Growing by learning: firm-level evidence on the size-productivity nexus

Enrique Moral-Benito

No 1613, Working Papers from Banco de España

Abstract: It is a well-known empirical regularity that small firms are less productive than large firms. However, does size cause productivity or vice versa? Using matching methods, I find that productivity shocks are followed by significant increases in size defined by employment. In contrast, size shocks are not followed by productivity gains at the firm level. This finding casts doubt on the conventional wisdom that aggregate productivity in Spain is driven by a firm size distribution biased towards small firms in comparison with other developed countries. According to my findings, low firm-level productivity might play a crucial role in shaping the Spanish firm size distribution.

Keywords: firm-level data; productivity; size distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 L11 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-ent, nep-ind and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicaci ... /16/Fich/dt1613e.pdf First version, July 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Growing by learning: firm-level evidence on the size-productivity nexus (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bde:wpaper:1613

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Banco de España Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ángel Rodríguez. Electronic Dissemination of Information Unit. Research Department. Banco de España ().