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Entry costs, misallocation, and cross-country income and TFP differences

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  • Levon Barseghyan
  • Riccardo DiCecio

Abstract

Entry costs vary dramatically across countries. To assess their impact we construct a model with endogenous entry and operation decisions by firms and calibrate it to match the U.S. distribution of firms by age and size. Higher entry costs lead to greater misallocation of productive factors and lower TFP and output. In the model, countries with entry costs in the lowest decile of the distribution have 2.32 times higher TFP (3.43 in the data) than countries in the highest decile. As in the data, higher entry costs are associated with higher mean and variance of the employment distribution across firms.

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  • Levon Barseghyan & Riccardo DiCecio, 2009. "Entry costs, misallocation, and cross-country income and TFP differences," Working Papers 2009-005, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2009-005
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    Cited by:

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    3. Bah, El-hadj & Fang, Lei, 2016. "Entry Costs, Financial Frictions, And Cross-Country Differences In Income And Tfp," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 884-908, June.
    4. D׳Erasmo, Pablo N. & Moscoso Boedo, Hernan J. & Şenkal, Aslı, 2014. "Misallocation, informality, and human capital: Understanding the role of institutions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 122-142.
    5. Alexandre Janiak, 2010. "Structural unemployment and the regulation of product market," Documentos de Trabajo 274, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    6. Michael Peters, 2010. "Mark-Up Distortions and Endogenous Misallocation," 2010 Meeting Papers 431, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Hernan J Moscoso Boedo & Asli Senkal & Pablo D'Erasmo, 2011. "Misallocation, Informality and Human Capital," 2011 Meeting Papers 881, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Barseghyan, Levon & Guerdjikova, Ani, 2011. "Institutions and growth in limited access societies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 528-568, March.
    9. Barseghyan, Levon & DiCecio, Riccardo, 2011. "Entry costs, industry structure, and cross-country income and TFP differences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 1828-1851, September.
    10. Raphael Bergoeing & Norman V. Loayza & Facundo Piguillem, 2011. "The Aggregate and Complementary Impact of Micro Distortions," 2011 Meeting Papers 1426, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Qiusha Peng, 2019. "Financial Frictions, Entry and Growth: A Study of China," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 34, pages 267-282, October.
    12. Michael Peters, 2011. "Heterogeneous Mark-Ups and Endogenous Misallocation," 2011 Meeting Papers 78, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    Industrial productivity; Economic development;

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