The first section of the course will lay the necessary conceptual groundwork by introducing students to productivity as a concept, how it is measured, and the basic patterns of firm-level productivity both in the cross-section and over time.
The second section looks at explanations for productivity differences across producers and how this is related to differences in firm performance as well as earnings inequality and labours share of income.
The third section examines the burgeoning literature that investigates the efficiency (or lack thereof) of the allocation of resources across heterogeneous-productivity producers. This involves work that is both positive, describing the allocation as-is, and normative, asking what is efficient and whether market mechanisms support this or instead are impeded by frictions from achieving more efficient outcomes.
The fourth section zooms out to explore more aggregate patterns of productivity and how they are related to the microeconomic patterns that underlie it.