Entry costs and cross-country differences in productivity and output

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on cross-country income differences by studying the effect of entry barriers on productivity and output. Using instrumental variable regressions I show that higher entry costs significantly reduce output per worker and that they do so by lowering total factor productivity. In particular, an increase in entry costs by 80% of income per capita, which is one half of their standard deviation in my sample, is estimated to decrease total factor productivity and output per worker by 22% and 29%, respectively.