IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp1594.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Skill biased management: evidence from manufacturing firms

Author

Listed:
  • Andy Feng
  • Anna Valero

Abstract

This paper investigates the link between management practices and workforce skills in manufacturing firms, exploiting geographical variation in the supply of human capital. Skills measures are constructed using newly compiled data on universities and regional labour markets across 19 countries. Consistent with management practices being complementary with skills, we show that firms further away from universities employ fewer skilled workers and are worse managed, even after controlling for a rich set of observables and fixed effects. Analysis using regional skill premia suggests that variation in the price of skill drives these relationships.

Suggested Citation

  • Andy Feng & Anna Valero, 2019. "Skill biased management: evidence from manufacturing firms," CEP Discussion Papers dp1594, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1594.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2004. "What's driving the new economy?: the benefits of workplace innovation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 97-116, February.
    2. Valero, Anna & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "The economic impact of universities: Evidence from across the globe," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 53-67.
    3. Joseph Zeira, 1998. "Workers, Machines, and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1091-1117.
    4. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    5. Susanto Basu & David N. Weil, 1998. "Appropriate Technology and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1025-1054.
    6. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    7. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Estimating the social return to higher education: evidence from longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 175-212.
    8. Moretti, Enrico, 2011. "Local Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 14, pages 1237-1313, Elsevier.
    9. Van Reenen, John & Bloom, Nicholas & Sadun, Raffaella, 2016. "Management as a Technology," CEPR Discussion Papers 11312, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Rebecca Henderson & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1998. "Universities As A Source Of Commercial Technology: A Detailed Analysis Of University Patenting, 1965-1988," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 119-127, February.
    11. Nicola Gennaioli & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Human Capital and Regional Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 105-164.
    12. Sharon Belenzon & Mark Schankerman, 2013. "Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy, and Knowledge Spillovers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 884-903, July.
    13. Nicholas Bloom & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lucia Foster & Ron Jarmin & Megha Patnaik & Itay Saporta-Eksten & John Van Reenen, 2017. "What drives differences in management?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1470, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Bloom, Nicholas & Sadun, Raffaella & Lemos, Renata & Scur, Daniela & Van Reenen, John, 2014. "The new empirical economics of management," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58009, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Paul Beaudry & David A. Green, 2003. "Wages and Employment in the United States and Germany: What Explains the Differences?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 573-602, June.
    16. Luc Anselin & Attila Varga & Zoltan Acs, 2008. "Local Geographic Spillovers Between University Research and High Technology Innovations," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 9, pages 95-121, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10093 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2020. "Healthy Business? Managerial Education and Management in Health Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 506-517, July.
    19. Cameron, A. Colin & Gelbach, Jonah B. & Miller, Douglas L., 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249.
    20. Nicholas Bloom & Benn Eifert & Aprajit Mahajan & David McKenzie & John Roberts, 2013. "Does Management Matter? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 1-51.
    21. Oriana Bandiera & Andrea Prat & Stephen Hansen & Raffaella Sadun, 2020. "CEO Behavior and Firm Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(4), pages 1325-1369.
    22. Ennen, Edgar & Richter, Ansgar, 2009. "The Whole Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts - Or Is It? A Review of the Empirical Literature on Complementarities in Organizations," MPRA Paper 15666, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Paul Beaudry & Mark Doms & Ethan Lewis, 2010. "Should the Personal Computer Be Considered a Technological Revolution? Evidence from U.S. Metropolitan Areas," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(5), pages 988-1036.
    24. Thiemo Fetzer, 2014. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Violence? Evidence from India," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 053, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    25. Stefan Bender & Nicholas Bloom & David Card & John Van Reenen & Stefanie Wolter, 2018. "Management Practices, Workforce Selection, and Productivity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 371-409.
    26. Francesco Caselli, 1999. "Technological Revolutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 78-102, March.
    27. Hubert Strauss & Christine de la Maisonneuve, 2007. "The Wage Premium on Tertiary Education: New Estimates for 21 OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 589, OECD Publishing.
    28. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," CEP Discussion Papers dp1109, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    29. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 203-224, Winter.
    30. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2001. "How To Compete: The Impact Of Workplace Practices And Information Technology On Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 434-445, August.
    31. Eve Caroli & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Skill-Biased Organizational Change? Evidence from A Panel of British and French Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1449-1492.
    32. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    33. Nicholas Bloom & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lucia Foster & Ron Jarmin & Megha Patnaik & Itay Saporta-Eksten & John Van Reenen, 2019. "What Drives Differences in Management Practices?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1648-1683, May.
    34. Garicano, Luis, 2010. "Policemen, managers, lawyers: New results on complementarities between organization and information and communication technology," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 355-358, July.
    35. Prithwiraj Choudhury, 2017. "Innovation Outcomes in a Distributed Organization: Intrafirm Mobility and Access to Resources," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 339-354, April.
    36. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 339-376.
    37. Yolanda Kodrzycki, 2001. "Migration of recent college graduates: evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 13-34.
    38. Roback, Jennifer, 1988. "Wages, Rents, and Amenities: Differences among Workers and Regions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(1), pages 23-41, January.
    39. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    40. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & Daniela Scur & John Reenen, 2014. "Jeea-Fbbva Lecture 2013: The New Empirical Economics Of Management," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 835-876, August.
    41. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    42. Paul Beaudry & David A. Green, 2005. "Changes in U.S. Wages, 19762000: Ongoing Skill Bias or Major Technological Change?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(3), pages 609-648, July.
    43. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
    44. Sharon Belenzon & Mark Schankerman, 2010. "Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy and Knowledge Spillovers," CEP Discussion Papers dp1005, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    45. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valero, Anna & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "The economic impact of universities: Evidence from across the globe," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 53-67.
    2. Florio, Erminia & Manfredonia, Stefano, 2021. "Ancestors, inter-generational transmission of attitudes, and corporate performance: Evidence from the Italian Mass Migration," GLO Discussion Paper Series 830, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 302-322.
    4. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2020. "Healthy Business? Managerial Education and Management in Health Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 506-517, July.
    5. Daniela Scur & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen & Renata Lemos & Nicholas Bloom, 2021. "The World Management Survey at 18: lessons and the way forward," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 231-258.
    6. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and economic growth," POID Working Papers 006, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Sivropoulos-Valero, Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114436, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Lutz Bellmann, 2020. "Management Practices and Establishment Performance under Non-Union Workplace Representation," CESifo Working Paper Series 8599, CESifo.
    9. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and economic growth," CEP Discussion Papers dp1764, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. John T. Addison & Paulino Teixeira & Lutz Bellmann, 2023. "Performance and the Conjunction of Better Management Practices and Non-Union Workplace Representation," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 1-43, June.
    11. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," POID Working Papers 007, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Nazia Bibi & Zeeshan Anwar & Tauseef Rana, 2021. "Expertise based skills management system to support resource allocation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-20, August.
    13. Lucia Errico & Andrea Mosca & Sandro Rondinella, 2023. "University-Court Proximity: What are the effects on the legal system performance?," Regional Economy, , vol. 7(Q1), pages 21-33.
    14. Catherine Robinson & Christian Siegel & Sisi Liao, 2021. "Technology Adoption and Skills A Pilot Study of Kent SMEs," Studies in Economics 2114, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    15. Sivropoulos-Valero, Anna Alexandra, 2021. "Education and economic growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114434, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. P. Michael KOSICEK & Ramesh SONI & David YERGER, 2023. "The Distribution of Relative Demand and Relative Supply Shocks for Managers Across the U.S. Economy," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 2, pages 5-13.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 302-322.
    2. Sivropoulos-Valero, Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114436, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and management practices," POID Working Papers 007, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Sivropoulos-Valero, Anna Alexandra, 2021. "Education and economic growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114434, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and economic growth," CEP Discussion Papers dp1764, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Anna Valero, 2021. "Education and economic growth," POID Working Papers 006, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Bloom, Nicholas & Van Reenen, John, 2011. "Human Resource Management and Productivity," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 19, pages 1697-1767, Elsevier.
    8. Ohlsbom, Roope, 2021. "Management Practices Drive Productivity – But Not Without Human Capital," ETLA Working Papers 88, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    9. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Scur, Daniela, 2024. "Organizational capacity and profit shifting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    10. Baltrunaite, Audinga & Bovini, Giulia & Mocetti, Sauro, 2023. "Managerial talent and managerial practices: Are they complements?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Barry, Michael & Bryson, Alex & Gomez, Rafael & Kaufman, Bruce E. & Lomas, Guenther & Wilkinson, Adrian, 2018. "The," IZA Discussion Papers 11860, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Michael Barry & Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez & Bruce Kaufman & Guenther Lomas & Adrian Wilkinson, 2018. "The ''Good Workplace'': The Role of Joint Consultative Committees, Unions and HR policies in Employee Ratings of Workplaces in Britain," DoQSS Working Papers 18-08, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    13. Alex Bryson & Lucy Stokes & David Wilkinson, 2023. "Is pupil attainment higher in well-managed schools?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 129-144, January.
    14. Stefan Bender & Nicholas Bloom & David Card & John Van Reenen & Stefanie Wolter, 2018. "Management Practices, Workforce Selection, and Productivity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 371-409.
    15. Christopher Cornwell & Ian M. Schmutte & Daniela Scur, 2021. "Building a Productive Workforce: The Role of Structured Management Practices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7308-7321, December.
    16. Dorgyles C.M. Kouakou, 2022. "Determinants of employees' participation in decision‐making in developing countries: Does a firm's formal versus informal status matter?," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1501-1514, July.
    17. White, Michael & Bryson, Alex, 2018. "HPWS in the Public Sector: Are There Mutual Gains?," IZA Discussion Papers 11965, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Valero, Anna & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "The economic impact of universities: Evidence from across the globe," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 53-67.
    19. Nicholas Bloom & Erik Brynjolfsson & Lucia Foster & Ron Jarmin & Itay Saporta-Eksten & John Van Reenen, 2013. "Management in America," Working Papers 13-01, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    20. Nguyen Tuan Kiet & Ho Huu Phuong Chi & Trinh Cong Duc, 2022. "Management practices of firms: A study in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1185-1208, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    management practices; human capital; universities; complementarities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • M2 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.