Learning by Exporting, Importing or Both? Estimating productivity with multi-product firms, pricing heterogeneity and the role of international trade

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between exporting/importing status and firm productivity. We use a rich product-firm-level dataset providing both revenue and quantities of all products for a large panel of Danish manufacturing firms over the period 1998-2005 and link it to another dataset describing firms’ international trade transactions by product. We use our detailed product level information to compute a firm level deflator and avoid the criticism of biased estimates due to the use of industry level deflator. We find that both importing and exporting behaviours are strongly associated with productivity, but firms involved in both importing and exporting are the most productive. We also find evidence of a self-selection into importing and exporting but no learning effect. Finally, we try to distinguish between cost effect and product quality effect by analyzing the importance of the origin of imports and the destination of exports. We find that both imports from countries with abundant and cheap labor like China and from countries with similar level of development matter, although the mechanism through which productivity is affected is likely to be different. In addition, exporting to more distant OECD economies is more strongly associated to productivity than exporting to neighboring or other EU countries, especially when controlling for the price specific effectno; keywords

Testing Models of Hierarchy: Span of Control, Compensation and Career Dynamics

In this paper, we test implications from various theories of hierarchies in organizations, in particular the assignment model (Rosen, 1982), the incentives model (Rosen, 1986), the supervision model (Qian, 1994) and the knowledge- based hierarchy model (Garicano, 2000; Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg, 2006). We use a unique dataset providing personnel records from a large European firm in an high tech manufacturing industry from January 1997 to May 2004. An unusually rare feature of this dataset is that relationships within the hierarchy are reported and we can therefore identify the chain of command. Some of our results are in line with the Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2006) model of hierarchies when communication costs are decreasing: we observe an increase in the span, an increase in wage inequality between job levels, and the introduction of a new hierarchical level. However, we also find evidence of learning and reallocation of talent within and across job levels, a finding that can not be explained by a static model of knowledge based hierarchy but rather by dynamic models of careers in organizations (e.g. Gibbons and Waldman, 1999). We then propose a new model of hierarchies where individuals accumulate general and managerial human capital on the job, and firms learn gradually about individuals' managerial ability and allocate managers to span according to their expected effective ability. This theory explains our empirical findings and provides a richer theory of careers in hierarchiehierarchy; span of control; wage determination; promotions; careers

Do Input Quality and Structural Productivity Estimates Drive Measured Differences in Firm Productivity?

Firms in the same industry can differ in measured total factor productivity (TFP) by multiples of 3. Griliches (1957) suggests one explanation: the quality of inputs differs across firms. Labor inputs are traditionally measured only as the number of workers. We investigate whether adjusting for the quality of labor inputs substantially decreases measured TFP dispersion. We add labor market history variables such as experience and firm and industry tenure, as well as general human capital measures such as schooling and sex. We also investigate whether an innovative structural estimator for productivity due to Olley and Pakes (1996) substantially decreases measured residual TFP. Combining labor quality and structural estimates of productivity, the one standard deviation difference in residual TFPs in manufacturing drops from 0.70 to 0.67 multiples. Neither the structural productivity measure nor detailed input quality measures explain the very large measured residual TFP dispersion, despite statistically precise coefficient estimatesproduction function estimation; total factor productivity; input quality; structural estimates of productivity

Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers

In this paper, we analyze the careers from a sample of more than 1,000 top French chefs over more than twenty years and link it to the success or reputation of the restaurants where they have worked. This allows us to test what are the determinants of success but also to investigate the dynamics of performance and reputation, stressing the importance of the quality of apprenticeships, mentoring and entrepreneurship spirit. We find that the prestige of the restaurant where individuals work is on average declining along the career, and that the quality of apprenticeship is strongly related to the future success as chef. We also find that prices of restaurants with higher reputation are more sensitive to bad signals.No; keywords

Mergers of Equals & Unequals

We examine the organizational dynamics of integration post merger. Our basic question is whether there is evidence of conflict between employees from the two merging firms. Such conflict can arise for several reasons, including firm-specific human capital, corporate culture, power, or favoritism. We examine this issue using a sample of Danish mergers. The results are consistent with the basic hypothesis. Controlling for other effects, employees from the acquirer fare better than employees from the acquired firm, suggesting that they have greater power in the newly merged hierarchy. As a separate effect, the more that either firm dominates the other in terms of number of employees, the better do its employees fare compared to employees from the other firm. This suggests that majority / minority status is also important to assimilation of workers, much as in ethnic conflicts. Finally, greater overlap of operations decreases turnover. This finding is inconsistent with the view that workers of the two firms may be better substitutes for each other. However, the result and our other findings are consistent with the view that more similar workers (in terms of either firm- or industry-specific human capital) are easier to integrate post mergerMergers; internal organization; conflicts; personnel economics

Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers

In this paper, we analyze the careers from a sample of more than 1,000 top French chefs over more than twenty years and link it to the success or reputation of the restaurants where they have worked. This allows us to test what are the determinants of success but also to investigate the dynamics of performance and reputation, stressing the importance of the quality of apprenticeships, mentoring and entrepreneurship spirit. We find that the prestige of the restaurant where individuals work is on average declining along the career, and that the quality of apprenticeship is strongly related to the future success as chef. We also find that prices of restaurants with higher reputation are more sensitive to bad signals.reputation, careeers, gastronomy

Job Mobility and Wage Dynamics

Using a dataset covering the population of Danish private-sector workers, I analyze the relationship between job changes and wage dynamics. I …nd that the number of past job changes is positively related to wages. This result is consistent with the idea that workers changing …rms end up with better matches than workers who do not change …rms. The main …ndings are veri…ed using the U.S. NLSY panel data, implying that they can not be attributed to the peculiarities of the Danish labor marketWorker turnover; wages; matching; human capital; matched employer-employee data

Job Creation, Job Destruction and Voting Behavior in Poland

This paper analyzes the effect of job creation and job destruction on the voting patterns of individuals in Poland during the 1997 and 2001 parliamentary elections. First, we link the votes for the left wing party to the unemployment rate and the job creation and destruction rates in the constituency. We show that the job destruction rate and unemployment rate has a positive effect on the votes for the SLD, while the job creation rate has a negative effect. Second, we look at the effect of the change in job creation and job destruction rates on the change in the votes for individual candidates. We that incumbents from the firmer right wing coalition received less votes if excess job reallocation had increased in their constituency. Therefore, the paper provides evidence that job ?ows have a strong impact on voting patterns and that the balance between the positive and negative effects of refirms detfirmine to a large extent the political outcome

Does Input Quality Drive Measured Differences in Firm Productivity?

Firms in the same industry can differ in measured productivity by multiples of 3. Griliches (1957) suggests one explanation: the quality of inputs differs across firms. We add labor market history variables such as experience and firm and industry tenure, as well as general human capital measures such as schooling and sex. We also use the wage bill and worker fixed effects. We show adding human capital variables and the wage bill decreases the ratio of the 90th to 10th productivity quantiles from 3.27 to 2.68 across eight Danish manufacturing and service industries. The productivity dispersion decrease is roughly of the same order of magnitude as some competitive effects found in the literature, but input quality measures do not explain most productivity dispersion, despite economically large production function coefficients. We find that the wage bill explains as much dispersion as human capital measures.

Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers

In this paper, we analyze the careers from a sample of more than 1,000 top French chefs over more than twenty years and link it to the success or reputation of the restaurants where they have worked. This allows us to test what are the determinants of success but also to investigate the dynamics of performance and reputation, stressing the importance of the quality of apprenticeships, mentoring and entrepreneurship spirit. We find that the prestige of the restaurant where individuals work is on average declining along the career, and that the quality of apprenticeship is strongly related to the future success as chef. We also find that prices of restaurants with higher reputation are more sensitive to bad signals