manufacturing

The authors measure the capacity output of a firm as the maximum amount producible by a firm given a specific quantity of the quasi-fixed input and an overall expenditure constraint for its choice of variable inputs. We compute this indirect capacity utilization measure for the total manufacturing sector in the US as well as for a number of disaggregated industries, for the period 1970-2001.

This paper documents the dramatic changes in volatility that occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined significantly, the covariance of inventory investment and sales became much more negative, and adjustments to output, which in earlier decades stemmed primarily from plants hiring and laying off workers, were more often accomplished with changes in average hours per worker after the mid 1980s.

This paper documents the dramatic changes in volatility that occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined significantly, the covariance of inventory investment and sales became much more negative, and adjustments to output, which in earlier decades stemmed primarily from plants hiring and laying off workers, were more often accomplished with changes in average hours per worker after the mid 1980s.

Using industry-level data for 22 Canadian manufacturing industries, the authors examine the relationship between exchange rates and investment during the period 1981–97. Their empirical results show that the overall effect of exchange rates on total investment is statistically insignificant.

This paper uses the detailed information in the 1995 Census of Industrial Production as a benchmark for analysing the coverage, concepts and consistency of published statistical series. On the basis of the analysis, the paper proposes a series of adjustments which result in more consistent long-run series of labour productivity for 21 manufacturing sectors from 1980-2002.

The author investigates the different effects of import competition on the exit behaviour of different types of firms. Findings indicate that import competition in Belgian manufacturing has a strong positive effect on the exit behaviour of firms that are not part of a multinational network.

Productivity has rebounded in the last decade while manufacturing employment has declined sharply, according to the authors. The present study uses data on industrial output and employment to examine the sources of these trends.

This study analyzes the impact of international trade on the diffusion of flexible manufacturing in a general equilibrium framework.

The authors use mean-variance analysis to demonstrate the importance of a hitherto neglected benefit of enticing MNEs to locate in small and medium-sized countries.

This paper analyses the main changes occurred in the productive structure of Spanish manufacturing industry in the last years, by relating them to variations in economic results observed therein and their realtionships.