Search Results
Journal Article
Foreclosure metrics
As the foreclosure crisis deepens, increased attention is being paid to foreclosure statistics, which are often used to judge the intensity of foreclosure problems both within and across regions. However, these statistics need to be interpreted carefully; different foreclosure statistics embed different information, and making informative comparisons with various metrics requires understanding how each is constructed.
Journal Article
10 things to know about the shape of Ohio’s skilled workforce
Discussion Paper
Workshop on entrepreneurial finance: a summary
This Policy Discussion Paper summarizes papers that were presented at the Workshop on Entrepreneurial Finance, which was held March 12?13, 2009, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Researchers presented new empirical research that exploits data sets on entrepreneurial activity that are based on broad and representative data samples. Papers in the workshop focused primarily on analyses of the sources and structure of start-up finance, including the importance of bank lending, venture capital, angel investors, and owner equity.
Discussion Paper
Measuring Early-Stage Business Formation
New businesses play an important role in overall economic activity. They account for a sizable share of job creation, and they provide a key source of innovation that contributes to overall productivity growth.
Journal Article
The growth of cities in the Fourth District
Many Fourth District cities have experienced relatively weak population growth over the past half century. One possible reason some cities have recently grown more is because they have better educated workforces. Recent research suggests that the educational attainment of residents is critical to population growth, particularly for cities in the Northeast and Midwest.
Working Paper
Early-Stage Business Formation : An Analysis of Applications for Employer Identification Numbers
This paper reports on the development and analysis of a newly constructed dataset on the early stages of business formation. The data are based on applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) submitted in the United States, known as IRS Form SS-4 filings. The goal of the research is to develop high-frequency indicators of business formation at the national, state, and local levels. The analysis indicates that EIN applications provide forward-looking and very timely information on business formation. The signal of business formation provided by counts of applications is improved by ...
Working Paper
The Local Origins of Business Formation
What locations generate more business ideas, and where are ideas more likely to turn into businesses? Using comprehensive administrative data on business applications, we analyze the spatial disparity in the creation of business ideas and the formation of new employer startups from these ideas. Startups per capita exhibit enormous variation across granular units of geography. We decompose this variation into variation in ideas per capita and in their rate of transition to startups, and we find that both components matter. Observable local demographic, economic, financial, and business ...
Working Paper
Entry, exit and the determinants of market structure
Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. These decisions are driven by expectations of future profits which, in turn, depend on the nature of competition within the market. In this paper we estimate a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and use it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. We find that entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price ...
Working Paper
Disadvantaged business enterprise goals in government procurement contracting: an analysis of bidding behavior and costs
Programs that encourage the participation of disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) as subcontractors have been a part of government procurement auctions for over three decades. In this paper, we examine the impact of a program that requires prime contractors to subcontract out a portion of a highway procurement project to DBE firms. We study how DBE subcontracting requirements affect bidding behavior in federally funded projects. Within a symmetric independent private value framework, we use the equilibrium bidding function to obtain the cost distribution of firms undertaking projects ...
Journal Article
Local Origins of Business Formation
Using comprehensive administrative data on business applications, we find that startups per capita exhibit enormous variation across counties and tracts in the United States. We decompose this spatial variation into two components: variation in business ideas per capita and in their rate of transition to startups. Both components matter for the variation in startups per capita. Furthermore, local demographic, economic, financial, and business conditions account for a significant fraction of the variation in startups per capita and in its components. In particular, income, education, age, and ...