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Professor Javier Miranda, PhD

Professor Javier Miranda, PhD
Current Position

since 1/23

Head of the Research Group Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Productivity Growth

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

since 3/21

Deputy Head of the Department of Structural Change and Productivity

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

since 4/21

Professor

Friedrich Schiller University Jena

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Research Interests
  • innovation
  • entrepreneurship
  • empirical productivity research

Javier Miranda joined the institute in March 2021. He is a Professor at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. His research focuses on business dynamics, job creation and growth, entrepreneurship, high growth firms, innovation, business finance, and synthetic data.

Javier Miranda received his bachelor's degree from Universidad Autonoma Madrid, his master's degree and his PhD from American University in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining IWH, he was Principal Economist at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Your contact

Professor Javier Miranda, PhD
Professor Javier Miranda, PhD
Mitglied - Department Structural Change and Productivity
Send Message +49 345 7753-750

Publications

Refereed Publications

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The Characteristics and Geographic Distribution of Robot Hubs in U.S. Manufacturing Establishments

Erik Brynjolfsson Catherine Buffington Nathan Goldschlag J. Frank Li Javier Miranda Robert Seamans

in: American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, May 2023

Abstract

We use data from the Annual Survey of Manufactures to study the characteristics and geography of investments in robots across U.S. manufacturing establishments. We find that robotics adoption and robot intensity (the number of robots per employee) is much more strongly related to establishment size than age. We find that establishments that report having robotics have higher capital expenditures, including higher information technology (IT) capital expenditures. Also, establishments are more likely to have robotics if other establishments in the same Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) and industry also report having robotics. The distribution of robots is highly skewed across establishments’ locations. Some locations, which we call Robot Hubs, have far more robots than one would expect even after accounting for industry and manufacturing employment. We characterize these Robot Hubs along several industry, demographic, and institutional dimensions. The presence of robot integrators and higher levels of union membership are positively correlated with being a Robot Hub.

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Immigration and Entrepreneurship in the United States

Pierre Azoulay Benjamin Jones J. Daniel Kim Javier Miranda

in: American Economic Review: Insights, No. 1, 2022

Abstract

Immigration can expand labor supply and create greater competition for native-born workers. But immigrants may also start new firms, expanding labor demand. This paper uses U.S. administrative data and other data resources to study the role of immigrants in entrepreneurship. We ask how often immigrants start companies, how many jobs these firms create, and how these firms compare with those founded by U.S.-born individuals. A simple model provides a measurement framework for addressing the dual roles of immigrants as founders and workers. The findings suggest that immigrants act more as "job creators" than "job takers" and that non-U.S. born founders play outsized roles in U.S. high-growth entrepreneurship

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Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity: Shocks versus Responsiveness

Ryan A. Decker John Haltiwanger Ron S. Jarmin Javier Miranda

in: American Economic Review, No. 12, 2020

Abstract

The pace of job reallocation has declined in the United States in recent decades. We draw insight from canonical models of business dynamics in which reallocation can decline due to (i) lower dispersion of idiosyncratic shocks faced by businesses, or (ii) weaker marginal responsiveness of businesses to shocks. We show that shock dispersion has actually risen, while the responsiveness of business-level employment to productivity has weakened. Moreover, declining responsiveness can account for a significant fraction of the decline in the pace of job reallocation, and we find suggestive evidence this has been a drag on aggregate productivity.

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Books

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The Promise and Peril of Entrepreneurship

Robert W. Fairlie Zachary Kroff Javier Miranda Nikolas Zolas

in: MIT Press, 2023

Abstract

Startups create jobs and power economic growth. That's an article of faith in the United States—but, as The Promise and Peril of Entrepreneurship reveals, our faith may be built on shaky ground. Economists Robert Fairlie, Zachary Kroff, Javier Miranda, and Nikolas Zolas—working with Census Bureau microdata—have developed a new data set, the Comprehensive Startup Panel, that tracks job creation and the survival of every startup in the country. In doing so, they recalibrate our understanding of how startups behave in the US economy. Specifically, their work seeks to answer three critical questions: How many jobs does each entrepreneur create? Do those jobs disappear quickly? And how long do entrepreneurial enterprises survive?

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Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century

Carol Corrado Jonathan Haskel Javier Miranda Daniel Sichel

in: NBER Studies in Income and Wealth, 2021

Abstract

<span lang="EN-US">Measuring innovation is challenging both for researchers and for national statisticians, and it is increasingly important in light of the ongoing digital revolution. National accounts and many other economic statistics were designed before the emergence of the digital economy and the growing importance of intangible capital. They do not yet fully capture the wide range of innovative activity that is observed in modern economies.<br /> This volume examines how to measure innovation, track its effects on economic activity and prices, and understand how it has changed the structure of production processes, labor markets, and organizational form and operation in business. The contributors explore new approaches to, and data sources for, measurement—such as collecting data for a particular innovation as opposed to a firm, and the use of trademarks for tracking innovation. They also consider the connections between university-based R&amp;D and business startups, and the potential impacts of innovation on income distribution.<br /> The research suggests potential strategies for expanding current measurement frameworks to better capture innovative activity, such as more detailed tracking of global value chains to identify innovation across time and space, and expanding the measurement of the GDP impacts of innovation in fields such as consumer content delivery and cloud computing.</span>

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Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges

John Haltiwanger Erik Hurst Javier Miranda Antoinette Schoar

in: NBER Studies in Income and Wealth, 2017

Abstract

Start-ups and other entrepreneurial ventures make a significant contribution to the US economy, particularly in the tech sector, where they comprise some of the largest and most influential companies. Yet for every startup that becomes a high-profile, high-growth company like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, many more fail. This enormous heterogeneity poses conceptual and measurement challenges for economists concerned with understanding how new businesses affect economic growth.

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Working Papers

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Declining Business Dynamism in Europe: The Role of Shocks, Market Power, and Technology

Filippo Biondi Sergio Inferrera Matthias Mertens Javier Miranda

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 19, 2023

Abstract

We study the changing patterns of business dynamism in Europe after 2000 using novel micro-aggregated data that we collect for 19 European countries. In all of them, we document a decline in job reallocation rates that concerns most economic sectors. This is mainly driven by dynamics within sectors, size classes, and age classes rather than by compositional changes. Large and mature firms show the strongest decline in job reallocation rates. Simultaneously, the shares of employment and sales of young firms decline. Consistent with US evidence, firms’ employment changes have become less responsive to productivity. However, the dispersion of firms’ productivity shocks has decreased too. To enhance our understanding of these patterns, we derive a firm-level framework that relates changes in firms’ productivity, market power, and technology to job reallocation and firms’ responsiveness.

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Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index: A New Employment Series for the US, Canada, and the UK

Ufuk Akcigit Raman Chhina Seyit Cilasun Javier Miranda Eren Ocakverdi Nicolas Serrano-Velarde

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 9, 2023

Abstract

Small and young businesses are essential for job creation, innovation, and economic growth. Even most of the superstar firms start their business life small and then grow over time. Small firms have less internal resources, which makes them more fragile and sensitive to macroeconomic conditions. This suggests the need for frequent and real-time monitoring of the small business sector’s health. Previously this was difficult due to a lack of appropriate data. This paper fills this important gap by developing a new Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index that focuses on the smallest of small businesses with at most 9 workers in the US and the UK and at most 19 workers in Canada. The Index aggregates a sample of anonymous Quick- Books Online Payroll subscriber data (QBO Payroll sample) from 333,000 businesses in the US, 66,000 in Canada, and 25,000 in the UK. After comparing the QBO Payroll sample data to the official statistics, we remove the seasonal components and use a Flexible Least Squares method to calibrate the QBO Payroll sample data against official statistics. Finally, we use the estimated model and the QBO Payroll sample data to generate a near real-time index of economic activity. We show that the estimated model performs well both in-sample and out-of-sample. Additionally, we use this analysis for different regions and industries. Keywords:

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The (Heterogenous) Economic Effects of Private Equity Buyouts

Steven J. Davis John Haltiwanger Kyle Handley Josh Lerner Ben Lipsius Javier Miranda

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 10, 2022

Abstract

The effects of private equity buyouts on employment, productivity, and job reallocation vary tremendously with macroeconomic and credit conditions, across private equity groups, and by type of buyout. We reach this conclusion by examining the most extensive database of U.S. buyouts ever compiled, encompassing thousands of buyout targets from 1980 to 2013 and millions of control firms. Employment shrinks 13% over two years after buyouts of publicly listed firms – on average, and relative to control firms – but expands 13% after buyouts of privately held firms. Post-buyout productivity gains at target firms are large on average and much larger yet for deals executed amidst tight credit conditions. A post-buyout tightening of credit conditions or slowing of GDP growth curtails employment growth and intra-firm job reallocation at target firms. We also show that buyout effects differ across the private equity groups that sponsor buyouts, and these differences persist over time at the group level. Rapid upscaling in deal flow at the group level brings lower employment growth at target firms.

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Keywords

Productivity
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