Search Results
Journal Article
10 things to know about the shape of Ohio’s skilled workforce
Working Paper
Business Formation: A Tale of Two Recessions
The trajectory of new business applications and transitions to employer businesses differ markedly during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 recession. Both applications and transitions to employer startups decreased slowly but persistently in the post-Lehman crisis period of the Great Recession. In contrast, during the COVID-19 recession new applications initially declined but have since sharply rebounded, resulting in a surge in applications during 2020. Projected transitions to employer businesses also rise, but this projection is dampened by a change in the composition of applications ...
Working Paper
Disadvantaged business enterprise goals in government procurement contracting: an analysis of bidding behavior and costs
Programs that encourage the participation of disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) as subcontractors have been a part of government procurement auctions for over three decades. In this paper, we examine the impact of a program that requires prime contractors to subcontract out a portion of a highway procurement project to DBE firms. We study how DBE subcontracting requirements affect bidding behavior in federally funded projects. Within a symmetric independent private value framework, we use the equilibrium bidding function to obtain the cost distribution of firms undertaking projects ...
Discussion Paper
Measuring Early-Stage Business Formation
New businesses play an important role in overall economic activity. They account for a sizable share of job creation, and they provide a key source of innovation that contributes to overall productivity growth.
Working Paper
Entry, exit, and the determinants of market structure
This paper estimates a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and uses it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. Entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price competition are all found to be important determinants of long-run firm values, firm turnover, and market structure. Estimates for the dentist industry allow the entry cost to differ for geographic markets that were designated as Health ...
Working Paper
Entry, exit and the determinants of market structure
Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. These decisions are driven by expectations of future profits which, in turn, depend on the nature of competition within the market. In this paper we estimate a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and use it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. We find that entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price ...
Journal Article
The growing difference in college attainment between women and men
Workers with more education typically earn more than those with less education, and the difference has been growing in recent decades. Not surprisingly, the percentage of the population going after and getting a college degree has been rising as well. Since the late 1970s, though, the increase in college attainment has stalled for men and gathered steam for women. Among college-age individuals, more women now graduate than men. Changes in labor market incentives appear to explain the increased investment in education made by women. But men?s investments in education have been much less ...
Working Paper
Early-Stage Business Formation : An Analysis of Applications for Employer Identification Numbers
This paper reports on the development and analysis of a newly constructed dataset on the early stages of business formation. The data are based on applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) submitted in the United States, known as IRS Form SS-4 filings. The goal of the research is to develop high-frequency indicators of business formation at the national, state, and local levels. The analysis indicates that EIN applications provide forward-looking and very timely information on business formation. The signal of business formation provided by counts of applications is improved by ...
Journal Article
Foreclosure metrics
As the foreclosure crisis deepens, increased attention is being paid to foreclosure statistics, which are often used to judge the intensity of foreclosure problems both within and across regions. However, these statistics need to be interpreted carefully; different foreclosure statistics embed different information, and making informative comparisons with various metrics requires understanding how each is constructed.
Discussion Paper
Workshop on entrepreneurial finance: a summary
This Policy Discussion Paper summarizes papers that were presented at the Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance, which was held March 12?13, 2009, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Researchers presented new empirical research that exploits data sets on entrepreneurial activity that are based on broad and representative data samples. Papers in the workshop focused primarily on analyses of the sources and structure of start-up finance, including the importance of bank lending, venture capital, angel investors, and owner equity.