Search Results
Journal Article
Industrial production and capacity utilization: the 2004 annual revision
In late 2004, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve issued revisions to its index of industrial production (IP) and the related measures of capacity and capacity utilization for the period from January 1972 to November 2004. Overall, the changes to total industrial production were small. ; Measured from the fourth quarter of 2002 to the third quarter of 2004, industrial output is reported to have increased a little less than shown previously. Production expanded more slowly in 2000 than earlier estimates indicated, whereas the contraction in 2001 was a little less steep. The rise in ...
Working Paper
Heterogeneous exporters: quantitative differences and qualitative similarities
We combine two detailed datasets on Colombian manufacturing firms and document several stylized facts on exporter heterogeneity of total factor productivity (TFP) and export-market orientation, refining some previously known facts and unveiling some new others. We first show that the exporter productivity premium is remarkably robust across the methodologies used to recover TFP. We then document that the most productive exporters are those that export (1) a higher share of their total production, (2) to a larger number of countries, (3) to destinations less frequently reached by other ...
Working Paper
Corporate Tax Cuts and the Decline of the Manufacturing Labor Share
We document a strong empirical connection between corporate taxation and the manufacturing labor share, both in the US and across OECD countries. Our estimates associate 30 percent to 60 percent of the observed decline in labor shares with the fall in corporate taxation. Using an equilibrium model of an industry where firms differ in their capital intensities, we show that lower corporate tax rates reduce the labor share by raising the market share of capital-intensive firms. The tax elasticity of the labor share depends on the joint distribution of labor intensities and value added at the ...
Working Paper
Corporate tax cuts and the decline of the manufacturing labor share
We document a strong empirical connection between corporate taxation and the manufacturing labor share, both in the US and across OECD countries. Our estimates associate 30 percent to 60 percent of the observed decline in labor shares with the fall in corporate taxation. Using an equilibrium model of an industry where firms differ in their capital intensities, we show that lower corporate tax rates reduce the labor share by raising the market share of capital-intensive firms. The tax elasticity of the labor share depends on the joint distribution of labor intensities and value added at the ...
Working Paper
Patent-Based News Shocks
We exploit firm-level data on patent grants and subsequent reactions of stocks to identify technological news shocks. Changes in stock market valuations due to announcements of individual patent grants represent expected future increases in the technology level, which we refer to as patent-based news shocks. Our patentbased news shocks resemble diffusion news, in that they do not affect total factor productivity in the short run but induce a strong permanent effect after five years. These shocks produce positive comovement between consumption, output, investment, and hours. Unlike the ...
Journal Article
Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization: Annual Revision and 1997 Developments
In December 1997, the Board of Governors published the results of an annual revision of its measures of industrial production and capacity utilization, which cover the nation's manufacturing, mining, and electric and gas utilities industries. The revision entailed primarily the incorporation of new and more comprehensive source data, the most important of which were annual figures on industry real output in 1995 and survey information on industry utilization rates for the fourth quarters of 1995 and 1996. The revised measures show stronger growth of production and capacity and lower rates of ...
Report
The competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing
We study the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. For the period 1999?2012 we find little support for a significant offshoring reversal. We show that the share of domestic demand that is met by imports and the terms of trade show no signs of reversal, even in sectors dominated by imports from China. We do, however, find some evidence consistent with the U.S. shale-gas energy revolution raising the competiveness of U.S. energy-intensive sectors.
Working Paper
Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey: survey methodology and performance
The Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) is a monthly survey of area manufacturers conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. TMOS indexes provide timely information on manufacturing activity in Texas, which is useful for understanding broader changes in regional economic conditions. This paper describes the survey methodology and analyzes the explanatory and predictive power of TMOS indexes with regard to other measures of state economic activity. Regression analysis shows that several TMOS indexes successfully explain monthly changes in Texas employment and quarterly changes in ...
Journal Article
Industrial production and capacity utilization: the 2003 annual revision
In late 2003, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve issued revisions to its measures of industrial, capacity, and capacity utilization for the period from January 1972 to September 2003. The changes are generally small and principally affect data from 2000 to the present. ; Measured from fourth quarter to fourth quarter, industrial output is now reported to have increased at a slower rate in 2000 and to have contracted a bit more slowly in 2001 than reported earlier. The changes to total industrial production in other years are slight. The revision still places the most recent peak in ...
Report
Who bears the cost of a change in the exchange rate? The case of imported beer
This paper quantifies the welfare effects of a change in the nominal exchange rate using the example of the beer market. I estimate a structural econometric model that makes it possible to compute manufacturers' and retailers' pass-through of a nominal exchange-rate change, without observing wholesale prices or firms' marginal costs. I conduct counterfactual experiments to quantify how the change affects domestic and foreign firms' profits and domestic consumer welfare. The counterfactual experiments show that foreign manufacturers bear more of the cost of an exchange-rate change than do ...