IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/96-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Whittling Away At Productivity Dispersion Futher Notes: Persistent Dispersion or Measurement Error?

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas W Dwyer

Abstract

This note considers several hypotheses regarding measurement error as a source of observed cross-sectional dispersion in plant-level productivity in the US textile industry. The hypotheses that reporting error and/or price rigidity in either materials and/or output account for a substantial portion of the observed dispersion in productivity are consistent with the data. Similarly, the hypothesis that transitory product niches or fashion effects lead to differential markups and consequently dispersion in observed productivity is consistent with the data. The hypothesis that transfer pricing problems lead to persistent differences in plant-level productivity, in contrast, does not appear to be consistent with the data. Finally, the hypothesis that some plants have permanent product niches that lead to dispersion in observed productivity does not appear to be consistent with data. In order to avoid imposing a strong functional form on the data, this note follows a non-parametric methodology developed in the early paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas W Dwyer, 1996. "Whittling Away At Productivity Dispersion Futher Notes: Persistent Dispersion or Measurement Error?," Working Papers 96-11, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:96-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/1996/CES-WP-96-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas W Dwyer, 1995. "Whittling Away At Productivity Dispersion," Working Papers 95-5, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Douglas W Dwyer, 1996. "ARE FIXED EFFECTS FIXED? Persistence in Plant Level Productivity," Working Papers 96-3, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Douglas W Dwyer, 1995. "Technology Locks, Creative Destruction And Non-Convergence In Productivity Levels," Working Papers 95-6, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Douglas Dwyer, 1998. "Technology Locks, Creative Destruction, and Non-Convergence in Productivity Levels," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 430-473, April.
    3. repec:cvs:starer:9724 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Douglas W Dwyer, 1997. "Productivity Races I: Are Some Productivuty Measures Better Than Others?," Working Papers 97-2, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Douglas W Dwyer, 1997. "Productivity Races II: The Issue of Capital Measurement," Working Papers 97-3, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Boyan Jovanovic, 1998. "Michael Gort's Contribution to Economics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 327-337, April.
    4. Douglas W Dwyer, 1995. "Technology Locks, Creative Destruction And Non-Convergence In Productivity Levels," Working Papers 95-6, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    5. Douglas Dwyer, 1998. "Technology Locks, Creative Destruction, and Non-Convergence in Productivity Levels," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 430-473, April.
    6. Kirk White & Arpad Abraham, 2004. "The Dynamics of Plant-level Productivity in U.S. Manufacturing," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 332, Society for Computational Economics.
    7. repec:cvs:starer:9724 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Timothy Dunne & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2000. "Wage and Productivity Dispersion in U.S. Manufacturing: The Role of Computer Investment," NBER Working Papers 7465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Tengying Weng & Tomislav Vukina & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2015. "The Effects of Productvity and Demand-Specific Factors on Plant Survival and Ownership Change in the U.S. Poultry Industry," Working Papers 15-20, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Jensen, J Bradford & McGuckin, Robert H, 1997. "Firm Performance and Evolution: Empirical Regularities in the US Microdata," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 6(1), pages 25-47.
    11. Timothy Dunne & Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Kenneth R. Troske, 2004. "Wage and Productivity Dispersion in United States Manufacturing: The Role of Computer Investment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 397-430, April.
    12. Nathan Musick, 1998. "Heroic Plants: Persistently Rapid Job Creators in the Longitudinal Research Database - Their Distinguishing Characteristics and Contribution to Employment Growth," Industrial Organization 9811001, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:96-11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.