Good Dispersion, Bad Dispersion.
We document that most dispersion in marginal revenue products of inputs occurs across plants within firms rather than between firms. This is commonly thought to reflect misallocation: dispersion is "bad". However, we show that eliminating frictions hampering internal capital markets in a multi-plant...
| Publicado en: | Review of Economic Studies Vol. 93; no. 2; pp. 1103 - 1137 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Mar2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=192334028&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 192334028 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00346527 REM jtl: Review of Economic Studies issn: 00346527 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2026 vid: 93 iid: 2 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 192334028 10.1093/restud/rdaf042 ppf: 1103 ppct: 34 formats: tig: atl: Good Dispersion, Bad Dispersion. aug: au: Kehrig, Matthias Vincent, Nicolas affil: Duke University, NBER and CEPR, USA Department of Applied Economics, HEC Montréal, Canada su: U.S. Census Bureau Industrial productivity Emerging markets Heterogeneity Marginal productivity Capital market Capital allocation Market failure Multiproduct firms sug: subj: Industrial productivity Emerging markets Heterogeneity Marginal productivity U.S. Census Bureau Capital market Capital allocation Market failure Multiproduct firms keyword: copyrightHolder:Review of Economic Studies Ltd copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en Internal capital markets Misallocation Multi-plant firms Productivity dispersion publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdaf042 copyrightHolder:Review of Economic Studies Ltd copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en Internal capital markets Misallocation Multi-plant firms Productivity dispersion publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdaf042 ab: We document that most dispersion in marginal revenue products of inputs occurs across plants within firms rather than between firms. This is commonly thought to reflect misallocation: dispersion is "bad". However, we show that eliminating frictions hampering internal capital markets in a multi-plant firm model may in fact increase productivity dispersion and raise output: dispersion can be "good". This arises as firms optimally stagger investment activity across their plants over time to avoid raising costly external finance, instead relying on reallocating internal funds. The staggering in turn generates dispersion in marginal revenue products. We use U.S. Census data on multi-plant manufacturing firms to provide empirical evidence for the model mechanism and show a quantitatively important role for good dispersion. Since there is less scope for good dispersion in emerging economies, the difference in the degree of misallocation between emerging and developed economies looks more pronounced than previously thought. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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