@incollection{IacovoneBrownCrespietal., author = {Iacovone, Leonardo and Brown, J David and Crespi, Gustavo A and Marcolin, Luca}, title = {Productivity Convergence at the Firm Level: New Evidence from the Americas}, series = {Understanding the Income and Efficiency Gap in Latin America and the Caribbean}, booktitle = {Understanding the Income and Efficiency Gap in Latin America and the Caribbean}, isbn = {978-1-4648-0450-2}, doi = {10.1596/978-1-4648-0450-2_ch5}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {117 -- 186}, abstract = {Uses firm-level data from the manufacturing sector in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States, in the past decade, to investigate the extent to which aggregate productivity growth in the manufacturing sector is driven by growth in productivity at the firm level or by reallocation of employment shares across firms. The evaluation produced results that stress a focus on firm-level productivity growth, as this has contributed the most to overall productivity growth. Reallocation between firms, within sectors, results in a weak force of productivity growth, and reallocation between sectors an even weaker source of growth. Although firms converge toward the domestic frontier with spillovers arising from the growth of the domestic frontier, no convergence occurs with respect to the global frontier. For all countries analyzed, the most important determinant of productivity convergence at the firm level remains innovation effort, measured as the firm-level expenditure shares in innovation and investment in capital equipment.}, language = {en} } @article{IacovoneCrespi, author = {Iacovone, Leonardo and Crespi, Gustavo A}, title = {Catching up with the technological frontier: Micro-level evidence on growth and convergence}, series = {Industrial and Corporate Change}, volume = {10}, journal = {Industrial and Corporate Change}, number = {6}, doi = {10.1093/icc/dtq057}, pages = {2073 -- 2096}, abstract = {In this article, we study how firm heterogeneity influences productivity catching up using plant-level data from Mexico. The article addresses three issues: first, it evaluates the process of convergence towards the global versus the local technological frontier in a middle-income country such as Mexico. Second, it systematically evaluates the role of technological efforts in determining the speed of convergence towards each of these technological frontiers. Third, it assesses the role of openness and trade integration in determining the speed of convergence and presents a horse race between integration and technological effort in explaining the determinants of heterogeneity in influencing the process of convergence toward both the domestic and the global technological frontier. Our results suggest that building firm-level technological capabilities is important for catching up with the global frontier. A policy focused on trade alone will facilitate convergence towards the best technological practices available locally, but it will fall short of encouraging convergence with the global frontier.}, language = {en} }