Low agricultural productivity is a persistent challenge in developing economies. In the first chapter of the dissertation, I study the concurrent but independently implemented expansion of rural roads and extension in Ethiopia to examine how access to markets and technologies affect agricultural productivity. Using geospatial data combined with large surveys and exploiting the staggered roll-out of the two programs, I show that there are strong complementarities between roads and extension. While ineffective in isolation, access to both a road and extension increases productivity. I find that roads and extension improve productivity by facilitating the take up of agricultural advice and modern inputs. Furthermore, households adjust crop choices and shift across occupations in response to their changing comparative advantages in access to markets and technologies. In the second chapter of the dissertation, co-authored with Samuel Bazzi and Martin Fiszbein, we study the long-run implications of the American frontier experience for culture and politics. We track the frontier throughout the 1790–1890 period and construct a novel, county-level measure of total frontier experience (TFE). Historically, frontier locations had distinctive demographics and greater individualism. Long after the closing of the frontier, counties with greater TFE exhibit more pervasive individualism and opposition to redistribution. We provide suggestive evidence on the roots of frontier culture: selective migration, an adaptive advantage of self-reliance, and perceived opportunities for upward mobility through effort. Overall, our findings shed new light on the frontiers persistent legacy of rugged individualism. In the third chapter of the dissertation, I use plant level census data to examine the effects of two policies designed to support prioritized sub-sectors and regions on the productivity of the Ethiopian manufacturing sector. The first policy, implemented during 1996-2002, was an activist industrial policy favoring import substitution while the second policy, active during 2003-2012, emphasized export promotion. I find that there is severe misallocation in Ethiopian manufacturing sector, but it has subsided over the studied period. The results suggest that the priority sector support policies have exacerbated the misallocation, and the within-sector variations of the policies largely account for the dispersion in revenue productivity.

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La présente thèse contribue à la littérature en économie internationale en s'intéressant à l'impact des lieux commerciaux et des réformes structurelles sur la croissance de la productivité agrégée dans le secteur manufacturier en Europe et en Inde. Dans le premier chapitre co-écrit avec Antoine Berthou, Jong-Chung Chung et Kalina Manova, nous montrons que l'expansion des exportations et des importations stimule la productivité du travail, mais seule la demande à l’exportation réalloue l'activité vers les entreprises plus productives en présence de distorsions de prix. De plus, les frictions liées aux imperfections de marché et la mauvaise qualité des institutions freinent la capacité des économies à réagir aux chocs de commerce subis par les entreprises nationales. Dans le second chapitre, je trouve que l'augmentation des importations d'intrants intermédiaires depuis la Chine contribue de manière significative à la croissance agrégée de la PTF en France grâce à une plus grande efficacité de répartition des parts de marché entre les entreprises. En effet, permettre à un plus grand nombre d'entreprises d'avoir accès à des biens intermédiaires au meilleur rapport qualité-prix stimule la croissance de la productivité agrégée. Dans le troisième chapitre co-écrit avec Adil Mohommad et Piyaporn Sodsriwiboon, nous montrons que des réformes favorisant davantage de flexibilité sur le marché du travail et une meilleure allocation des crédits entre entreprises réduisent les distorsions de marché payées par les entreprises et génèrent des gains de productivité et une croissance économique plus forte à long terme en Inde. / In this dissertation, I contribute to the literature on international economics by drawing attention to the impact of trade flows and structural reforms on productivity growth in the manufacturing sector in Europe and India. ln the first chapter co-authored, with Antoine Berthou, Jong-Chung Chung and Kalina Manova, we demonstrate that growth in exports and imports boosts labor productivity, but only export demand reallocates activity toward more productive firms in presence of price distortions. Moreover, market and institutional frictions dampen the ability of economies to react and gain from trade shocks. ln the second chapter, I show that the increase in Chinese imports of intermediate inputs is a significant driver of aggregate TFP growth in France as it increases efficiency in sharing market shares between firms. Allowing more firms to access intermediate goods at the best price-quality ratio stimulates aggregate productivity growth. ln the third chapter, co-written with Adil Mohommad and Piyapom Sodsriwiboon, our finding suggests that removing structural rigidities in the labor market and improving credit allocation would reduce distortions and contribute to productivity gains and long term growth in India.

Higher education is often considered as one of the safest and most profitable investments in human capital. There are, however, signals that this sector has been experiencing unsustainable economic boom in the United States. This study examines the ability of Austrian Business Cycle Theory to explain the possibility of such boom, i.e. to explain the potential systematic errors in the allocation of human capital. We find that respective allocation is driven by the similar market forces as the allocation of physical capital and hence, that it may fall victim to the same, or similar false market signals, thus creating the cycle of boom and bust. Credit expansion in the sector of student loans can be the trigger then. Furthermore, we study the actual development in this sector and find that empirical evidence provides many reasons to believe that there has actually been unsustainable boom i.e. an economic bubble in the sector of post-secondary education in the United States.

[pt] Esta tese contém três ensaios sobre dinâmica de firmas. O primeiro ensaio avalia os efeitos de choques de oferta e demanda sobre a dinâmica de firmas e seleção no Brasil. Exploramos o fato de que o crescimento recente da China não apenas aumentou o nível de competição via importações, mas também aumentou a demanda por exportações de bens primários, um fator especialmente relevante para países em desenvolvimento. Nossos resultados mostram que firmas afetadas pelo aumento de competição proveniente de importações chinesas apresentam um aumento na probabilidade de sair do mercado, enquanto firmas em indústrias beneficiadas pela demanda por exportações para a China têm uma menor probabilidade de saída. Em ambos os casos, esses efeitos estão concentrados em firmas com um menor número de trabalhadores. O segundo ensaio descreve a relação entre a má alocação de energia e a má alocação de recursos no setor de manufaturas brasileiro, e quantifica em que medida distorções que afetam o uso eficiente de energia resultam em perdas de produto agregado. Nós encontramos que as duas medidas de má alocação são positivamente relacionadas nos setores, sugerindo que a energia é um importante componente da eficiência alocativa de recursos. Nós mostramos que a realocação de recursos entre firmas de um mesmo setor levaria a ganhos agregados significativos. Entretanto, distorções de capital são responsáveis pela maior parte dos ganhos potenciais pela realocação de recursos. O terceiro ensaio compara a dinâmica do ciclo de vida em manufaturas e serviços e encontra que o crescimento ao longo do ciclo de vida é menor para firmas do setor de serviços, mesmo controlando pelo seu tamanho inicial. Nós mostramos que esse menor crescimento ocorre devido ao padrão de seleção e à fraca relação existente entre produtividade e tamanho das firmas em serviços. Finalmente, nós investigamos o papel de duas possíveis explicações para os resultados encontrados: distorções relacionadas ao ciclo de vida e custos de monitoramento. / [en] This thesis consists of three essays on firm dynamics. The first essay evaluates the effects of supply and demand shocks on firm dynamics and selection in Brazil. We explore the fact that China’s recent growth has led not only to an increase in import competition, but also to higher export demand for commodities, which is especially relevant in developing countries. We find that firms facing greater competition from Chinese imports suffer from an increase in exit probability, while firms in industries benefiting from increased export demand have lower probability of exit. In both cases, these effects are concentrated among smaller firms. In the second article, we describe the relationship between energy misallocation and resource misallocation across manufacturing industries in Brazil, and quantify the extent to which distortions affecting energy use result in output losses at the aggregate level. We find that these two measures of misallocation are positively related across industries, which suggests that energy is an important component of resource allocation efficiency. We show that reallocating resources between firms would result in substantial aggregate output gains. However, capital distortions account for most of the potential gains in manufacturing from reallocating resources between firms. The third essay compares firm life cycle dynamics in manufacturing and services, and finds that life-cycle growth is slower for service firms, even when controlling for initial size. We show that this result arises because of the selection pattern and weaker relationship between productivity and size in service industries. Finally, we assess the role of two potential explanations for these results: age-related distortions and monitoring costs.

創新能力是近年產業發展的趨勢，過去文獻常只單用專利數量來衡量研發效率，方法直觀卻無法真實反應專利價值。本研究嘗試利用專利數量及專利價值指數一起衡量廠商研發投入與產出間的效率，研究對象為2005年至2007年間中國規模水準以上廠商，利用其專利總價值指數與該公司所投入的資本要素與勞動要素探討該公司資源錯置的現象。有鑑於中國積極引進外資企業進駐中國，本研究依公司註冊登記類型將公司分為國有企業、民營企業及外資企業三大類，藉以研究中國經濟發展政策對此三類企業研發效率發展的影響。結果顯示，國有企業的研發效率優於民營企業與外資企業。因為政府積極實施產業政策以促進國內研發創新能力，給予國有企業相當多的政策優惠，故國有企業擁有較高的研發生產力；而民營企業因核心技術的不足，多以替國外大廠代工為主要經營模式，研發創新能力較低。中國改革開放後，積極引進外資企業進駐中國，而當時外資企業看中的是中國低廉的勞動成本與廣大的潛在市場，核心研發技術並未引進中國，導致外資企業研發能力在資料區間內呈現最為低落的情形。 / Innovation has become the trend for the industrial development nowadays. In the past, little research can measure the industrial outcome due to inadequate knowledge on patent value index. In this paper, I compute the patent value index based on the surveyed data of the manufacturing firms in China from 2005 to 2007. The misallocation between research output and input is computed as the major result. Based on firm registration data, I divided firms into three categories, state-owned firms, private firms and foreign firms. Our result shows that state-owned firms have higher innovation efficiency than others. The high research efficiency belonging to state-owned firms benefited from many industrial policies and preferential policy implemented by government. Due to the lack of innovation technology characterized by OEM (Original equipment manufacturer) model, private firms record lower research performance. Other than domestic firms, foreign firms simply utilize cheap production inputs and the larger market size as a base for process trade. Innovation activities are only conducted by parent companies. That is why foreign firms’ record lower innovation efficiency in this research.

Submitted by Renata Cafe (tatamcafe@gmail.com) on 2018-03-28T18:01:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RenataCafe_DissertaçãoMestrado_vDepositada.pdf: 1087524 bytes, checksum: ac030e49a3dff91fec1c2a361decad25 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2018-04-04T16:36:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 RenataCafe_DissertaçãoMestrado_vDepositada.pdf: 1087524 bytes, checksum: ac030e49a3dff91fec1c2a361decad25 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2018-04-12T13:00:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 RenataCafe_DissertaçãoMestrado_vDepositada.pdf: 1087524 bytes, checksum: ac030e49a3dff91fec1c2a361decad25 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-12T13:00:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RenataCafe_DissertaçãoMestrado_vDepositada.pdf: 1087524 bytes, checksum: ac030e49a3dff91fec1c2a361decad25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-09 / This paper investigates how the method of hiring used by the public sector can lead to allocative inefficiency and loss in total production, even under a neutral hypothesis that agents produce equally in the public and private sectors. We were motivated to examine this problem by Brazilian data from RAIS, where a simple exercise indicates significant overqualification of workers from the public sector in relation to the private sector, for all federative units. We developed a Roy model including two types of work at each sector, and considered individuals heterogeneous in two types of skill. While private sector hire freely and pay individuals proportionately to what they produce, the public sector announces a fixed remuneration ex-ante and organizes a selection based on only one type of skill, irrespective of the type of work. Results show that public tender, in particular when work is unrelated to the skill evaluated in the test, causes significant misallocation of selected candidates, causing decrease in the overall production of the economy. / O trabalho investiga como a forma de contratação do setor público pode acarretar em ineficiência alocativa e perda na produção total da economia, mesmo sob a hipótese neutra de que os indivíduos produzem igualmente nos setores público e privado. O problema é motivado para o Brasil a partir de dados da RAIS, onde um exercício simples aponta a expressiva sobrequalificação de trabalhadores do setor público em relação ao privado, para todas as unidade federativas. A investigação é feita a partir do desenvolvimento de um modelo de Roy que considera dois tipos de trabalho, presentes em ambos setores da economia, e indivíduos heterogêneos em dois tipos de habilidade. Enquanto o setor privado contrata livremente e remunera o indivíduo proporcionalmente à sua produtividade, o setor público anuncia uma remuneração fixa ex-ante e realiza a seleção com base em apenas um tipo de habilidade, qualquer que seja o tipo de trabalho. Resultados mostram que concursos públicos, em especial para trabalhos pouco relacionados com a habilidade avaliada pela prova, provocam significante má alocação dos selecionados, ocasionando queda na produção final da economia.

Submitted by Stefan Arnold (stefan@fgvmail.br) on 2012-10-16T22:07:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoStefanArnold.pdf: 3151944 bytes, checksum: 99d18d71d1a49540f27d6005a3355fd7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2012-11-29T13:15:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoStefanArnold.pdf: 3151944 bytes, checksum: 99d18d71d1a49540f27d6005a3355fd7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-11-29T13:15:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoStefanArnold.pdf: 3151944 bytes, checksum: 99d18d71d1a49540f27d6005a3355fd7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-07-29 / How can the tax structure of a country affect its long term product? Trying to answer this question we consider a neoclassical growth model with heteregeneous production plants as in Restuccia and Rogerson (2008). Scparating the plants in 3 different groups, the small, the medium and the big, we define the tax structure as the set of taxes that are charged over the plants revenuc. Based on a steady state equilibrium where the small plants have their income taxed at 18%, the medium at 30% and the big at 50%, this dissertation rnakes series of nurnerical exercises in order to identify potential gains / losses of changing the tax structure. / O quanto e como a estrutura tributária adotada por um país pode afetar seu produto de longo prazo? Para tentar responder essa pergunta, usamos um modelo de crescimento neoclássico com plantas heterogêneas desenvolvido por Restuccia e Rogerson (2008). Separando as plantas em três diferentes subgrupos, as pequenas, as médias e as grandes, definimos estrutura tributária como sendo o conjunto de taxas cobradas sobre a receita de cada um dos tipos de planta. Partindo-se então de um equilíbrio de estado estacionário onde as plantas pequenas tem sua receita taxada em 18%, as médias em 30% e as grande em 50%, essa dissertação faz uma série de exercícios numéricos com o intuito de identificar possíveis ganhos/perdas de se alterar a estrutura tributária vigente.

This dissertation consists of three chapters, which focus jointly on the effects of education policy on the functioning of labor markets.De-industrialization and technological progress have changed job markets fundamentally. The most fundamental change is that the concept of a worker as a unit of production relatively insensitive to inherent characteristics has been overthrown. Service sectors that have taken over from manufacturing as the engines of economic activity rely primarily on human capital for autonomous production. This is especially true for internationally tradable services. Their stark development was rendered possible by the informationcommunication revolution. Skills and talent, as well as their allocation to suitable tasks matter for production, now more than ever. We argue in this dissertation that the ability of education policy to facilitate optimal task allocation plays a role in maximizing aggregate production and in influencing education earnings premia, as well as employment volumes in various sectors of activity. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is a collection of three essays in causal evaluation. The first chapter investigates the effects of formal ties between firms and banks on the amount of credit received. I focus on the micro-effects of ties (bank-firm level) and how they reverberate at the macro level. Results are consistent with the literature considering links as a source of favoritism. However, efficient firms are more likely to be connected to banks, thus benefiting more often than less efficient firms from connections. The comparison of Portugal’s GDP in 2017 with that produced under a hypothetical scenario where every tie was severed shows that severing links results in virtually no changes in GDP. I interpret the result as evidence that the different likelihood of being connected experienced by efficient and not efficient firms counterbalances the misallocating potential of connections.The second chapter introduces a novel Stata implementation of Egger and von Ehrlich’s (2013) econometric framework for the estimation of treatment effect when the treatment is continuous and multidimensional. After the illustration of the package, I present a simple simulation to show the capability of the method to overcome bias.The third chapter consists of an evaluation of European regional policy. It analyzes how different mixes of investments in infrastructure and productive investments affect regions’ growth rate. The main results are that allocations in infrastructure foster growth only when coupled with expenditures in productive investments. Moreover, the highest growth is obtained when investments have high intensity in both dimensions. By generating two hypothetical scenarios, I investigate how the allocation of funds can be improved. The results show that regions could allocate more efficiently. However, the actual transfer intensity is not enough to choose the mix that would globally maximize growth. The findings are consistent with Becker et al. (2012) since enforcing common support restricts the analysis to regions with low transfer intensity.