Publications
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The impact of firm-level Covid rescue policies on productivity growth and reallocation KU Leuven
We evaluate the impact of Covid-19 rescue policies on both firm-level and aggregate productivity growth, exit, and creative destruction. Using administrative data on the universe of firms’ support mechanisms in Flanders over 2019–2021, we first estimate the causal impact of this support program on firm-level outcomes. Firms that received support saw a 4%–5% increase in productivity, compared to similar firms that applied for, but did not obtain ...
The granular nature of emerging market economies: The case of Kazakhstan KU Leuven
This paper analyzes the granularity hypothesis in a large emerging economy, Kazakhstan. We use a new longitudinal dataset at the firm level and at quarterly frequency between 2012 and 2018 to document the size distribution of firms and to provide evidence that it follows a power law. We find that the largest 30 firms explain nearly 80 percent of the growth in aggregate total factor productivity. This confirms earlier research for the U.S. and ...
Dominant Currencies: How Firms Choose Currency Invoicing and Why it Matters KU Leuven
We analyze how firms choose the currency of invoicing and the implications of this choice for exchange rate pass-through into export prices and quantities. Using a new dataset for Belgian firms, we find currency invoicing to be an active firm-level decision, shaped by the firm’s size, exposure to imported inputs, and the currency choices of its competitors. Our results show that the firm’s currency choice, in turn, has a direct causal impact on ...
The Return on Information Technology: Who Benefits Most? KU Leuven
This paper uses a new microdata set of B2B firm-level transactions in Belgium to construct a measure of ICT investment at the firm level, which we combine with the income statement of firms to analyze the impact of ICT on productivity. We find that a firm investing an additional euro in ICT increases value added by 1 euro and 35 cents on average. This marginal product of ICT investment increases with firm size and varies across sectors. While we ...
The Impact of Superstar Firms on the Labor Share. Evidence from Belgium. KU Leuven
The Belgian labor share, measured as the part of GDP going to labor, is declining. This evolution fits into the global secular trend of decreasing labor shares. A novel strand in the literature focusses on its firm-level drivers. Recent research in the United States claims that superstar firms, defined as large firms with a dominant market share, are increasing their market share and link this to the fall of the labor share (Autor, Dorn, Katz, ...
The Start-Up Gap and Jobs KU Leuven
The present paper uses quarterly data from the social security registry covering the full population of Belgian firms to analyze how the secular decline in the firm entry rate affects aggregate employment. To this end, we disentangle the entry margin into two channels: the overall employment of new firms (the start-up employment) and the share of start-up employment by sector (the sectoral composition of start-ups). We find that the decline in ...
Trade and Foreign Direct Investment in Uzbekistan KU Leuven
The roles of international trade and FDI have become increasingly important in a globalized world. Uzbekistan is well behind in exploiting benefits from trade and FDI: since 1995, Uzbekistan’s share of total trade in gross domestic product has been the lowest of all Central Asian countries. The country has little engagement with regional and international groups, and is not a member of the Eurasian Economic Union or the World Trade Organization ...