中文摘要
我们发现，投入要素边际收益产出的离散主要发生在企业内部各工厂之间，而非企业之间。通常认为，这反映了资源错配，即离散度是“坏”的。然而，我们表明，在一个多工厂企业模型中，消除阻碍内部资本市场运作的摩擦，实际上可能增加生产率离散度并提高产出，即离散度也可以是“好”的。这是因为，企业会以最优方式在时间上错开各工厂的投资活动，以避免筹措成本高昂的外部融资，转而依靠内部资金的重新配置。这种交错安排进而造成边际收益产出的离散。我们使用美国人口普查局关于多工厂制造业企业的数据，为该模型机制提供实证证据，并表明好的离散度在定量上发挥着重要作用。由于新兴经济体中产生好的离散度的空间较小，新兴经济体与发达经济体之间资源错配程度的差异，看起来比此前认为的更为突出。
Abstract
Abstract 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.