Jagadeesh Sivadasan

Barriers to Competition and Productivity: Evidence from India

Abstract A number of economic theories suggest that barriers to competition lead to higher levels of inefficiency among incumbents. In this paper, we use a detailed plant-level dataset to study the impact on productivity of two reforms (initiated in 1991) aimed at increasing product market competition in India -- liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) and reduction in tariff rates. First, we examine the effect of the liberalization policies on mean plant-level productivity in the targeted industries. We find significant increases in productivity in the FDI and tariff-liberalized industries, particularly in the longer term (1993-94). We check and find our results robust to a range of robustness tests. Next, we examine the role of intensive (within-plant productivity growth) and extensive (reallocation from less to more productive plants) margins in the post-reform productivity improvement, and find a predominant role for the former. Finally, we assess potential channels for within-firm productivity improvement. Consistent with a role for price competition, we find evidence of greater declines in output prices as well as concentration measures in the liberalized sectors.

Estimating Lost Output from Allocative Inefficiency, with an Application to Chile and Firing Costs

We propose a new measure of allocative efficiency based on unrealized increases in aggregate productivity growth. We show that the difference in the value of the marginal product of an input and its marginal cost at any plantthe plant-input gapis exactly equal to the change in aggregate output that would occur if that plant changed that inputs use by one unit. We show how to estimate this gap using plant-level data for 1982 to 1994 from Chilean manufacturing. We find the gaps for blue- and white-collar labor are quite large in absolute value, and these gaps (unlike for materials and electricity) are increasing over time. The timing of the sharpest increases in the labor gaps suggests that they may be related to increases in severance pay.

What Happens When Firms Patent? New Evidence from U.S. Economic Census Data

We build a new concordance between the NBER Patent Data and U.S. Census microdata and use it to examine what happens when firms patent. We find strong evidence that increases in patent stock are associated with increases in firm size, scope, and skill and capital intensity. We find somewhat weaker evidence that changes in patenting are positively correlated with changes in total factor productivity. We also analyze first-time patentees and find similar effects following initial patent application. Together, these results suggest that patenting is indeed associated with real changes within firms, in particular with growth through increases in scope.

The Effect of Financial Development on the Investment Cash Flow Relationship: Cross-Country Evidence from Europe

Abstract We investigate if financial development eases firm level financing constraints in a cross-country data set covering much of the European economy. The cash flow sensitivity of investment is lower in countries with better-developed financial markets. To deal with potentially serious biases, we employ a difference-in-difference methodology. Subsidiaries of other firms have access to internal capital markets and hence depend less on the external financial environment. As predicted, the benefit of financial development is smaller in subsidiary firms. This shows that financial development can mitigate financial constraints, and sheds light on the link between financial and economic development.

Capital Resalability, Productivity Dispersion, and Market Structure

We propose an industry-level index of capital resalabilitythe share of used capital in aggregate industry capital expenditurethat relates (inversely) to sunkenness of investments. Using data from U.S. manufacturing, we then test the effect of capital resalability on industry productivity dispersion, mean productivity, and industry concentration. As predicted by standard models of industry equilibrium with heterogeneous firms, we find that increases in capital resalability are associated with a reduction in productivity dispersion, and an increase in the mean and median of the productivity distribution. Furthermore, we find that capital resalability is negatively correlated with industry concentration.

Gains from Offshoring? Evidence from U.S. Microdata

We construct a new linked data set with over one thousand offshoring events by matching Trade Adjustment Assistance program petition data to confidential data on U.S. firm operations. We exploit these data to assess how offshoring affects domestic firm-level aggregate employment, output, wages and productivity. Consistent with heterogenous firm models where offshoring involves a fixed cost, we find that the average offshoring firm is larger and more productive than the average non-offshorer. After initiating offshoring, firms experience large declines in employment (46.2 per cent), output (38.5 per cent) and capital (28.8 per cent) relative to their industry peers. We find no significant change in average wages or in total factor productivity measures for offshoring firms. These results are consistent across two separate difference-in-differences (DID) approaches, an instrumental variables approach, and a number of robustness checks. Thus, we find offshoring to be a strong substitute for domestic activity in this large sample of offshoring events.

Does Capital Market Myopia Affect Plant Productivity? Evidence from Going Private Transactions

One influential criticism of the stock market oriented U.S. financial system is that its excessive focus on short term quarterly earnings forces public firms to behave in a myopic manner. We hypothesize that if capital markets pressure listed firms to be myopic in a way that impacts efficiency, then going private (when myopia is eliminated) should cause U.S. firms to improve their establishment level productivity relative to a peer control groups of firms. We find no evidence that this is the case. Our key finding is that while there is evidence for substantial within-establishment increases in productivity after going private, there is little evidence of difference-in-differences efficiency gains relative to peer groups of establishments constructed to control for industry, age, size at the time of going private, and the endogeneity of the going private decision effects. Also, we do not find evidence that myopic markets lead to under-investment at the establishment level. On the contrary, we find that after going private, firms shrink capital and employment, and close plants more quickly, relative to peer groups. Our findings cast doubt on the view that public markets cause listed firms to make sub-optimal, productivity-decreasing choices, or under-invest at the establishment level.

Locked in? The Enforceability of Covenants Not to Compete and the Careers of High-Tech Workers

We study the relationship between the enforceability of covenants not to compete (CNCs) and employee mobility and wages. We exploit a 2015 CNC ban for technology workers in Hawaii and find that this ban increased mobility by 11% and new-hire wages by 4%. We supplement the Hawaii evaluation with a cross-state analysis using matched employer-employee data. We find that technology workers starting a job in an average-enforceability state have about 8% fewer jobs and 4.6% lower cumulative earnings relative to equivalent workers starting in a non-enforcing state, after eight years. These results are consistent with CNC enforceability increasing monopsony power.

Deadlines, Work Flows, Task Sorting, and Work Quality

We examine deadlines-induced behavior using large-scale, high frequency data on about 5 million U.S. patents and published applications. We motivate the study with a model of rational agents facing discontinuous incentives around deadline thresholds, without using time-inconsistent preferences invoked in behavioral economics models of deadline-related behavior. Consistent with our model predictions, we find notable clustering of more complex patent applications around potential deadlines at month-, quarter- and year-ends, along with a small to moderate decline in work quality around those periods.

Barriers to Entry and Competitive Behavior: Evidence from Reforms of Cable Franchising Regulations: Barriers to Entry and Competitive Behavior

Between 2005 and 2008, nineteen of the fifty states of the U.S. reformed the franchising process for cable television, significantly easing entry into local markets. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach that exploits the staggered introduction of reforms, we find that prices for ‘Basic’ service declined systematically by about 5.5 to 6.8 per cent following the reforms, but we find no statistically significant effect on average price for the more popular ‘Expanded Basic’ service. We also find that the reforms led to increased actual entry in reformed states, by about 11.6% relative to non‐reformed states. Our analysis shows that the decline in price for ‘Basic’ service holds for markets that did not experience actual entry, consistent with limit pricing by incumbents. To control for potential state‐level shocks correlated with the reforms, we undertake a sample‐split test that finds larger declines in prices for both ‘Basic’ and ‘Expanded Basic’ services in local markets which faced a greater threat of entry (because they were close to a prominent second entrant). Our results are consistent with limit pricing models that predict incumbents respond to increased threat of entry, and suggest that the reforms facilitated entry and modestly benefited consumers in reformed states.