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Product Substitutability and Productivity Dispersion
Abstract
Tremendous differences in producer productivity levels exist, even within narrowly defined industries. This paper explores the influence of product substitutability in an industry on this disparity. When consumers can easily switch between producers, inefficient (high-cost) producers cannot operate profitably. Thus high-substitutability industries should exhibit less productivity dispersion and have higher average productivity levels. I demonstrate this mechanism in a simple industry equilibrium model and test it empirically using producer-level data from 443 U.S. manufacturing industries. I find evidence that substitutability measured in several ways'is indeed negatively related to within-industry productivity dispersion and positively related to median productivity.
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Citations
Cited by
Syverson, C. (2011) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.49.2.326 · Cited by 2,942
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Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2007) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1351 · Cited by 2,373
Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2006) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w12216 · Cited by 1,450
Identifying Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from Winners and Losers of Large Plant Openings
Greenstone, M., Hornbeck, R., & Moretti, E. (2010) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/653714 · Cited by 1,138
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Metadata
- Authors
- Syverson, C.
- Venue
- Review of Economics and Statistics
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Published
- 2004-05
- Volume
- 86
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 534-550
- ISSN
- 0034-6535 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9142
- OpenAlex
- W2129477906
- Cited by
- 646
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 32.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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