Structural Change Within versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States

Xiang Ding, Teresa Fort, Stephen Redding and Peter Schott

No 30127, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We document the role of intangible capital in manufacturing firms' substantial contribution to non-manufacturing employment growth from 1977-2019. Exploiting data on firms' "auxiliary" establishments, we develop a novel measure of proprietary in-house knowledge and show that it is associated with increased growth and industry switching. We rationalize this reallocation in a model where firms combine physical and knowledge inputs as complements, and where producing the latter in-house confers a sector-neutral productivity advantage facilitating within-firm structural transformation. Consistent with the model, manufacturing firms with auxiliary employment pivot towards services in response to a plausibly exogenous decline in their physical input prices.

JEL-codes: D24 F14 L16 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-dem, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Structural Change Within Versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural change within versus across firms: evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural Change Within versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural change within versus across firms: evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural Change Within Versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural Change Within Versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States (2022)
Working Paper: Structural Change Within Versus Across Firms: Evidence from the United States (2019)
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