Abstract

This article investigates whether differences in business entry and exit rates explain differences in average, municipality-level labor productivity in the micro- and small-firm (MSF) sector. We focus on the case of Chile, exploiting an exogenous source of variation to exit rates—an exceptional event when the tax authority closed tens of thousands of ostensibly inactive firms in 2003—to instrument metrics of business dynamism in regression models of labor productivity. Pooled and panel instrumental variable (IV) estimations confirm that even the sector comprising the smallest firms in a less developed country can raise its productivity in the face of increased competition, knowledge inflows, and the release of resources.