A framework for analyzing substitution and scale properties, and technical change from plant-level panel data is presented. Focus is on comparing the constant and random coefficient specification of the substitution and scale parameters and investigating the potential variation of the parameters...

This paper describes firms' output and factor demand before, during and after episodes of lumpy investments using a rich employer-employee panel data set for two manufacturing industries and one service industry. We focus on the simultaneous adjustment of capital, materials, man-hours, as well...

Do employees benefit from worker representation on corporate boards? Economists and policymakers are keenly interested in this question - especially lately, as worker representation is widely promoted as an important way to ensure the interests and views of the workers. To investigate this...

This paper revisits the estimation of private returns to R&D. In an extension of the standard approach, we allow for endogeneity of production decisions, heterogeneity of R&D elasticities, and asymmetric treatment of intramural and extramural R&D. Our empirical analyses are based on an extended...

Supermarkets and high-value exports are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Using a survey of Kenyan vegetable growers...

A steep decline in coffee prices at the producer level led to considerable pressure for farmers in Costa Rica and producer countries all over the world. One possible reaction was moving to specialty markets, where price pressure was perceived to be lower. We use original survey data from 2002/03...

Some well-known correlations between R&D and performance are given a somewhat new interpretation in this paper. I present an alternative model of knowledge accumulation, with some interesting and desirable properties. Perhaps the most attractive property is that it provides a simple and less...

This paper explores the inconsistency of common scale estimators when output is proxied by deflated sales, based on a common output deflator across firms. The problems arise when firms operate in an imperfectly competitive environment and prices differ between firms. In particular, we show that...

Empirical research has established that there is a significant, positive relationship between productivity growth and R&D- expenditure at the firm level. Yet, while interesting, the conventional production function approach applied in such studies has some well known limitations. This paper...

Considering the observed patterns of R&D investment, we argue that a model which allows for a positive feedback from already acquired knowledge to the productiveness of current research, fits the empirical evidence better than the standard model that treats knowledge accumulation symmetrically...