We study the impact of techies—engineers and other technically trained workers—on firm-level productivity. We first … within firms. Using structural econometric methods, we estimate the causal effect of techies on firm-level Hicks …-neutral productivity in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. We find that techies raise firm-level productivity, and this …

Elite skills have become crucial in today’s superstar economy. We develop a multi-period skillformation model where we … show that individuals with temporary disadvantages must exert greater effort to gain access to elite education. This … “underdog-incentive effect” implies that “educated underdogs” obtain superior adult skills. We find support for this mechanism …

manufacturing firms from China. We use two firm-level datasets from China: one from metropolitan cities, and one from provincial …’s education and age. We find that skilled human capital has a significant positive effect on firms’ innovation, while the … development and growth. In this paper, we examine the role of human capital in firms’ innovation by using a large sample of …

manufacturing firms and undermine their competitiveness. Using exogenous variation in the administrative land supply across 172 …, reduce their bank lending, lower their investment rate and labor productivity, and reduce their output and TFP growth by … Chinese cities, we show that higher predicted real estate prices cause higher borrowing costs for small manufacturing firms …

college enrollment and graduation. They also affect outcomes in later life, increasing cognitive skills and improving labor … later years. Recessions at high-school graduation narrow the gender gaps in numeracy skills and labor-market success … exogenous variation in the labor-market opportunities of potential college entrants. Exploiting business cycle fluctuations …

We develop novel measures of early-career skills that are more detailed, comprehensive, and labor-market-relevant than …-approved, nationally standardized apprenticeship plans. These plans provide more than 13,000 different skills and the exact duration of … skills acquired during apprenticeship are highly – yet differently – rewarded. We also document rising returns to digital and …

% points higher annual productivity growth, and a 3.6% points higher probability of exit for firms with binding employment …This paper investigates a unique policy designed to maintain employment during the privatization of East German firms … after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The policy required new owners of the firms to commit to employment targets, with …

raise the skills of their workforce in response to the acquisition by hiring high-skilled workers and providing worker … upgrading in foreign-acquired firms. We reveal substantial productivity gains within foreign-acquired firms and we show that …We conduct an empirical investigation into the effects of foreign ownership on worker skills using firm-level data from …

robots, and a productivity-enhancing reallocation of labor across firms, away from non-adopters, and toward adopters. …We study the implications of robot adoption at the level of individual firms using a rich panel data-set of Spanish … manufacturing firms over a 27-year period (1990-2016). We focus on three central questions: (1) Which firms adopt robots? (2) What …

evidence on the direct effect of ethnic divisions on productivity. In team production at a plant in Kenya, an upstream worker … costs of ethnic diversity vary with the political environment, and that in high-cost environments firms are forced to adopt …