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Register a new userR&D Heterogeneity and Countercyclical Productivity Dispersion
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What causes countercyclicality of industry--level productivity dispersion in the U.S.? Empirically, we construct an index of negative profit shocks and show that both productivity dispersion and R&D intensity dispersion enlarge at the onset of the shock and gradually dissipate. Theoretically, we build a duopolistic technology--ladder model in which heterogeneous R&D costs determine firms post--shock optimal behaviors and equilibrium technology gap. Quantitatively, we calibrate a parameterized model, simulate firms post--shock responses and predict that productivity dispersion is due to the low--cost firm increasing R&D efforts and the high--cost firm doing the opposite. We provide two empirical tests for this mechanism.
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Productivity levels and growth are extremely heterogeneous among firms. A vast literature has developed to explain the origins of productivity shocks, their dispersion, evolution and their relationship to the business cycle. We examine in detail the distribution of labor productivity levels and growth, and observe that they exhibit heavy tails. We propose to model these distributions using the four parameter L{e}vy stable distribution, a natural candidate deriving from the generalised Central Limit Theorem. We show that it is a better fit than several standard alternatives, and is remarkably consistent over time, countries and sectors. In all samples considered, the tail parameter is such that the theoretical variance of the distribution is infinite, so that the sample standard deviation increases with sample size. We find a consistent positive skewness, a markedly different behaviour between the left and right tails, and a positive relationship between productivity and size. The distributional approach allows us to test different measures of dispersion and find that productivity dispersion has slightly decreased over the past decade.
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The link between taxation and justice is a classic debate issue, while also being very relevant at a time of changing environmental factors and conditions of the social and economic system. Technologically speaking, there are three types of taxes: progressive, proportional and regressive. Although justice, like freedom, is an element and manifestation of the imagined reality in citizens minds, the state must comply with it. In particular, the tax system has to adapt to the mass imagined reality in order for it to appear fairer and more acceptable.
Agriculture is arguably the most climate-sensitive sector of the economy. Growing concerns about anthropogenic climate change have increased research interest in assessing its potential impact on the sector and in identifying policies and adaptation strategies to help the sector cope with a changing climate. This chapter provides an overview of recent advancements in the analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation in agriculture with an emphasis on methods. The chapter provides an overview of recent research efforts addressing key conceptual and empirical challenges. The chapter also discusses practical matters about conducting research in this area and provides reproducible R code to perform common tasks of data preparation and model estimation in this literature. The chapter provides a hands-on introduction to new researchers in this area.
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