10th Annual Conference: "Firm dynamics, factors reallocation and organization of production in the context of COVID-19"

The COVID-19 has introduced new challenges for firms. Since the inception of the pandemic, firms have had to adapt to the different phases of the health crisis and have been facing a rare degree of high uncertainty regarding business conditions. Different shocks, on the supply and demand sides, impacted activity due to various degrees of lockdowns and restrictions in the home and foreign economies. These restrictions forced firms to re-organize production, due to potential bottlenecks in local or global value chains, a wider use of work from home, and possible risks to the continuation of business due to financial risk. On the demand side, restrictions to economic and social activity, and the great uncertainty about future business conditions at home and abroad, have also possibly modified the returns on new investments. These shocks affected the production of goods and services, with a huge degree of heterogeneity across different sectors.

Against this background, governments provided different forms of support to private firms. While this allowed to keep afloat a number of businesses, this support may have also introduced market distortions that could lead to production factors’ misallocation across different firms and sectors. Providing in-depth analysis on this issue is important for policy-oriented economic research.

The goal of this conference is to enhance academic and policy discussion on the effects of Covid on productivity, and to provide a forum for new policy-oriented research. Of great interest is the impact of the pandemic on productivity growth through within-firm dynamics, factors reallocation within and across sectors, the organization of production including through the internationalization of firms, and the role of policies.

We seek to attract high-quality papers that include, but are not limited to the following topics in relation with the Covid-19 crisis:

• Innovation and knowledge diffusion;
• Firm dynamics, entry and exit;
• Production factors’ reallocation within and across sectors;
• Market concentration;
• Government support to firms and misallocation;
• Internationalization of firms, organization of production, the role of global value chains;

We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions.

The conference will be hosted by the Banque de France, in Paris, on October 14-15, 2021. Given the very high uncertainty about the conditions to organize such an event in the Fall of 2021, the conference might be fully passed online. Participants will be informed in advance if the event cannot take place in Paris. A limited budget to offer travel re-imbursement according to CEPR rules is available upon request.

Papers should be submitted to secretariat@comp-net.org by 15th July 2021. Please indicate whether you would like to act as discussant. Decisions will be sent to authors by 30th July, 2021. Only those who are selected as presenters or discussants will be notified.

The keynotes will be given by Professor John Van Reenen (London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Professor Laura Alfaro (Harvard Business School).

Scientific committee: Gilbert Cette (Banque de France), Antoine Berthou (Banque de France), Gabriel Smagghue (Banque de France), Filippo di Mauro (CompNet), Matthias Mertens (CompNet / IWH), Javier Miranda (IWH).

Conference organization committee: Tanja Grochowski (CompNet) and Banque de France events team.