This paper measures plant-level productivity gains associated with learning curves across the entire manufacturing sector. We measure these gains at plant startups and also after major employment changes. We find: 1.) The gains are strongly associated with a variety of human capital measures implying that learning-by-doing is largely a firm-specific human capital investment. 2.) This implicit investment is large; many plants invest as much in learning-by-doing as they invest in physical capital and much more than they invest in formal job training. 3.) This investment differs persistently over industries and is higher with greater R&D. 4.) Consistent with a learning-by-doing interpretation, the human capital investment is much larger following employment decreases than increases. We conclude that learning-by-doing is a major factor in wage determination, technical progress and asymmetric employment adjustment costs.View Full Paper PDF
