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on Business Economics |
| By: | Vittorio Bassi; Jung Hyuk Lee; Alessandra Peter; Tommaso Porzio; Ritwika Sen; Esau Tugume |
| Abstract: | We study the internal organization of manufacturing firms in Uganda. We measure what people do within firms and find limited specialization, far below what is feasible given the prevailing production process and average firm size of 5.7 workers. We build and estimate an occupational choice model in which firm size, productivity, and specialization arise endogenously. The model shows that firms in this setting are largely “self-employment in disguise” and generate just a 20% productivity gain over literal self-employment. In a counterfactual economy with full specialization, the same aggregate output can be produced with an average firm size of only 1.6. |
| JEL: | O11 O17 L23 L25 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11900 |
| By: | Bai Yu; Li Yanjun |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the economic effects of gold mining operations on local firm performance using a comprehensive firm-level panel dataset. Employing fixed-effects models that exploit temporal and spatial variation in mine openings and activity status, we find that firms within a 10–100 kilometer radius of active mining operations experience significant positive effects: annual sales increase, employment rates rise—with a notable shift toward male and full-time positions—and firms adopt more autonomous and resilient trade practices. Our analysis suggests that these improvements are facilitated by reductions in business constraints, particularly those related to power supply, transportation infrastructure, customs procedures, court efficiency, tax administration, and reliance on less-educated workers. While mining boosts firm performance overall, sales gains concentrate in less-corrupt countries, while employment effects dominate in more-corrupt ones. |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:toh:tupdaa:73 |
| By: | Dandan Xia; Bruno Cassiman; David Wehrheim |
| Abstract: | This study leverages advanced text-analysis techniques to investigate how increased product market rivalry, induced by Chinese import competition, affects innovation among incumbent U.S. firms in the electronic and electrical appliance industry. We measure the similarity between the product descriptions of U.S. firms and those of Chinese importers, thus capturing firm-level competitive pressure. Employing a continuous difference-in-differences framework, we compare innovation outcomes of U.S. firms more directly competing with Chinese importers to those facing lower competitive pressure, over a five-year period before and after initial Chinese market entry. We find that incumbent U.S. firms significantly increase their quality-weighted patent production, create more newproduct patents, and strategically diversify into new technological and business segments when confronted with heightened competition. Our findings highlight the role of import-driven rivalry in stimulating strategic innovation and illustrate how text-based similarity measures can effectively quantify firm-level competition, providing novel methodological tools for strategy scholars. |
| Date: | 2025–05–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:msiper:765722 |
| By: | Chiara Zisler; Patricia Palffy; Harald Pfeifer; Kerstin Pull; Uschi Backes-Gellner |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces teams' technology use as a contingency factor for the link between teams' boundary-spanning activities - such as regularly maintaining firm external or firm internal contacts, or memberships in multiple teams - and team innovativeness. Using novel, detailed data on the technology use of teams in a representative sample of over 3, 500 German firms, we derive distinct technological portfolios at the team level, comprising comprehensive tech use portfolios with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications, minimalistic tech use portfolios, and focused tech use portfolios heavily reliant on specialized technologies, such as Big Data or IT security. We find that the effectiveness of team boundary spanning in increasing team innovativeness strongly depends on a team’s technological portfolio. While boundary spanning is more vital for team innovativeness with either minimal or comprehensive technology use, it is less relevant for focused-tech teams. Our results emphasize the critical interplay between a team’s technological portfolio and the link between boundary-spanning activities and team innovativeness. We provide insights into how teams can better align their boundary-spanning activities with their technological portfolios to support team innovativeness. |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0243 |
| By: | Randi Hjalmarsson; Matthew J. Lindquist; Louis-Pierre Lepage; Conrad Miller |
| Abstract: | We examine the effects of a criminal record on labor market outcomes and the mediating role of job sorting using Swedish register data. Prime-age adults with criminal records earn about 30% less than observably similar adults without records and are concentrated in specific employers and occupations. To estimate the causal effect of a criminal record, we use an event study design that compares outcomes for adults charged with an offense for the first time to matched adults who were suspected of a similar offense but not charged. Acquiring a criminal record reduces months employed by 2% and annual earnings by 5%. These negative effects are: twice as large for more serious or subsequent charges, not driven by job displacement or incapacitation, and not mitigated by automatic record expungement, which typically occurs 5 or 10 years after case disposition. We classify firms by their propensity to hire workers with criminal records, holding suspected offense history fixed. A criminal record reduces employment at firms classified as less likely to hire workers with criminal records, increases employment at other firms, and decreases monthly wages across all firm types. Firm propensity to hire workers with criminal records varies substantially---even within industries---and is linked to firm size and managers' prior exposure to people with records. Leveraging manager moves across small firms, we find that when a firm hires a new manager with greater prior exposure to people with criminal records, it hires more people with records, with no detectable effect on productivity. |
| JEL: | J30 J6 J71 K42 M51 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33865 |