ارزش بازار شرکت و تکنولوژی تولید

This paper estimates the production technology of the U.S. computer industry using firm market value to control for the correlation between inputs and unobservable productivity shocks. We show that firm market value can serve as a proxy for unobservable productivity shocks. We also show that firm market value is robust as a proxy when firm faces uncertainties and capital market imperfections. Empirical results suggest that our firm market value proxy works well for the computer industry.

Empirical work depends on observables. Production technology is affected by a mix of observable factors, such as expenditures on capital and labor, and unobserved productivity shocks, such as how capably managers deploy these resources. Consequently, economists who study technology must isolate echoes of unobserved productivity shock in available data. We use firm market value to control for such unobservable characteristics in an analysis of the U.S. computer industry. We build on Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003).

Production functions, which relate firms' inputs to their outputs, are a crucial tool for understanding technology. Unobserved productivity shocks, such as managerial quality and strategic decisions, affect the choice of inputs. It is often hard to objectively measure these shocks, creating a formidable endogeneity problem. Olley and Pakes (1996) develop an estimator which allows for time-varying firm quality. They rely on investment being monotonic in the marginal product of capital. We show that firm value shares this crucial property, and thus offers another potential proxy for firm heterogeneity. We test the value proxy on a sample of firms from the US computer industry.