Why do cities differ so much in productivity? We document that most of the measured dispersion in productivity across … US cities is spurious and reflects granularity bias: idiosyncratic heterogeneity in plant-level productivity and size …

problematic. When they use labor productivity growth as a proxy for technical progress, their regressions are quasi …-accounting identities that omit one variable of the identity. Consequently, the coefficient of labor productivity growth suffers from … omitted-variable bias, where the omitted variable is known. The use of total factor productivity (TFP) growth as a proxy for …

We study the importance of intangible capital (R&D, software, patents) for the measurement of productivity using firm … of input choice and unobserved productivity shocks. We find a positive output elasticity for research and development (R … output production function reduces productivity dispersion (measured by the 90-10 decile range) on average by 3%, in some …