Speaker: Yueran Ma (University of Chicago)

Time: 10:00-11:30 p.m., October 20, 2023, GMT+8

Venue: Zoom Meeting ID: 994 5991 6531 Passcode: inse

Abstract:

We collect data on the size distribution of U.S. businesses for 100 years, and use these data to estimate the concentration of production (e.g., asset share or sales share of top businesses). The data show that concentration has increased persistently over the past century. Rising concentration was stronger in manufacturing and mining before the 1970s, and stronger in services, retail, and wholesale after the 1970s. The results are robust to different measurement methods and consistent across different historical sources. Our findings suggest that large firms have become more important in the U.S. economy for a long period of time.

Biography:

Professor Yueran Ma is an Associate Professor in Booth School of Business at University of Chicago. Her main research interest is empirical studies at the intersection of finance and macroeconomics. Her work covers topics including debt contracts and macroeconomic implications, assets and production activities of nonfinancial firms, low interest rates and financial markets, and expectations in finance and macroeconomics. She has also worked on questions in real estate and urban economics. Her research has been published in top economics journals such as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Financial Economics and American Economic Review and so on. She obtained her Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard University in 2018.

Source: School of Government Peking University