Bootstrap confidence intervals on fixed-effects efficiency estimates from finite-sample panel data models exhibit low coverage probabilities, because the traditional estimate involves a "max" operator that induces a finite sample bias. Attempts to bootstrap confidence intervals for the traditional estimate have focused on correcting bias. Rather than addressing this bias at the bootstrap stage,...

In this work we investigate two crucial dimensions of firms’ structure and dynamics, that is profitability and productivity performance. The empirical distributions and the associated persistence over time are explored through a set of parametric and non parametric exercises performed on an large panel of Italian firms active in both Manufacturing and Services during the period 1998-2003. The m...

Supermodularity has long been regarded as a natural notion of complementarities in individual decision making; it was introduced as such in the nineteenth century by Edgeworth and Pareto. But supermodularity is not an ordinal property. We study the ordinal content of assuming a supermodular utility, i.e. what it means for the individual’s underlying preferences. We show that supermodularity is ...

Does Gender Matter for Firm Performance? Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asia Using 2005 firm level data for 26 ECA countries, this paper estimates performance gaps between maleand female-owned businesses, while controlling for their location by industry and country. We find that female entrepreneurs have significantly smaller scale of operations (as measured by sales revenues) and are...

Why Is the Public Sector More Labor-Intensive? A Distortionary Tax Argument Government-run entities are often more labor-intensive than private companies, even with identical production technologies. This need not imply slack in the public sector, but may be a rational response to its wage tax advantage over private firms. A tax-favored treatment of public production precludes production effici...

In this paper, we take a cost function approach to the investigation of the e¤ects of public infrastructure on the performance of the U.S. manufacturing industry, using KLEMS data over the period from 1953 to 2001. We build on Duggal et al. (1999) and Feng and Serletis (2008) and propose a price augmenting Asymptotically Ideal Model (AIM) model where public infrastructure is incorporated into t...