中文摘要
生产率与竞争之间的相关性是一个常被观察到但未被完全理解的结果。有人认为竞争对测度生产率存在处理效应，例如，通过减少管理懈怠。另一些人则认为，更激烈的竞争使得低生产率企业退出，将需求重新配置给其生产率较高的竞争对手，从而通过选择效应提高了观察到的平均生产率。我研究了预拌混凝土行业，并针对这一分歧提供了三个视角。首先，使用标准的分解方法，我寻找在竞争更激烈的市场中需求向高生产率工厂更大重新配置的证据。其次，我对企业退出决策进行建模，并构建了一个半参数选择修正，以量化处理效应与选择效应的实证重要性。最后，我使用分组工具变量分位数回归来检验选择假说的分布预测。我没有发现在竞争更激烈的市场中存在更大选择或重新配置的证据；相反，所有三个结果都表明测度生产率直接响应竞争。潜在的渠道包括专业化和管理投入。
Abstract
The correlation between productivity and competition is an oft observed but incompletely understood result. Some suggest that there is a treatment effect of competition on measured productivity, for example, through a reduction of managerial slack. Others argue that greater competition makes unproductive establishments exit by reallocating demand to their productive rivals, raising observed average productivity via selection. I study the ready‐mix concrete industry and offer three perspectives on this ambivalence. First, using a standard decomposition approach, I look for evidence of greater reallocation of demand to productive plants in more competitive markets. Second, I model the establishment exit decision and construct a semiparametric selection correction to quantify the empirical significance of treatment and selection. Finally, I use a grouped instrumental variable quantile regression to test the distributional predictions of the selection hypothesis. I find no evidence for greater selection or reallocation in more competitive markets; instead, all three results suggest that measured productivity responds directly to competition. Potential channels include specialization and managerial inputs.