Las profesiones en los censos de población del siglo xix

1. World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES) A cross-country firm-level data set collected by the World Bank as a second data source. The data set combines sur- veys of 130,000 firms in 125 countries, most of which are developing and emerging countries. The surveys cover a broad range of topics, with in-depth data on firms’ characteristics, ownership structure, technology usage, financial constraints, human capital and productivity. In particular, the surveys collect information on technol- ogy adoption, assets, liabilities, sales, raw materials, investments, labor composition, capital composition and credits. The firms were asked whether they use technology licensed from a foreign-owned company. This will be used as a proxy for a firm’s adoption decision. The analysis is based on the standardized survey conducted be- tween 2002-2005, a common questionnaire across countries allowing for cross-country comparison. Government-owned firms are excluded from the samples.

Regression VariablesFirm characteristics include size, human capital, foreign own- ership and foreign activity. sizej is the total number of employees. human capitalj

corresponds to the fraction of skilled workers. f oreign ownj is a dummy taking the

value of 1 if more than 40% of the firm’s shares are owned by foreign entities. Impj

takes the value of 1 if more than 40% of the firm’s inputs and supplies are imported directly or indirectly. Industryk are 11 dummies taking the value of 1 if the firm’s

main production activity is categorized into that particular industry. Countryc is

a matrix including GDP per capita, regulation environments and country dummies. Regulation environments are proxied by one index, the Ease of Doing Business Rank. The rank is taken from The World Bank’s Doing Business, where a high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Loan recovery rate measures the cents on the dollar recovered by creditors through reorganization, liquidation or debt enforce- ment proceedings. Interest rate spread is the interest rate charged by banks on loans to prime customers minus the interest rate paid by commercial banks for deposits or minus the ”risk free” treasury bill interest rate. Credit depth of information in- dex measures rules affecting the scope, accessibility, and quality of credit information available through public or private credit registries. The index ranges from 0 to 6, with higher values indicating the availability of more credit information, from either a public registry or a private bureau, to facilitate lending decisions. These three mea- sures are country-specific. Firm-specific interest rate is the loan’s approximate rate of interest reported by each firm.

Industries The sample is restricted to firms in manufacturing and agroindustry sec- tors, which can be categorized into 12 industries: textiles and garments, food and beverage, electronics, leather, chemicals and pharmaceutics, metals and machinery, non-metallic and plastic materials, wood and furniture, papers, agroindustry, auto and auto components, and other manufacturing.

2. Historical Cross-Country Technological Adoption (HCCTA) An unbalanced panel data set with information on adoption decisions of about 104 technologies in 161 countries since 1800. As the focus is on the speed of technology diffusion, the U.S.

data is truncated to a time before the intensity of technology usage becomes stable or decreasing. To calculate technology usage lags, first compute the usage intensity of a given technology in sampled countries at time t. Then, compare these numbers

with the historical U.S. time series to find the last time the U.S. had the same usage intensity. If the usage intensity of the sampled countries is not exactly equal to the intensity values observed in the U.S. time series, linear interpolation is employed to get the result. However, it can be the case that the U.S. historical time series is not long enough to obtain a rich observation of technology usage lags. To circumvent this issue, the U.S. time series is initialized by setting the usage intensity observed in the U.S. equal to 0 at the year of invention.

3. Chilean Annual Manufacturing Survey (ENIA) An unbalanced panel data set, which is an annual manufacturing survey of Chilean firms with more than 10 employ- ees collected by the National Statistics Institute of Chile (INE). The survey collects firm-level information on sales, employment, raw materials and investments. Un- like other manufacturing survey data, the Chilean Manufacturing Survey also collects information on firm-level expenditures on licenses and foreign technical assistance, which is used as a proxy for foreign technology usage intensity, along with the data on imported inputs. All nominal variables are expressed in real terms using the deflator. 4. World Productivity Database (WPD) A data set provides the measure of TFP computed relative to the TFP level of the United States for as many as 112 coun- tries, from 1960 to 2000. The measurement method is a standard Cobb-Douglas, in logarithmic form, with Hicks neutral technical change being assumed. The capital is assumed to depreciate at 6 percent annually and labor is adjusted by schooling where possible.