CES-WP-09-34
Mom-and-Pop Meet Big-Box: Complements or Substitutes?
John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, C.J. Krizan
September 01, 2009
In part due to the popular perception that Big-Boxes displace smaller, often family owned
(a.k.a. Mom-and-Pop) retail establishments, several empirical studies have examined the evidence
on how Big-Boxes’ impact local retail employment but no clear consensus has emerged. To help
shed light on this debate, we exploit establishment-level data with detailed location information
from a single metropolitan area to quantify the impact of Big-Box store entry and growth on
nearby single unit and local chain stores. We incorporate a rich set of controls for local retail
market conditions as well as whether or not the Big-Boxes are in the same sector as the smaller
stores. We find a substantial negative impact of Big-Box entry and growth on the employment
growth at both single unit and especially smaller chain stores – but only when the Big-Box
activity is both in the immediate area and in the same detailed industry.
46 Pages 224047 Bytes
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CES-WP-09-33
Resolving the Tension Between Access and Confidentiality: Past Experience and Future Plans at the U.S. Census Bureau
Lucia Foster, Ron Jarmin, Lynn Riggs
September 01, 2009
This paper provides an historical context for access to U.S. Federal statistical data with a
primary focus on the U.S. Census Bureau. We review the various modes used by the Census
Bureau to make data available to users, and highlight the costs and benefits associated with each.
We highlight some of the specific improvements underway or under consideration at the Census
Bureau to better serve its data users, as well as discuss the broad strategies employed by
statistical agencies to respond to the challenges of data access.
22 Pages 84936 Bytes
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CES-WP-09-32
Who Leaves, Where to, and Why Worrry? Employee Mobility, Employee Entrepreneurship, and Effects on Source Firm Performance
Benjamin Campbell, Martin Ganco, April Franco, Rajshree Agarwal
September 01, 2009
We theorize that differences in human assets’ ability to generate value are linked to exit
decisions and their effects on firm performance. Using linked employee-employer data from the
U.S. Census Bureau on legal services, we find that employees with higher earnings are less
likely to leave relative to employees with lower earnings, but if they do leave, they are more
likely to move to a spin-out instead of an incumbent firm. Employee entrepreneurship has a
larger adverse impact on source firm performance than moves to established firms, even
controlling for observable employee quality. Findings suggest that the transfer of human capital,
complementary assets, and opportunities all affect mobility decisions and their impact on source
firms.
46 Pages 240264 Bytes
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CES-WP-09-31
Why Do Firms Own Production Chains?
Ali Hortacsu, Chad Syverson
September 01, 2009
Many firms own links of production chains—i.e., they own both upstream and
downstream plants in vertically linked industries. We use broad-based yet detailed data from the
economy’s goods-producing sectors to investigate the reasons for such vertical ownership. It
does not appear that vertical ownership is usually used to facilitate transfers of goods along the
production chain, as is often presumed. Shipments from firms’ upstream units to their
downstream units are surprisingly low, relative to both the firms’ total upstream production and
their downstream needs. Roughly one-third of upstream plants report no shipments to their
firms’ downstream units. Half ship less than three percent of their output internally. We do find
that manufacturing plants in vertical ownership structures have high measures of “type”
(productivity, size, and capital intensity). These patterns primarily reflect selective sorting of
high plant types into large firms; once we account for firm size, vertical structure per se matters
much less. We propose an alternative explanation for vertical ownership that is consistent with
these results. Namely, that rather than moderating goods transfers down production chains, it
instead allows more efficient transfers of intangible inputs (e.g., managerial oversight) within the
firm. We document some suggestive evidence of this mechanism.
50 Pages 202940 Bytes
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CES-WP-09-30
Entrepreneurship and Japanese Industrialization in Historical Perspective
John Tang
September 01, 2009
Studies of entrepreneurship in nineteenth century Japan typically focus on the activities
of leading industrialists who founded large, family-owned conglomerates known as zaibatsu.
These individuals do not conform well with the archetypal Schumpeterian entrepreneur, but this
discrepancy may be more an issue of context than behavior. However, due to a lack of
documentation for smaller independent firms, it is difficult to make this comparison. To broaden
the scope of analysis, I use data drawn from corporate genealogies, which provide a more
complete cross-section of entrepreneurial activity. This dataset of firm entry during the Meiji
Period (1868-1912) covers a wide range of industries, allowing me to analyze aspects of Japan's
early industrialization that heretofore have relied on anecdotal or case evidence. I also propose a
game-theoretic model of entry appropriate for entrepreneurs in late developing economies that
exploit the qualitative nature of these data.
24 Pages 236216 Bytes
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