CES-WP-92-16
Decomposing Learning By Doing in New Plants
Byong-Hyong Bahk, Michael Gort
December 01, 1992
The paper examines learning by doing in the context of a production function in which the other arguments are labor, human capital, physical capital, and vintage as a proxy for embodied technical change in physical capital. Learning is further decomposed into organization learning, capital learning, and manual task learning. The model is tested with time series and cross section data for various samples of up to 2,150 plants over a 14 year period. Journal of Political Economy, Volume 101, Number 4, August 1993.
 View Paper 31 Pages 87408 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-15
Wages, Employer Size-Wage Premia and Employment Structure: Their Relationship to Advanced-Technology Usage at U.S. Manufacturing Establishments
Timothy Dunne, James Schmitz, Jr.
December 01, 1992
We study wages, size-wage premia and the employment structure
(measured as the fraction of production workers in an establishment)
and their relationship to the extent of advanced-technology usage at
U.S, manufacturing plants. We begin by sketching a model of
technology adoption based on Lucas (1978) that provides a framework
for interpreting the data analysis. We then study a new Census
Bureau survey of technology use at manufacturing plants. Workers in
establishments that are classified as the most technology intensive
earn a premium of 16 percent as compared to those in plants that are
the least premium earned by workers in all but the very largest
plants. The inclusion of the technology classification variables in
standard wage regressions reduced the size-wage premia by as much as
60 percent for some size categories.
View Paper 30 Pages 44926 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-14
Manufacturing Establishments Reclassified Into New Industries: The Effect Of Survey Design Rules
Robert Mcguckin, Suzanne Peck
November 01, 1992
Establishment reclassification occurs when an establishment classified in one industry in one year is reclassified into another industry in another year. Because of survey design rules at the Census Bureau these reclassifications occur systematically over time, and affect the industry-level time series of output and employment. The evidence shows that reclassified establishments occur most often in two distinct years over the life of a sample panel. Switches are not only numerous in these years, they also contribute significantly to measured industry change in industry output and employment. The problem is that reclassifications are not necessarily processed in the year that they occur. The survey rules restrict most change to certain years. The effect of these rules is evidenced by looking at the variance across industry growth rates which increases greatly in these two years. Whatever the reason for reclassifying an establishment, the way the switches are processed raises the possibility of measurement errors in the industry level statistics. Researchers and policymakers relying upon observations in annual changes in industry statistics should be aware of these systematic discontinuities, discrepancies and potential data distortions.
View Paper 32 Pages 138240 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-12
THE AGGREGATE IMPLICATIONS OF MACHINE REPLACEMENT: THEORY AND EVIDENCE
Russell Cooper, John Haltiwanger
October 01, 1992
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 Paper 56 Pages 304724 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-11
Managerial Tenure, Business Age And Small Business Dynamics
Thomas Holmes, James Schmitz
September 01, 1992
This paper studies a Census Bureau survey of the small business sector that contains information on business age, business size and other proxies for business quality, information, typically available on business data sets, as well as proxies for the quality of the manager of each business, information that is not common to such data sets. One of the key proxies for managerial quality is the length of time the manager has been running the business, that is, managerial tenure. With proxies for both the underlying quality of each business and for the quality of the manager running the business, we are able to begin separating the influences of the manager from that of the underlying business on such factors as business discontinuance and business transfer. An example of the questions we explore is: Holding business quality fixed, what is the impact of the manager on the probability of business discontinuance? Regarding this question, we find that managers have a large impact on the course of their businesses, in particular, among businesses of the same age, managerial tenure has a significant impact on the probability of business discontinuance and transfer. Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 14, Number 1 (1996) pp. 79-99.
View Paper 42 Pages 167936 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-10
The Time-Series Pattern Of Firm Growth In Two Industries
Kenneth Troske
September 01, 1992
Using a unique firm-level longitudinal data set that covers both the manufacturing and finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) industries, this paper examines the time-series pattern of firm growth both immediately after entry and immediately prior to exit, and compares these patterns across the two industries. While previous research has examined the post-entry time-series behavior of firms, this research has focused exclusively on manufacturing firms. Examining the behavior of nonmanufacturing firms is important for two reasons. First, since the relative importance of the manufacturing industry has been declining recently, the behavior of manufacturing firms may be much different than the behavior of firms in an expanding industry, such as FIRE. Thus, comparing the growth of firms in a nonmanufacturing industry, with the growth of manufacturing firms provides more general knowledge about firm behavior. Second, since any good theory of firm dynamics should explain cross-industry differences in firm behavior, cross-industry differences in behavior must be documented before models of this type can be developed. The main finding of this paper are: (1) relative to FIRE firms, manufacturing firms experience more periods of above average growth immediately after entry; (2) relative to FIRE firms, manufacturing firms experience more periods of below average growth immediately prior to exit; and (3) relative to the growth of manufacturing firms, the growth of the typical FIRE firm is much more responsive to transitory shocks. Forthcoming in Journal of Law and Economics as The Dynamic Adjustment Process of Firm Entry and Exit in Manufacturing, Finance Insurance and Real Estate.
View Paper 40 Pages 195836 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-9
The Structure Of Technology, Substitution, And Productivity In The Interstate Natural Gas Transmission Industry Under The NGPA Of 1978
Mary Streitwieser, Robin Sickles
August 01, 1992
The structure of production in the natural gas transmission industry is estimated using the dual restricted cost function based on panel data for twenty four firms. A standard translog variable cost function with firm fixed effects is augmented with controls for capacity utilization, technical change, and shifting regulatory regimes. During the implementation of the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA), 1978-1985, the industry exhibited no significant increase in productivity, largely attributable to the decline in output for the industry. Regulatory efforts to promote voluntary non-contract transmission appear to have enabled some firms to mitigate the overall industry productivity stagnation. The NGPA instituted a complex schedule of partial and gradual decontrol of natural gas prices at the well head. This form of deregulation costs natural gas producers over $100 billion in lost revenues, relative to immediate and full price deregulation. However, the transmission firms benefited by paying $1.5 billion less for natural gas than they would have under total deregulation. The benefits to consumers, totaling $98.7 billion, were unevenly distributed. On average, for the 1978-1985 period, utilities, commercial, and industrial users paid less for their gas than they would have under total decontrol and residential users paid $8.6 billion more. The NGPA and Federal Regulatory Commission oversight practices allow the transmission industry to price discriminate among customers.
View Paper 38 Pages 221184 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-8
Analytic Use Of Economic Microdata; A Model For Researcher Access With Confidentiality Protection
Robert Mcguckin
August 01, 1992
A primary responsibility of the Center for Economic Studies (CES) of the U.S. Bureau of the Census is to facilitate researcher access to confidential economic microdata files. Benefits from this program accrue not only to policy makers--there is a growing awareness of the importance of microdata for analyzing both the descriptive and welfare implications of regulatory and environmental changes--but also and importantly to the statistical agencies themselves. In fact, there is substantial recent literature arguing for the proposition that the largest single improvement that the U.S. statistical system could make is to improve its analytic capabilities. In this paper I briefly discuss these benefits to greater access for analytical work and ways to achieve them. Due to the nature of business data, public use databases and masking technologies are not available as vehicles for releasing useful microdata files. I conclude that a combination of outside and inside research programs, carefully coordinated and integrated is the best model for ensuring that statistical agencies reap the gains from analytic data users. For the United States, at least, this is fortuitous with respect to justifying access since any direct research with confidential data by outsiders must have a "statistical purpose". Until the advent of CES, it was virtually impossible for researchers to work with the economic microdata collected by the various economic censuses. While the CES program is quite large, as it now stands, researchers, or their representatives, must come to the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C. to access the data. The success of the program has led to increasing demands for data access in facilities outside of the Washington, D.C. area. Two options are considered: 1) Establish Census Bureau facilities in various universities or similar nonprofit research facilities and 2) Develop CES regional operations in existing Census Bureau regional offices. Proceedings, International Seminar on Statistical Confidentiality, 1992.
View Paper 26 Pages 56320 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-7
The Characteristics of Business Owners Database
Alfred Nucci
August 01, 1992
Small Business Economics (with R. Boden) No. 2, pp. 301-305.
View Paper 77 Pages 138532 Bytes
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CES-WP-92-5
Costs, Demand, and Imperfect Competition as Determinants of Plant_level Output Prices
Mark Roberts, Timothy Dunne
June 01, 1992
The empirical modeling of imperfectly competitive markets has been constrained by the difficulty of obtaining micro data on individual producer prices, outputs, and costs. In this paper we utilize micro data collected from the 1977 Census of Manufactures to study the determinants of plant-level output prices among U.S. bread producers. A theoretical model of short-run price competition among plants producing differentiated products is used to specify reduced-form equations for each plant's price and output. Estimates of the reduced-form equations indicate that the main determinants of both the plant's output level and output price are the plant's own cost variables, particularly its capital stock and the prices of material inputs. The number of rival producers faced by the plant, the production costs of these rivals, and the demand conditions faced by the plant play no role in price or output determination. The results are not consistent with either oligopolistic competition or monopoly behavior, but rather are consistent with price-taking behavior by individual producers combined with output quality differentials across producers. Empirical Studies in Industrial Organization: Essays in Honor of Leonard W. Weiss pp. 13-24, (1992). B.B. Audretsch and J.J. Siegfried, eds., Clover Publishers.
View Paper 37 Pages 93184 Bytes
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