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Productivity, Place, and Plants

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  • Schoefer, Benjamin
  • Ziv, Oren

Abstract

Why do cities differ so much in productivity? A long literature has sought out system- atic sources, such as inherent productivity advantages, market access, agglomeration forces, or sorting. We document that up to three quarters of the measured regional productivity dispersion is spurious, reflecting the “luck of the draw†of finite counts of idiosyncratically heterogeneous plants that happen to operate in a given location. The patterns are even more pronounced for new plants, hold for alternative productivity measures, and broadly extend to European countries. This large role for individual plants suggests a smaller role for places in driving regional differences.

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  • Schoefer, Benjamin & Ziv, Oren, 2022. "Productivity, Place, and Plants," CEPR Discussion Papers 15676, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15676
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    Cited by:

    1. Dingel, Jonathan & Tintelnot, Felix, 2020. "Spatial Economics for Granular Settings," CEPR Discussion Papers 14819, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Austin, Wes & Figlio, David & Goldhaber, Dan & Hanushek, Eric A. & Kilbride, Tara & Koedel, Cory & Sean Lee, Jaeseok & Lou, Jin & Özek, Umut & Parsons, Eric & Rivkin, Steven G. & Sass, Tim R. & Strunk, 2023. "Academic mobility in U.S. public schools: Evidence from nearly 3 million students," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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