Jb. Jensen et al., The impact of vintage and survival on productivity: Evidence from cohorts of US manufacturing plants, REV ECON ST, 83(2), 2001, pp. 323-332
This paper examines the evolution of productivity in U.S. manufacturing pla
nts from 1963 to 1992. We define a vintage effect as the change in producti
vity of recent cohorts of new plants relative to earlier cohorts of new pla
nts, and a survival effect as the change in productivity of a particular co
hort of surviving plants as it ages. Both factors contribute to industry pr
oductivity growth, but play offsetting roles in determining a cohort's rela
tive position in the productivity distribution. Recent cohorts enter with h
igher productivity than earlier entrants did, whereas surviving cohorts sho
w productivity increases as they age. These two effects roughly offset each
other, however, so there is a rough convergence in productivity across coh
orts in 1992 and 1987.