The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism
Ryan A. Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, Javier Miranda
Journal of Economic Perspectives,
No. 3,
2014
Abstract
An optimal pace of business dynamics—encompassing the processes of entry, exit, expansion, and contraction—would balance the benefits of productivity and economic growth against the costs to firms and workers associated with reallocation of productive resources. It is difficult to prescribe what the optimal pace should be, but evidence accumulating from multiple datasets and methodologies suggests that the rate of business startups and the pace of employment dynamism in the US economy has fallen over recent decades and that this downward trend accelerated after 2000. A critical factor in accounting for the decline in business dynamics is a lower rate of business startups and the related decreasing role of dynamic young businesses in the economy. For example, the share of US employment accounted for by young firms has declined by almost 30 percent over the last 30 years. These trends suggest that incentives for entrepreneurs to start new firms in the United States have diminished over time. We do not identify all the factors underlying these trends in this paper but offer some clues based on the empirical patterns for specific sectors and geographic regions.
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Micro-Based Evidence of EU Competitiveness: The CompNet Database
Filippo di Mauro, et al.
ECB Working Paper,
No. 1634,
2014
Abstract
Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets in 11 European countries, the paper presents a novel sectoral database of comparable productivity indicators built by members of the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet) using a newly developed research infrastructure. Beyond aggregate information available from industry statistics of Eurostat or EU KLEMS, the paper provides information on the distribution of firms across several dimensions related to competitiveness, e.g. productivity and size. The database comprises so far 11 countries, with information for 58 sectors over the period 1995-2011. The paper documents the development of the new research infrastructure, describes the database, and shows some preliminary results. Among them, it shows that there is large heterogeneity in terms of firm productivity or size within narrowly defined industries in all countries. Productivity, and above all, size distribution are very skewed across countries, with a thick left-tail of low productive firms. Moreover, firms at both ends of the distribution show very different dynamics in terms of productivity and unit labour costs. Within-sector heterogeneity and productivity dispersion are positively correlated to aggregate productivity given the possibility of reallocating resources from less to more productive firms. To this extent, we show how allocative efficiency varies across countries, and more interestingly, over different periods of time. Finally, we apply the new database to illustrate the importance of productivity dispersion to explain aggregate trade results.
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What Do We Learn from Schumpeterian Growth Theory?
Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Peter Howitt
P. Aghion, S. N. Durlauf (Hrsg.), Handbook of Economic Growth, Band 2B, Amsterdam: North Holland,
2014
Abstract
Schumpeterian growth theory has operationalized Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction by developing models based on this concept. These models shed light on several aspects of the growth process that could not be properly addressed by alternative theories. In this survey, we focus on four important aspects, namely: (i) the role of competition and market structure; (ii) firm dynamics; (iii) the relationship between growth and development with the notion of appropriate growth institutions; and (iv) the emergence and impact of long-term technological waves. In each case, Schumpeterian growth theory delivers predictions that distinguish it from other growth models and which can be tested using micro data.
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How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size
Teresa C. Fort, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, Javier Miranda
IMF Economic Review,
No. 3,
2013
Abstract
There remains considerable debate in the theoretical and empirical literature about the differences in the cyclical dynamics of firms by firm size. This paper contributes to the debate in two ways. First, the key distinction between firm size and firm age is introduced. The evidence presented in this paper shows that young businesses (that are typically small) exhibit very different cyclical dynamics than small/older businesses. The second contribution is to present evidence and explore explanations for the finding that young/small businesses were hit especially hard in the Great Recession. The collapse in housing prices accounts for a significant part of the large decline of young/small businesses in the Great Recession.
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Who Creates Jobs? Small versus Large versus Young
John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, Javier Miranda
Review of Economics and Statistics,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
The view that small businesses create the most jobs remains appealing to policymakers and small business advocates. Using data from the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics and Longitudinal Business Database, we explore the many issues at the core of this ongoing debate. We find that the relationship between firm size and employment growth is sensitive to these issues. However, our main finding is that once we control for firm age, there is no systematic relationship between firm size and growth. Our findings highlight the important role of business start-ups and young businesses in U.S. job creation.
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Cooperation Events, Ego-Network Characteristics and Firm Innovativeness – Empirical Evidence from the German Laser Industry
Muhamed Kudic, Katja Guhr
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 6,
2013
Abstract
We study how firm innovativeness is related to individual cooperation events and the structure and dynamics of firms’ ego-networks employing a unique panel dataset for the full population of 233 German laser source manufactures between 1990 and 2010. Firm innovativeness is measured by yearly patent applications as well as patent grants with a two year time-lag. Network measures are calculated on the basis of 570 knowledge-related publicly funded R&D alliances. Estimation results from a panel data count model with fixed effects are suggestive of direct innovation effects due to individual cooperation events, but only as long as structural ego-network characteristics are neglected. Innovativeness is robustly related to ego-network size and ego-network brokerage whereas ego-network density reveals some surprising results.
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Intellectual Property Rights Policy, Competition and Innovation
Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit
Journal of the European Economic Association,
No. 1,
2012
Abstract
To what extent and in what form should the intellectual property rights (IPR) of innovators be protected? Should a company with a large technology lead over its rivals receive the same IPR protection as a company with a more limited advantage? In this paper, we develop a dynamic framework for the study of the interactions between IPR and competition, in particular to understand the impact of such policies on future incentives. The economy consists of many industries and firms engaged in cumulative (step-by-step) innovation. IPR policy regulates whether followers in an industry can copy the technology of the leader. We prove the existence of a steady-state equilibrium and characterize some of its properties. We then quantitatively investigate the implications of different types of IPR policy on the equilibrium growth rate and welfare. The most important result from this exercise is that full patent protection is not optimal; instead, optimal policy involves state-dependent IPR protection, providing greater protection to technology leaders that are further ahead than those that are close to their followers. This is because of a trickle-down effect: providing greater protection to firms that are further ahead of their followers than a certain threshold increases the R&D incentives also for all technology leaders that are less advanced than this threshold.
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Labor Demand During the Crisis: What Happened in Germany?
Claudia M. Buch
IZA. Discussion Paper No. 6074,
2011
Abstract
In Germany, the employment response to the post-2007 crisis has been muted compared to other industrialized countries. Despite a large drop in output, employment has hardly changed. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of German firms’ labor demand during the crisis using a firm-level panel dataset. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we estimate a dynamic labor demand function for the years 2000-2009 accounting for the degree of working time flexibility and the presence of works councils. Second, on the basis of these
estimates, we use the difference between predicted and actual employment as a measure of labor hoarding as the dependent variable in a cross-sectional regression for 2009. Apart from total labor hoarding, we also look at the determinants of subsidized labor hoarding through short-time work. The structural characteristics of firms using these channels of adjustment differ. Product market competition has a negative impact on total labor hoarding but a positive effect on the use of short-time work. Firm covered by collective agreements hoard less labor overall; firms without financial frictions use short-time work less intensively.
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