Cultural diversity and plant-level productivity

Michaela Trax, Stephan Brunow and Jens Suedekum

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2015, vol. 53, issue C, 85-96

Abstract: Using comprehensive data for German establishments, we estimate plant-level production functions to analyze if “cultural diversity” affects total factor productivity. We distinguish diversity in the establishment's workforce (the micro level) and in the aggregate labor force of the region where the plant is located (the macro level). We find that a larger share of foreign workers — either in the establishment or in the region — does not affect productivity. However, there are spillovers associated with the degree of fractionalization of the group of foreigners into different nationalities. Regional diversity is at least as important for productivity as micro-level diversity.

Keywords: Cultural diversity; Plant-level productivity; Knowledge spillovers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J31 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (87)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046215000459
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Cultural diversity and plant-level productivity (2013)
Working Paper: Cultural diversity and plant-level productivity (2012)
Working Paper: Cultural Diversity and Plant?Level Productivity (2012)
Working Paper: Cultural diversity and plant‐level productivity (2012)
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:eee:regeco:v:53:y:2015:i:c:p:85-96

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2015.05.004

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().