We use producer-level data to evaluate the role of financial frictions in determining total factor productivity (TFP). We study a model of establishment dynamics in which financial frictions reduce TFP through two channels. First, finance frictions distort entry and technology adoption decisions. Second, finance frictions generate dispersion in the returns to capital across existing producers and thus productivity losses from misallocation. Parameterizations of our model consistent with the data imply fairly small losses from misallocation, but potentially sizable losses from inefficiently low levels of entry and technology adoption.

This paper estimates a dynamic structural model of a producer's decision to invest in R&D and export, allowing both choices to endogenously affect the future path of productivity. Using plant-level data for the Taiwanese electronics industry, both activities are found to have a positive effect on the plant's future productivity. This in turn drives more plants to self-select into both activities, contributing to further productivity gains. Simulations of an expansion of the export market are shown to increase both exporting and R&D investment and generate a gradual within-plant productivity improvement.

A large empirical literature has documented that firm-level differences in productivity, size, ownership status, and other characteristics are crucial to understanding differences in firms’ decisions to export. The evidence strongly supports the self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but there has been more mixed evidence on the subsequent feedback effects of exporting on the future path of firm productivity. Several recent papers have introduced a new dimension into this export-productivity relationship: firm-level investments in productivity-enhancing activities such as R&D. James A. Costantini and Marc J. Melitz (2007), Alla Lileeva and Daniel Trefler (2007), and Paula Bustos (2006) explore the linkages between investments in innovation, productivity, and the decision to export in the context of the liberalization of trade regimes. Aw, Roberts, and Tor Winston (2007) have also found a significant role for firm R&D investments in explaining Taiwanese firm export patterns, as well as interaction effects between firm R&D and export choices in explaining productivity change. In this paper we summarize some empirical results from our research project to develop an estimable structural model of the joint exportinvestment decision. In the theoretical model, firms invest in R&D and physical capital, which can affect the path of future productivity for the firm. R&D investment, through its effect on future productivity, increases the profits from exporting, and participation in the export market raises the return to R&D investments. The theoretical model yields equations for the policy functions for R&D investment, physical investment, and the exporting decision, as well as the evolution of firm-level profitability, that can be estimated with micro datasets containing R&D Investments, Exporting, and the Evolution of Firm Productivity

We study the procompetitive gains from international trade in a quantitative model with endogenously variable markups. We find that trade can significantly reduce markup distortions if two conditions are satisfied: (i) there is extensive misallocation, and (ii) opening to trade exposes hitherto dominant producers to greater competitive pressure. We measure the extent to which these two conditions are satisfied in Taiwanese producer-level data. Versions of our model consistent with the Taiwanese data predict that opening up to trade strongly increases competition and reduces markup distortions by up to one-half, thus significantly reducing productivity losses due to misallocation.

We study the welfare costs of markups in a dynamic model with heterogeneous firms and endogenous markups. We provide aggregation results summarizing the macro implications of micro-level markup heterogeneity. We calibrate our model to US Census of Manufactures data and find that the costs of markups can be large. We decompose the costs into three channels: an aggregate markup that acts like a uniform output tax, misallocation of factors of production, and inefficient entry. We find that the aggregate-markup and misallocation channels account for most of the costs of markups and that the entry channel is much less important.

We study a Chinese policy that awards substantial tax cuts to firms with R&D investment over a threshold or “notch.” Quasi-experimental variation and administrative tax data show a significant increase in reported R&D that is partly driven by firms relabeling expenses as R&D. Structural estimates show relabeling accounts for 24.2 percent of reported R&D and that doubling R&D would increase productivity by 9 percent. Policy simulations show that firm selection and relabeling determine the cost-effectiveness of stimulating R&D, that notch-based policies are more effective than tax credits when relabeling is prevalent, and that modest spillovers justify the program from a welfare perspective.

In this article, we use micro data on both trade and production for a sample of large Chinese manufacturing firms in the footwear industry from 2002 to 2006 to estimate an empirical model of export demand, pricing, and market participation by destination market. We use the model to construct indexes of firm-level demand, marginal cost, and fixed cost. The empirical results indicate substantial firm heterogeneity in all three dimension with demand being the most dispersed. The firm-specific demand and marginal cost components account for over 30% of market share variation, 40% of sales variation, and over 50% of price variation among exporters. The fixed cost index is the primary factor explaining differences in the pattern of destination markets across firms. The estimates are used to analyse the supply reallocation following the removal of the quota on Chinese footwear exports to the EU. This led to a rapid restructuring of export supply sources on both the intensive and extensive margins in favour of firms with high demand and low fixed costs indexes, with marginal cost differences not being important.

A quantitative model brings together theories linking international trade to quality, technology, and demand for skills. Standard effects of trade on importers and exporters are magnified through domestic input linkages. We estimate the model with data from Colombian manufacturing firms before the 1991 trade liberalization. A counterfactual trade liberalization is broadly consistent with post-liberalization data. It increases skill intensity from 12 to 16 percent, while decreasing sales. Imported inputs, estimated to be of higher quality, and domestic input linkages are quantitatively important. Economies of scale, export expansion, and reallocation of production are small and cannot explain post-liberalization data.

Relative to backward firms, technologically-advanced firms source inputs from other advanced firms. These sourcing patterns lead to a magnification effect of technology adoption. A firm that adopts higher-technology increases the relative supply and demand for higher-technology inputs. As a result, it positively influences the technology of other firms in its production chain. Using data from a Colombian manufacturing survey, we provide evidence that advanced firms disproportionately value advanced inputs. More novel, we provide suggestive evidence that technological advancements in some firms increase the technology of other firms indirectly linked to them through a common input market.

We study a prominent energy regulation affecting large Chinese manufacturers that are part of broader conglomerates. Using detailed firm-level data and difference-in-differences research designs, we show that regulated firms cut output and shifted some production to unregulated firms within their conglomerate instead of improving their energy efficiency. To account for conglomerate and market spillovers, we interpret these results through the lens of an industry equilibrium model featuring conglomerate production. The policy raises welfare if the per ton benefits of carbon reduction exceed $161. Alternative policies that exploit public information on business networks can increase aggregate energy savings by 10 percent.