manufacturing

Plant Operations and Product Recalls in the Automotive Industry: An Empirical Investigation

Published Research

While there is overwhelming support for the negative consequences of product recalls, empirical evidence of operational drivers of recalls is almost nonexistent. In this study, we identify product variety, plant variety, and capacity utilization as drivers of subsequent manufacturing-related recalls.…Read More

Thriving Innovation Amidst Manufacturing Decline: The Detroit Auto Cluster and the Resilience of Local Knowledge Production

Analyzing the comprehensive 35-year patent data set associated with the Detroit auto cluster we confirm that innovation in clusters can increase in spite of a long-term decline in manufacturing activity. The “stickiness” of local knowledge is sustained by: (i) increasing technological specialization at the local level and (ii) growing connectedness to global centers of excellence.…Read More

Institutional Change and Productivity Growth in China’s Manufacturing: The Microeconomics of Knowledge Accumulation and “Creative Restructuring”

This article investigates the microeconomics underlying the spectacular growth of productivity in China’s manufacturing sector over the period 1998–2007. Underlying the aggregate evidence of such dramatic growth, one observes a large, albeit shrinking, intra-sectoral heterogeneity coupled with an even more important process of learning and knowledge accumulation.…Read More