Drawing on uncommonly rich and representative data from the Colombian manufacturing census, this paper documents new empirical relationships between input prices, output prices, and plant size and proposes a model of endogenous input and output quality choices by heterogeneous firms to explain the observed patterns. The key empirical facts are that, on average within narrowly defined sectors, (1) larger plants charge more for their outputs and (2) larger plants pay more for their material inputs. The latter fact generalizes the well-known positive correlation between plant size and wages. Similar correlations hold between prices and export status. We show that the empirical patterns are consistent with a parsimonious extension of the Melitz (2003, "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, 71, 1695-1725) framework to include endogenous choice of input and output quality. Using a measure of the scope for quality differentiation from Sutton (1998, Technology and Market Structure: Theory and History. Cambridge: MIT Press), we show that differences across sectors in the relationships between prices and plant size are consistent with our model. Available evidence suggests that differences in observable measures of market power do not provide a complete explanation for the empirical patterns. We interpret the results as supportive of the hypothesis that quality differences of both inputs and outputs play an important role in generating the price-plant size correlations.

Estimates for the U.S. suggest that at least in some sectors productivity enhancing reallocation is the dominant factor in accounting for producitivity growth . An open question, particularly relevant for developing countries, is whether reallocation is always productivity enhancing. It may be that imperfect competition or other barriers to competitive environments imply that the reallocation process is not fully efficient in these countries. Using a unique plant-level longitudinal dataset for Colombia for the period 1982-1998, we explore these issues by examining the interaction between market allocation, and productivity and profitability. Moreover, given the important trade, labor and financial market reforms in Colombia during the early 1990's, we explore whether and how the contribution of reallocation changed over the period of study. Our data permit measurement of plant-level quantities and prices. Taking advantage of the rich structure of our price data, we propose a sequential mehodology to estimate productivity and demand shocks at the plant level. First, we estimate total factor productivity (TFP) with plant-level physical output data, where we use downstream demand to instrument inputs. We then turn to estimating demand shocks and mark-ups with * We thank Alberto Serrano, Juan Manuel Contreras and Pablo Medina for excellent research assistance, Alvaro Suárez and José Eduardo Granados at DANE for providing access to data, the staff in charge of the AMS for answering our queries on methodological issues regarding the data, and participants at various seminars at DANE for their comments and suggestions. We thank the participants of the IASE conference in plant-level price data, using TFP to instrument for output in the inversedemand equation. We examine the evolution of the distributions of TFP and demand shocks in response to the market reforms in the 1990's. We find that market reforms are associated with rising overall productivity that is largely driven by reallocation away from low-and towards highproductivity businesses. In addition, we find that the allocation of activity across businesses is less driven by demand factors after reforms. We find that the increase in aggregate productivity post-reform is entirely accounted for by the improved allocation of activity.JEL Classification Codes: E23, L16, L60, O14, O24, O54.

and participants in the CEPR conference on "Globalization and the Organization of Firms", as well as members of the Board of Governors of Banco de la República de Colombia, for valuable comments. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyze how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980s and 1990s affected the labor market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This "less-than-full shifting" is likely to be the result of weak linkages between benefits and taxes and the presence of downward wage rigidities in Colombia. Because the costs of taxation are only partly shifted from employers to employees, employment also falls. Our results indicate that a 10% increase in payroll taxes lowered formal employment by between 4% and 5%. In addition, we find some evidence of less shifting and larger disemployment effects for production than for nonproduction workers. These results suggest that policies aimed at boosting the relative demand of less skilled workers by reducing social security taxes may be effective in Latin American countries, where minimum wages bind and benefits are often not directly linked to contributions. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..