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Mark Doms

Bio: Mark Doms is an academic researcher from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The author has contributed to research in topics: Productivity & Technological change. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 46 publications receiving 7147 citations. Previous affiliations of Mark Doms include Center for Economic Studies & Federal Reserve System.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article reviewed research that uses longitudinal microdata to document productivity movements and examine factors behind productivity growth, including the dispersion of productivity across firms and establishments, the persistence of productivity differentials, the consequences of entry and exit, and the contribution of resource reallocation across firms to aggregate productivity growth.
Abstract: This paper reviews research that uses longitudinal microdata to document productivity movements and to examine factors behind productivity growth. The research explores the dispersion of productivity across firms and establishments, the persistence of productivity differentials, the consequences of entry and exit, and the contribution of resource reallocation across firms to aggregate productivity growth. The research also reveals important factors correlated with productivity growth, such as managerial ability, technology use, human capital, and regulation. The more advanced literature in the field has begun to address the more difficult questions of the causality between these factors and productivity growth.

1,394 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors reviewed research that uses longitudinal microdata to document productivity movements and examine factors behind productivity growth, including the dispersion of productivity across firms and establishments, the persistence of productivity differentials, the consequences of entry and exit, and the contribution of resource reallocation across firms to aggregate productivity growth.
Abstract: This paper reviews research that uses longitudinal microdata to document productivity movements and to examine factors behind productivity growth. The research explores the dispersion of productivity across firms and establishments, the persistence of productivity differentials, the consequences of entry and exit, and the contribution of resource reallocation across firms to aggregate productivity growth. The research also reveals important factors correlated with productivity growth, such as managerial ability, technology use, human capital, and regulation. The more advanced literature in the field has begun to address the more difficult questions of the causality between these factors and productivity growth.

1,074 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how plant-level wages, occupational mix, workforce education and productivity vary with the adoption and use of new factory automation technologies such as programmable controllers, computer-automated design, and numerically controlled machines.
Abstract: This paper documents how plant-level wages, occupational mix, workforce education, and productivity vary with the adoption and use of new factory automation technologies such as programmable controllers, computer-automated design, and numerically controlled machines. Our cross-sectional results show that plants that use a large number of new technologies employ more educated workers, employ relatively more managers, professionals, and precision-craft workers, and pay higher wages. However, our longitudinal analysis shows little correlation between skill upgrading and the adoption of new technologies. It appears that plants that adopt new factory automation technologies have more skilled workforces both pre- and postadoption.

927 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take a step back and ask "How lumpy is investment?" by documenting the distributions of investment and capital adjustment for a sample of over 13,700 manufacturing plants drawn from over 300 four-digit industries.

723 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that women with a STEM degree earn 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs, considerably higher than the STEM premium for men, and women with STEM jobs are more likely to work in education or healthcare.
Abstract: Our science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce is crucial to America’s innovative capacity and global competitiveness. Yet women are vastly underrepresented in STEM jobs and among STEM degree holders despite making up nearly half of the U.S. workforce and half of the college-educated workforce. That leaves an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in the United States, even as there is wide agreement that the nation must do more to improve its competitiveness.Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs. This has been the case throughout the past decade, even as college-educated women have increased their share of the overall workforce.Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs – considerably higher than the STEM premium for men. As a result, the gender wage gap is smaller in STEM jobs than in non-STEM jobs.Women hold a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees, particularly in engineering.Women with a STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation; they are more likely to work in education or healthcare.There are many possible factors contributing to the discrepancy of women and men in STEM jobs, including: a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields. Regardless of the causes, the findings of this report provide evidence of a need to encourage and support women in STEM.

718 citations


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TL;DR: Olley and Pakes as discussed by the authors show that when intermediate inputs (i.e., those inputs which are typically subtracted out in a value-added production function) can also solve this simultaneity problem, and discuss some potential benefits of expanding the choice set of proxies to include these inputs.
Abstract: Economists began relating output to inputs in the early 1800's. A large literature on estimating production functions has followed, in part because much of economic theory yields testable implications that are related to the technology and optimizing behaviour.1 Since at least as early as Marschak and Andrews (1944), applied researchers have worried about the potential correlation between input levels and the unobserved firm-specific productivity shocks in the estimation of production function parameters. The economics underlying this concern are intuitive. Firms that have a large positive productivity shock may respond by using more inputs. To the extent that this is true, ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of production functions will yield biased parameter estimates, and, by implication, biased estimates of productivity. Many alternatives to OLS have been proposed, and we add to this set by extending Olley and Pakes (1996). They show the conditions under which an investment proxy controls for correlation between input levels and the unobserved productivity shock. Their approach has the advantage that, for many questions, it is no more difficult to implement than OLS. We show when intermediate inputs (those inputs which are typically subtracted out in a value-added production function) can also solve this simultaneity problem. We discuss some potential benefits of expanding the choice set of proxies to include these inputs.

3,901 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Helpman et al. introduce a simple multicountry, multisector model, in which firms face a proximity-concentration trade-off between exports and FDI.
Abstract: Multinational sales have grown at high rates over the last two decades, outpacing the remarkable expansion of trade in manufactures. Consequently, the trade literature has sought to incorporate the mode of foreign market access into the “new” trade theory. This literature recognizes that Ž rms can serve foreign buyers through a variety of channels: they can export their products to foreign customers, serve them through foreign subsidiaries, or license foreign Ž rms to produce their products. Our work focuses on the Ž rm’s choice between exports and “horizontal” foreign direct investment (FDI). Horizontal FDI refers to an investment in a foreign production facility that is designed to serve customers in the foreign market. Firms invest abroad when the gains from avoiding trade costs outweigh the costs of maintaining capacity in multiple markets. This is known as the proximity-concentration tradeoff. We introduce heterogeneous Ž rms into a simple multicountry, multisector model, in which Ž rms face a proximity-concentration trade-off. Every Ž rm decides whether to serve a foreign market, and whether to do so through exports or local subsidiary sales. These modes of market access have different relative costs: exporting involves lower Ž xed costs while FDI involves lower variable costs. Our model highlights the important role of within-sector Ž rm productivity differences in explaining the structure of international trade and investment. First, only the most productive Ž rms engage in foreign activities. This result mirrors other Ž ndings on Ž rm heterogeneity and trade; in particular, the results reported in Melitz (2003). Second, of those Ž rms that serve foreign markets, only the most productive engage in FDI. Third, FDI sales relative to exports are larger in sectors with more Ž rm heterogeneity. Using U.S. exports and afŽ liate sales data that cover 52 manufacturing sectors and 38 countries, we show that cross-sectoral differences in Ž rm heterogeneity predict the composition of trade and investment in the manner suggested by our model. We construct several measures of Ž rm heterogeneity, using different data sources, and show that our results are robust across all these measures. In addition, we conŽ rm the predictions of the proximityconcentration trade-off. That is, Ž rms tend to substitute FDI sales for exports when transport * Helpman: Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, Tel Aviv University, and CIAR (e-mail: ehelpman@harvard.edu); Melitz: Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Centre for Economic Policy Research (e-mail: mmelitz@ harvard.edu); Yeaple: Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, and National Bureau of Economic Research (e-mail: snyeapl2@ssc.upenn.edu). The statistical analysis of Ž rmlevel data on U.S. Multinational Corporations reported in this study was conducted at the International Investment Division, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, under an arrangement that maintained legal conŽ dentiality requirements. Views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily re ect those of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Elhanan Helpman thanks the NSF for Ž nancial support. We also thank Daron Acemoglu, Roberto Rigobon, Yona Rubinstein, and Dani Tsiddon for comments on an earlier draft, and Man-Keung Tang for excellent research assistance. 1 See Wilfred J. Ethier (1986), Ignatius Horstmann and James R. Markusen (1987), and Ethier and Markusen (1996) for models that incorporate the licensing alternative. We therefore exclude “vertical” motives for FDI that involve fragmentation of production across countries. See Helpman (1984, 1985), Markusen (2002, Ch. 9), and Gordon H. Hanson et al. (2002) for treatments of this form of FDI. 3 See, for example, Horstmann and Markusen (1992), S. Lael Brainard (1993), and Markusen and Anthony J. Venables (2000). 4 See also Andrew B. Bernard et al. (2003) for an alternative theoretical model and Yeaple (2003a) for a model based on worker-skill heterogeneity. James R. Tybout (2003) surveys the recent micro-level evidence on trade that has motivated these theoretical models. 5 This result is loosely connected to the documented empirical pattern that foreign-owned afŽ liates are more productive than domestically owned producers. See Mark E. Doms and J. Bradford Jensen (1998) for the United States and Sourafel Girma et al. (2002) for the United Kingdom.

3,823 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables and showed that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect.
Abstract: We investigate conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables. First we show that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect. We then establish that the combination of an instrument and a condition on the relation between the instrument and the participation status is sufficient for identification of a local average treatment effect for those who can be induced to change their participation status by changing the value of the instrument. Finally we derive the probability limit of the standard IV estimator under these conditions. It is seen to be a weighted average of local average treatment effects.

3,154 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the role of symbol processors in business performance and economic growth, arguing that most problems are not numerical problems and that the everyday activities of most managers, professionals, and information workers involve other types of computation.
Abstract: How do computers contribute to business performance and economic growth? Even today, most people who are asked to identify the strengths of computers tend to think of computational tasks like rapidly multiplying large numbers. Computers have excelled at computation since the Mark I (1939), the first modern computer, and the ENIAC (1943), the first electronic computer without moving parts. During World War II, the U.S. government generously funded research into tools for calculating the trajectories of artillery shells. The result was the development of some of the first digital computers with remarkable capabilities for calculation—the dawn of the computer age. However, computers are not fundamentally number crunchers. They are symbol processors. The same basic technologies can be used to store, retrieve, organize, transmit, and algorithmically transform any type of information that can be digitized—numbers, text, video, music, speech, programs, and engineering drawings, to name a few. This is fortunate because most problems are not numerical problems. Ballistics, code breaking, parts of accounting, and bits and pieces of other tasks involve lots of calculation. But the everyday activities of most managers, professionals, and information workers involve other types of

2,937 citations

ReportDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that computer capital substitutes for workers in performing cognitive and manual tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules, and complements workers in non-routine problem-solving and complex communications tasks.
Abstract: We apply an understanding of what computers do to study how computerization alters job skill demands. We argue that computer capital (1) substitutes for workers in performing cognitive and manual tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules; and (2) complements workers in performing nonroutine problem-solving and complex communications tasks. Provided these tasks are imperfect substitutes, our model implies measurable changes in the composition of job tasks, which we explore using representative data on task input for 1960 to 1998. We find that within industries, occupations and education groups, computerization is associated with reduced labor input of routine manual and routine cognitive tasks and increased labor input of nonroutine cognitive tasks. Translating task shifts into education demand, the model can explain sixty percent of the estimated relative demand shift favoring college labor during 1970 to 1998. Task changes within nominally identical occupations account for almost half of this impact.

2,843 citations