There is considerable evidence that producer-level churning contributes substantially to aggregate (industry) productivity growth, as more productive businesses displace less productive ones. However, this research has been limited by the fact that producer-level prices are typically unobserved;...

Whether and to what extent environmental regulations influence the competitiveness of firms remains a hotly debated issue. Using detailed production data from tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing plants drawn from Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate the effects of environmental...

The economic costs of environmental regulations have been widely debated since the U.S. began to restrict pollution emissions more than four decades ago. Using detailed production data from nearly 1.2 million plant observations drawn from the 1972-1993 Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate...

There are tremendous across-plant differences in measured productivity levels, even within narrowly defined industries. Most of the literature attempting to explain this heterogeneity has focused on technological (supply-side) factors. However, an industry's demand structure may also influence...

The economic costs of environmental regulations have been widely debated since the U.S. began to restrict pollution emissions more than four decades ago. Using detailed production data from nearly 1.2 million plant observations drawn from the 1972-1993 Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate...

Using quarterly micro data on capacity utilization among Swedish manufacturing firms, we show that idiosyncratic factors are much more important than aggregate influences in explaining variation in capacity utilization across firms and over time. Idiosyncratic does not mean unpredictable,...