Plant-Level Productivity and Imputation of Missing Data in U.S. Census Manufacturing Data

63 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2012 Last revised: 8 Mar 2023

See all articles by Kirk White

Kirk White

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Jerome Reiter

Duke University

Amil Petrin

University of Minnesota - Duluth; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: February 2012

Abstract

Within-industry differences in measured plant-level productivity are large. A large literature has been devoted to explaining the causes and consequences of these differences. In the U.S. Census Bureau's manufacturing data, the Bureau imputes for missing values using methods known to result in underestimation of variability and potential bias in multivariate inferences. We present an alternative strategy for handling the missing data based on multiple imputation via sequences of classification and regression trees. We use our imputations and the Bureau's imputations to estimate within-industry productivity dispersions. The results suggest that there is more within-industry productivity dispersion than previous research has indicated. We also estimate relationships between productivity and market structure and between output prices, capital, and the probability of plant exit (controlling for productivity) based on the improved imputations. For some estimands, we find substantially different results than those based on the Census Bureau's imputations.

Suggested Citation

White, Kirk and Reiter, Jerome and Petrin, Amil, Plant-Level Productivity and Imputation of Missing Data in U.S. Census Manufacturing Data (February 2012). NBER Working Paper No. w17816, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1998612

Kirk White (Contact Author)

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ( email )

1301 New York Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20250
United States

Jerome Reiter

Duke University ( email )

100 Fuqua Drive
Durham, NC 27708-0204
United States

Amil Petrin

University of Minnesota - Duluth ( email )

1049 University Drive
Duluth, MN 55812
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Cambridge, MA 02138
United States