Download or read book Essays in Trade, Innovation, and Productivity written by Kaiji Gong and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation explores the determinants of firms' productivity growth and innovation activities. The first chapter studies the local technology spillover effects originated from multinational firms' innovation activities. The second chapter discusses the impact of import competition from China on U.S. firms' innovation activities. The third chapter introduces a new measure of firm-level regulation, and examines the consequences of rising regulation intensity in the U.S. on firms' production choices. Chapter 1 identifies the causal impact of U.S. multinationals' technology advances on their subsidiaries and the nearby domestic firms' productivity in China. By combining firm-level panel data from both the U.S. and China, I match U.S. multinationals with their manufacturing subsidiaries in China and measure the multinationals' technology stocks based on their patenting activities. To address potential endogeneity concerns, I introduce an instrumental variable strategy based on the U.S. state level R& D tax credit policies. I find multinationals' technology improvements induce increase in the output and total factor productivity (TFP) of both their subsidiaries and domestic firms in local areas. The magnitude of technology spillovers hinges on local firms' absorptive capacities, and their technological connections to the multinationals. Chapter 2 (co-authored with Rui Xu) analyzes the impact of rising import competition from China on U.S. innovative activities. Using Compustat data, we find that import competition induces R& D expenditures to be reallocated towards more productive and more profitable firms within each industry. Such reallocation effect has the potential to offset the average drop in firm-level R& D identified in the previous literature. Indeed, our quantitative analysis shows no adverse impact of import competition on aggregate R& D expenditures. Taking the analysis beyond manufacturing, we find that import competition has led to reallocation of researchers towards booming service industries, including business and repairs, personal, and financial services. Chapter 3 (co-authored with Constantine Yannelis) introduces a new measure of firm-level regulation. We find that more regulation increases labor and capital inputs. Productivity decreases, which is consistent with a model of regulation inducing non-productive investment. We employ two empirical strategies to identify the causal impact of regulation on firms, first, utilizing structural breaks and industry level regulation changes, and second, computing predicted industry level regulation measures as instruments. We conduct an event study using the surprise 2016 US election results. Firms with higher Dodd-Frank exposure exhibited higher returns following an increase in the probability of repeal.