Lin Shao
Senior Economist
Staff discussion papers
Staff working papers
Labour Supply and Firm Size
This paper documents a systematic pattern of how wages, hours and their relationship vary across firms of different sizes. Using a model with heterogeneous firms and workers, we show how the interplay between wages, hours and firm size affect worker sorting and inequality.Are Working Hours Complements in Production?
Using Canadian matched employer-employee data, we show that working hours of different workers are gross complements in production rather than perfect substitutes, as is typically assumed by macroeconomic models of production.Allocative Efficiency and the Productivity Slowdown
In our analysis of the US productivity slowdown in the 1970s and 2000s, we find that a significant portion of this deceleration can be attributed to a lack of improvement in allocative efficiency across sectors. Our analysis further identifies increased sector-level volatility as a major contributor to this lack of improvement in allocative efficiency.Financial Development Beyond the Formal Financial Market
This paper studies the effects of financial development, taking into account both formal and informal financing. Using cross-country firm-level data, we document that informal financing is utilized more by rich countries than poor countries.Aggregate Fluctuations and the Role of Trade Credit
In an economy where production takes place in multiple stages and is subject to financial frictions, how firms finance intermediate inputs matters for aggregate outcomes. This paper focuses on trade credit—the lending and borrowing of input goods between firms—and quantifies its aggregate impacts during the Great Recession.Journal publications
- "Economic Reforms and Industrial Policy in a Panel of Chinese Cities," December 2016, (with Simon Alder and Fabrizio Zilibotti), Journal of Economic Growth.
- "Are Working Hours Complements in Production?" June 2023, (with Faisal Sohail and Emircan Yurdagul), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.