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Working Paper
Firm Entry and Employment Dynamics in the Great Recession
The 2007-2009 recession is characterized by: a large drop in employment, an unprecedented decline in firm entry, and a slow recovery. Using confidential firm-level data, I show that financial constraints reduced employment growth in small relative to large firms by 4.8 to 10.5 percentage points. The effect of financial constraints is robust to controlling for aggregate demand and is particularly strong in small young firms. I show in a heterogeneous firms model with endogenous firm entry and financial constraints that a large financial shock results in a long-lasting recession caused by a ...
Journal Article
Local Origins of Business Formation
Using comprehensive administrative data on business applications, we find that startups per capita exhibit enormous variation across counties and tracts in the United States. We decompose this spatial variation into two components: variation in business ideas per capita and in their rate of transition to startups. Both components matter for the variation in startups per capita. Furthermore, local demographic, economic, financial, and business conditions account for a significant fraction of the variation in startups per capita and in its components. In particular, income, education, age, and ...
Working Paper
Offshore Production and Business Cycle Dynamics with Heterogeneous Firms
To examine the effect of offshoring through vertical FDI on the international transmission of business cycles, I propose a two-country model in which firms endogenously choose the location of their production plants over the business cycle. Firms face a sunk cost to enter the domestic market and an additional fixed cost to produce offshore. As such, the offshoring decision depends on the firm-specific productivity and on fluctuations in the relative cost of effective labor. The model generates a procyclical pattern of offshoring and dynamics along its extensive margin that are consistent with ...
Working Paper
The Local Origins of Business Formation
What locations generate more business ideas, and where are ideas more likely to turn into businesses? Using comprehensive administrative data on business applications, we analyze the spatial disparity in the creation of business ideas and the formation of new employer startups from these ideas. Startups per capita exhibit enormous variation across granular units of geography. We decompose this variation into variation in ideas per capita and in their rate of transition to startups, and we find that both components matter. Observable local demographic, economic, financial, and business ...
Working Paper
The Effect of Immigration on Business Dynamics and Employment
Immigration, like any positive labor supply shock, should increase the return to capital and spur business investment. These changes should have a positive impact on business creation and expansion, particularly in areas that receive large immigrant inflows. Despite this clear prediction, there is sparse empirical evidence on the effect of immigration on business dynamics. One reason may be data unavailability since public-access firm-level data are rare. This study examines the impact of immigration on business dynamics and employment by combining U.S. data on immigrant inflows from the ...