The Role of Policy and Institutions for Productivity and Firm Dynamics: Evidence from Micro and Industry Data

This paper presents empirical evidence on the role that policy and institutional settings in both product and labour market play for productivity and firm dynamics. It exploits a new firm-level database for ten OECD countries and industry-level data for a broader set of countries, together with a set of indicators of regulation and institutional settings in product and labour markets. Aggregate productivity patterns are largely the result of within-firm performance. But, the contribution from firm dynamic processes should not be overlooked, most notably in high-tech industries where new firms tend to play an important role. Industry productivity performance is negatively affected by strict product market regulations, especially if there is a significant technology gap with the technology leader. Likewise, high hiring and firing costs seem to hinder productivity, especially when these costs are not offset by lower wages and/or more internal training. Moreover, burdensome regulations ... L' impact des politiques economiques et des institutions sur le marche du travail et le marche des biens sur la productivite et la dynamique des entreprises Ce papier propose une analyse empirique de l’ impact des politiques economiques et des institutions sur le marche du travail et le marche des biens sur la productivite et la dynamique des entreprises. Ce travail s’ appuie sur une nouvelle base de donnees d’ entreprises pour 10 pays de l’ OCDE , sur des donnees sectorielles pour un groupe plus large de pays, ainsi que sur un ensemble d’ indicateurs de reglementations et de caracteristiques institutionnelles. L’evolution de la productivite s’ explique largement par les performances intra-entreprises. Toutefois, la contribution des processus de demographie des entreprises ne doivent pas etre negliges. Plus particulierement, les nouvelles entreprises tendent a avoir un role important dans les secteurs des nouvelles technologies. De fortes reglementations sur le marche des biens ont un impact negatif sur la productivite des entreprises ; cela est d’autant plus le cas qu’ il existe un ecart technologique important avec le leader ...

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