Patenting in software, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence has grown rapidly in recent years. Such patents are acquired primarily by large US technology firms such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and HP, as well as by Japanese multinationals such as Sony, Canon, and Fujitsu. Chinese...

We present a heterogeneous-firm model in which management ability increases both production efficiency and product quality. Combining six micro-datasets on management practices, production and trade in Chinese and American firms, we find broad support for the model's predictions. First, better...

Beginning in 2008, we ran a randomized controlled trial that changed management practices in a set of Indian weaving firms (Bloom et al. 2013). In 2017 we revisited the plants and found three main results. First, while about half of the management practices adopted in the original experimental...

We investigate the link between hospital performance and managerial education by collecting a large database of management practices and skills in hospitals across nine countries. We find that hospitals that are closer to universities offering both medical education and business education have...

In many growth models, economic growth arises from people creating ideas, and the long-run growth rate is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity. We present a wide range of evidence from various industries, products, and firms showing that...

Uncertainty appears to have both a short-run and a long-run component, which we measure using firm and macro implied volatility data from options of 30 days to 10 years duration. We ask what may be driving uncertainty over these different time horizons, finding that oil price volatility is...

What is the optimal form of firm organization during "bad times"? We present a model of delegation within the firm to show that the effect is ambiguous. The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information increases (the "localist"...

Partnering with the Census we implement a new survey of "structured" management practices in 32,000 US manufacturing plants. We find an enormous dispersion of management practices across plants, with 40% of this variation across plants within the same firm. This management variation accounts for...

We elicit new information about planning frequencies and forecast horizons from a survey of 500 US firms conducted in August 2018 and again in April-May 2021. Most firms update capital investment plans yearly, while updating plans for employment, prices and sales at monthly or quarterly...

Uncertainty about own-firm sales growth rates over the year ahead roughly doubled in reaction to the COVID shock, according to our surveys of U.S. and U.K. business executives. Firm-level uncertainty receded after spring 2020 but remains much higher than pre-COVID levels. Moreover, the nature of...