How do institutions affect resource misallocation? This paper focuses on a particular class of institutions, namely property rights, and their relation to extortion. Motivated by empirical evidence that there are differences in extortion rates across establishments, both within and across...

A large literature emphasizes that distortions misallocate resources across firms and are a key source of productivity losses. This paper examines the dynamic effects of distortions when they affect not only the allocation of resources but also firm-level incentives to improve productivity. I...

We construct a new dataset using census, survey, and registry data from hundreds of sources to document a clear positive relationship between development and average establishment size in manufacturing across 134 countries. We rationalize this relationship using a standard model of reallocation...

I develop a model of monopolistic competition in which I distinguish between niche markets and mass markets, in the spirit of Holmes and Stevens, 2014. Firms choose between entering a small niche market with high markups or a large mass market with low markups. Entry costs and other distortions...

We construct a new dataset using census, survey, and registry data from hundreds of sources to document a clear positive relationship between aggregate productivity and average establishment size for manufacturing establishments across 124 countries. We rationalize this relationship using a...

I incorporate an insight of Friedrich Hayek—that competition allows a thousand flowers to bloom, and discovers the best among them—into a model of Schumpeterian innovation. Firms face uncertainty about the optimal direction of innovation, so more innovations implies a higher expected value...

I introduce patents into a general equilibrium model of innovation, where innovators choose between creating a new product market and competing in an existing market. Patent holders demand royalties from sequential innovators, but are constrained by the ability of innovators to work around...

I develop a model of monopolistic competition in which I distinguish between niche markets and mass markets, in the spirit of Holmes and Stevens (2013). Firms choose between entering a small niche market with high markups or a large mass market with low markups. Entry costs have a much greater...

I incorporate an insight of Friedrich Hayek - that competition allows a thousand flowers to bloom, and discovers the best among them - into a model of Schumpeterian innovation. Firms face uncertainty about the optimal direction of innovation, so more innovations implies a higher expected value...