EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants

Marcela Eslava, John C. Haltiwanger (), Adriana Kugler and Maurice Kugler ()
Additional contact information
John C. Haltiwanger: University of Maryland

No 1751, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze employment and capital adjustments using a panel of plants from Colombia. We allow for nonlinear adjustment of employment to reflect not only adjustment costs of labor but also adjustment costs of capital, and vice-versa. Using data from the Annual Manufacturing Survey, which include plant-level prices, we generate measures of plant-level productivity, demand shocks, and cost shocks, and use them to measure desired factor levels. We then estimate adjustment functions for capital and labor as a function of the gap between desired and actual factor levels. As in other countries, we find non-linear adjustments in employment and capital in response to market fundamentals. In addition, we find that employment and capital adjustments reinforce each other, in that capital shortages reduce hiring and labor shortages reduce investment. Moreover, we find that the market oriented reforms introduced in Colombia after 1990 increased employment adjustments, especially on the job destruction margin, while reducing capital adjustments. Finally, we find that while completely eliminating frictions from factor adjustments would yield a dramatic increase in aggregate productivity through improved allocative efficiency, the reforms introduced in Colombia generated only modest improvements.

Keywords: joint factor adjustment; irreversibilities; adjustment costs; input reallocation; deregulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 E22 E24 J63 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2005-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-mac and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published - published in: Review of Economics and Statistics, 2010, 92 (2), 378-391:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1751.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants (2010) Downloads
Working Paper: Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants (2008) Downloads
Working Paper: Factor Adjustments After Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants (2008) Downloads
Working Paper: Factor Adjustments after Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants (2005) Downloads
Working Paper: Factor Adjustments After Deregulation: Panel Evidence from Colombian Plants (2005) Downloads
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:iza:izadps:dp1751

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-27
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1751