CES-WP-08-30
Computer Network Use and Firms' Productivity Performance: The United States vs. Japan
B.K. Atrostic, Kazuyuki Motohashi, Sang Nguyen
September 01, 2008
This paper examines the relationship between computer network use and firms’
productivity performance, using micro-data of the United States and Japan. To our knowledge,
this is the first comparative analysis using firm-level data for the manufacturing sector of both
countries. We find that the links between IT and productivity differ between U.S. and Japanese
manufacturing. Computer networks have positive and significant links with labor productivity in
both countries. However, that link is roughly twice as large in the U.S. as in Japan. Differences
in how businesses use computers have clear links with productivity for U.S. manufacturing, but
not in Japan. For the United States, the coefficients of the intensity of network use are positive
and increase with the number of processes. Coefficients of specific uses of those networks are
positive and significant. None of these coefficients are significant for Japan. Our findings are
robust to alternative econometric specifications. They also are robust to expanding our sample
from single-unit manufacturing firms, which are comparable in the two data sets, to the entire
manufacturing sector in each country, as well as to the wholesale and retail sector of Japan.
38 Pages 330743 Bytes
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CES-WP-08-29
Transfer Pricing by U.S.-Based Multinational Firms
Andrew Bernard, J. Bradford Jensen, Peter Schott
September 01, 2008
This paper examines how prices set by multinational firms vary across arm’s-length and
related party customers. Comparing prices within firms, products, destination countries, modes
of transport and month, we find that the prices U.S. exporters set for their arm’s-length
customers are substantially larger than the prices recorded for related-parties. This price wedge
is smaller for commodities than for differentiated goods, is increasing in firm size and firm
export share, and is greater for goods sent to countries with lower corporate tax rates and higher
tariffs. We also find that changes in exchange rates have differential effects on arm’s-length and
related-party prices; an appreciation of the dollar reduces the difference between the prices.
37 Pages 368814 Bytes
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CES-WP-08-28
An Analysis of Key Differences in Micro Data: Results from the Business List Comparison Project
Kristin Fairman, Lucia Foster, C.J. Krizan, Ian Rucker
September 01, 2008
The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census each maintain a business
register, a universe of all U.S. business establishments and their characteristics, created from
independent sources. Both registers serve critical functions such as supplying aggregate data
inputs for certain national statistics generated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This paper
examines key micro-level differences across these two business registers.
10 Pages 102427 Bytes
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CES-WP-08-27
Choices of Metropolitan Destinations by the 1995-2000 New Immigrants Born in Mexico and India: Characterization and Multivariate Explanation
Kao-Lee Liaw, William Frey
September 01, 2008
Using the confidential long-form records of the 2000 population census, we study the
choices of metropolitan destinations made by the Mexican-born and Indian-born immigrants who
arrived in the United States in 1995-2000. Based on the application of a multinomial logit model
to the data of each of these two ethnic groups, our main findings are as follows. The destination
choice behaviors of both ethnic groups were in general consistent with the major theories of
migration. Both groups were subject to (1) the attraction of co-ethnic communities and (2) the
positive effects of wage level and total employment growth. With respect to the job increases in
different wage deciles, both ethnic groups share the pattern that the less educated were subject to
the pull of increase in low-wage jobs, whereas the better educated were subject to the pull of
increase in high-wage jobs. With respect to the possibility of competitions against other foreignborn
ethnics, both ethnic groups were found to be more prone to selecting destinations where
their co-ethnics represented a relatively high proportion of the foreign-born population. The
main differences in destination choice behaviors between the two ethnic groups resulted partly
from the fact that the relative explanatory powers of our chosen explanatory factors differed
substantially between the two ethnic groups. The Mexican-born were more subject to the
attractions of (1) larger co-ethnic communities, (2) greater overall employment growth, (3) more
job increases in low wage deciles, and (4) greater share of the foreign-born population by coethnics.
In contrast, the Indian-born were more attracted by (1) higher wage level, and (2) more
job increases in high wage deciles.
47 Pages 517301 Bytes
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CES-WP-08-26
Business Volatility, Job Destruction, and Unemployment
Steven Davis, R Jason Faberman, John Haltiwanger, Ron Jarmin, Javier Miranda
August 01, 2008
Unemployment inflows fell from 4 percent of employment per month in the early 1980s
to 2 percent or less by the mid 1990s and thereafter. U.S. data also show a secular decline in the
job destruction rate and the volatility of firm-level employment growth rates. We interpret this
decline as a decrease in the intensity of idiosyncratic labor demand shocks, a key parameter in
search and matching models of unemployment. According to these models, a lower intensity of
idiosyncratic shocks produces less job destruction, fewer workers flowing through the
unemployment pool and less frictional unemployment. To evaluate the importance of this
theoretical mechanism, we relate industry-level unemployment flows from 1977 to 2005 to
industry-level indicators for the intensity of idiosyncratic shocks. Unlike previous research, we
focus on the lower frequency relationship of job destruction and business volatility to
unemployment flows. We find strong evidence that declines in the intensity of idiosyncratic
labor demand shocks drove big declines in the incidence and rate of unemployment. This
evidence implies that the unemployment rate has become much less sensitive to cyclical
movements in the job-finding rate.
51 Pages 511080 Bytes
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