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Papers Containing Tag(s): 'Herfindahl Hirschman Index'

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Longitudinal Business Database - 28

North American Industry Classification System - 25

Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board - 16

Standard Industrial Classification - 15

Ordinary Least Squares - 14

Census of Manufactures - 13

Total Factor Productivity - 13

Bureau of Labor Statistics - 12

Disclosure Review Board - 11

National Science Foundation - 11

Federal Statistical Research Data Center - 11

Annual Survey of Manufactures - 11

National Bureau of Economic Research - 10

Bureau of Economic Analysis - 10

Herfindahl-Hirschman - 10

Economic Census - 9

Metropolitan Statistical Area - 9

Internal Revenue Service - 8

Census Bureau Longitudinal Business Database - 8

Census of Manufacturing Firms - 8

Chicago Census Research Data Center - 8

Federal Trade Commission - 7

Employer Identification Numbers - 7

Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics - 7

American Community Survey - 7

Current Population Survey - 7

Center for Economic Studies - 7

Federal Reserve Bank - 6

Department of Justice - 6

Business Register - 6

Council of Economic Advisers - 6

Social Security Administration - 5

County Business Patterns - 5

University of Chicago - 5

Longitudinal Firm Trade Transactions Database - 5

Securities and Exchange Commission - 5

Special Sworn Status - 5

Federal Reserve System - 4

Boston College - 4

Social Security - 4

Alfred P Sloan Foundation - 4

W-2 - 4

Center for Research in Security Prices - 4

International Trade Research Report - 4

Patent and Trademark Office - 4

Department of Economics - 4

American Economic Association - 4

Labor Productivity - 4

Technical Services - 3

Census Bureau Business Register - 3

Protected Identification Key - 3

Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages - 3

Department of Homeland Security - 3

Harmonized System - 3

World Trade Organization - 3

Cobb-Douglas - 3

Kauffman Foundation - 3

Standard Statistical Establishment List - 3

Viewing papers 1 through 10 of 44


  • Working Paper

    Private Equity and Workers: Modeling and Measuring Monopsony, Implicit Contracts, and Efficient Reallocation

    June 2025

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-25-37

    We measure the real effects of private equity buyouts on worker outcomes by building a new database that links transactions to matched employer-employee data in the United States. To guide our empirical analysis, we derive testable implications from three theories in which private equity managers alter worker outcomes: (1) exertion of monopsony power in concentrated markets, (2) breach of implicit contracts with targeted groups of workers, including managers and top earners, and (3) efficient reallocation of workers across plants. We do not find any evidence that private equity-backed firms vary wages and employment based on local labor market power proxies. Wage losses are also very similar for managers and top earners. Instead, we find strong evidence that private equity managers downsize less productive plants relative to productive plants while simultaneously reallocating high-wage workers to more productive plants. We conclude that post-buyout employment and wage dynamics are consistent with professional investors providing incentives to increase productivity and monitor the companies in which they invest.
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  • Working Paper

    Transitional Costs and the Decline of Coal: Worker-Level Evidence

    September 2024

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-24-53

    We examine the labor market impacts of the U.S. coal industry's decline using comprehensive administrative data on workers from 2005-2021. Coal workers most exposed to the industry's contraction experienced substantial earnings losses, equivalent to 1.6 years of predecline wages. These losses stem from both reduced employment duration (0.37 fewer years employed) and lower annual earnings (17 percent decline) between 2012-2019, relative to similar workers less exposed to coal's decline. Earnings reductions primarly occur when workers remain in local labor markets but are not employed in mining. While coal workers do not exhibit lower geographic mobility, relocation does not significantly mitigate their earnings losses.
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  • Working Paper

    Revisions to the LEHD Establishment Imputation Procedure and Applications to Administrative Job Frame

    September 2024

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-24-51

    The Census Bureau is developing a 'job frame' to provide detailed job-level employment data across the U.S. through linked administrative records such as unemployment insurance and IRS W-2 filings. This working paper summarizes the research conducted by the job frame development team on modifying and extending the LEHD Unit-to-Worker (U2W) imputation procedure for the job frame prototype. It provides a conceptual overview of the U2W imputation method, highlighting key challenges and tradeoffs in its current application. The paper then presents four imputation methodologies and evaluates their performance in areas such as establishment assignment accuracy, establishment size matching, and job separation rates. The results show that all methodologies perform similarly in assigning workers to the correct establishment. Non-spell-based methodologies excel in matching establishment sizes, while spell-based methodologies perform better in accurately tracking separation rates.
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  • Working Paper

    Supply Chain Adjustments to Tariff Shocks: Evidence from Firm Trade Linkages in the 2018-2019 U.S. Trade War

    August 2024

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-24-43

    We use the 2018-2019 U.S. trade war to examine how supply chains adjustments to a tariff cost shock affect imports and exports. Using confidential firm-trade linked data, we show that the decline in imports of tariffed goods was driven by discontinuations of U.S. buyer'foreign supplier relationships, reduced formation of new relationships, and exits by U.S. firms from import markets altogether. However, tariffed products where imports were concentrated in fewer suppliers had a smaller decline in import growth. We then construct measures of export exposure to import tariffs by linking tariffs paid by importing firms to their exported products. We find that the most exposed products had lower exports in 2018-2019, with most of the impact occurring in 2019.
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  • Working Paper

    The Rise of Specialized Firms

    February 2024

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-24-06

    This paper studies firm diversification over 6-digit NAICS industries in U.S. manufacturing. We find that firms specializing in fewer industries now account for a substantially greater share of production than 40 years ago. This reallocation is a key driver of rising industry concentration. Specialized firms have displaced diversified firms among industry leaders'absent this reallocation concentration would have decreased. We then provide evidence that specialized firms produce higher-quality goods: specialized firms tend to charge higher unit prices and are more insulated against Chinese import competition. Based on our empirical findings, we propose a theory in which growth shifts demand toward specialized, high-quality firms, which eventually increases concentration. We conclude that one should expect rising industry concentration in a growing economy.
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  • Working Paper

    Local and National Concentration Trends in Jobs and Sales: The Role of Structural Transformation

    November 2023

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-23-59

    National U.S. industrial concentration rose between 1992-2017. Simultaneously, the Herfindhahl Index of local (six-digit-NAICS by county) employment concentration fell. This divergence between national and local employment concentration is due to structural transformation. Both sales and employment concentration rose within industry-by-county cells. But activity shifted from concentrated Manufacturing towards relatively un-concentrated Services. A stronger between-sector shift in employment relative to sales explains the fall in local employment concentration. Had sectoral employment shares remained at their 1992 levels, average local employment concentration would have risen by 9% by 2017 rather than falling by 7%.
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  • Working Paper

    Temperature and Local Industry Concentration

    October 2023

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-23-51

    We use plant-level data from the US Census of Manufacturers to study the short and long run effects of temperature on manufacturing activity. We document that temperature shocks significantly increase energy costs and lower the productivity of small manufacturing plants, while large plants are mostly unaffected. In US counties that experienced higher increases in average temperatures between the 1980s and the 2010s, these heterogeneous effects have led to higher concentration of manufacturing activity within large plants, and a reallocation of labor from small to large manufacturing establishments. We offer a preliminary discussion of potential mechanisms explaining why large manufacturing firms might be better equipped for long-run adaptation to climate change, including their ability to hedge across locations, easier access to finance, and higher managerial skills.
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  • Working Paper

    Access to Financing and Racial Pay Gap Inside Firms

    July 2023

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-23-36

    How does access to financing influence racial pay inequality inside firms? We answer this question using the employer-employee matched data administered by the U.S. Census Bureau and detailed resume data recording workers' career trajectories. Exploiting exogenous shocks to firms' debt capacity, we find that better access to debt financing significantly narrows the earnings gap between minority and white workers. Minority workers experience a persistent increase in earnings and also a rise in the pay rank relative to white workers in the same firm. The effect is more pronounced among mid- and high-skill minority workers, in areas where white workers are in shorter supply, and for firms with ex-ante less diverse boards and greater pre-existing racial inequality. With better access to financing, minority workers are also more likely to be promoted or be reassigned to technology-oriented occupations compared to white workers. Our evidence is consistent with access to financing making firms better utilize minority workers' human capital.
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  • Working Paper

    On The Role of Trademarks: From Micro Evidence to Macro Outcomes

    March 2023

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-23-16R

    What are the effects of trademarks on the U.S. economy? Evidence from comprehensive micro data on trademark registrations and outcomes for U.S. employer firms suggests that trademarks protect firm value and are linked to higher firm growth and marketing activity. Motivated by this evidence, trademarks are introduced in a general equilibrium framework to quantify their aggregate effects. Firms invest in product quality and engage in both informative and persuasive advertising to build a customer base subject to depreciation. Persuasive advertising induces a perception of higher quality. Firms can register trademarks to reduce customer depreciation and enhance product awareness. The model's predictions about trademark registrations, firm growth, and advertising expenditures align with the empirical evidence. The analysis shows that, compared to the counterfactual economy without trademarks, the U.S. economy with trademarks generates higher average product quality but lower variety, ultimately resulting in greater welfare and higher industry concentration. While informative advertising improves welfare, persuasive advertising reduces it. Nevertheless, the positive welfare impact of trademarks outweighs the negative effects of persuasive advertising.
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  • Working Paper

    What Drives Stagnation: Monopsony or Monopoly?

    October 2022

    Working Paper Number:

    CES-22-45

    Wages for the vast majority of workers have stagnated since the 1980s while productivity has grown. We investigate two coexisting explanations based on rising market power: 1. Monopsony, where dominant firms exploit the limited mobility of their own workers to pay lower wages; and 2. Monopoly, where dominant firms charge too high prices for what they sell, which lowers production and the demand for labor, and hence equilibrium wages economy-wide. Using establishment data from the US Census Bureau between 1997 and 2016, we find evidence of both monopoly and monopsony, where the former is rising over this period and the latter is stable. Both contribute to the decoupling of productivity and wage growth, with monopoly being the primary determinant: in 2016 monopoly accounts for 75% of wage stagnation, monopsony for 25%.
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