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Products and Productivity

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Author Info
Peter K. Schott
Andrew B. Bernard
Stephen J. Redding

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Abstract

Firms' decisions about which goods to produce are often made at a more disaggregate level than the data observed by empirical researchers. When products differ according to production technique or the way in which they enter demand, this data aggregation problem introduces a bias into standard measures of firm productivity. We develop a theoretical model of heterogeneous firms endogenously self-selecting into heterogeneous products. We characterize the bias introduced by unobserved variation in product mix across firms, and the implications of this bias for identifying firm and industry responses to exogenous policy shocks such as deregulation. More generally, we demonstrate that product switching gives rise to a richer set of industry-level dynamics than models where firm product mix remains fixed.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11575.

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Date of creation: Aug 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11575

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  3. G. Steven Olley & Ariel Pakes, 1992. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," NBER Working Papers 3977, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2006. "Multi-Product Firms and Product Switching," NBER Working Papers 12293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Florence Kondylis, 2005. "Agricultural Returns and Conflict: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Policy Intervention Programme in Rwanda," CEP Discussion Papers dp0709, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  3. Facundo Albornoz & Marco Ercolani, 2007. "Learning by Exporting: Do Firm Characteristics Matter? Evidence from Argentinian Panel Data," Discussion Papers 07-17, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham. [Downloadable!]
  4. Gabriel J. Felbermayr & Benjamin Jung, . "Sorting It Out: Technical Barriers to Trade and Industry Productivity," FIW Working Paper series 014, FIW. [Downloadable!]
  5. Lucas Navarro & Raimundo Soto, 2006. "Procyclical Productivity in Manufacturing," Cuadernos de Economía (Latin American Journal of Economics), Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 43(127), pages 193-220. [Downloadable!]
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