TY  - JOUR
AU  - Collard-Wexler,Allan
AU  - Loecker,Jan De
TI  - Reallocation and Technology: Evidence from the U.S. Steel Industry
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18739
PY  - 2013
Y2  - January 2013
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18739
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18739.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Allan Collard-Wexler
Stern School of Business
New York University
44 West Fourth Street
KMC-7-80
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212/998-0889
Fax: 212/995-4218
E-Mail: wexler@nyu.edu

Jan De Loecker
Department of Economics
307 Fisher Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
Tel: 609/258-2149
E-Mail: jdeloeck@princeton.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2013-06-01
AB  - We measure the impact of a drastic new technology for producing steel – the minimill – on the aggregate productivity of U.S. steel producers, using unique plant-level data between 1963 and 2002. We find that the sharp increase in the industry's productivity is linked to this new technology, and operates through two distinct mechanisms. First, minimills displaced the older technology, called vertically integrated production, and this reallocation of output was responsible for a third of the increase in the industry's productivity. Second, increased competition, due to the expansion of minimills, drove a substantial reallocation process within the group of vertically integrated producers, driving a resurgence in their productivity, and consequently of the industry's productivity as a whole.
ER  -