Prof. Ryan Kellogg of the University of Michigan will speak in the Energy and Environmental Economics @ MIT seminar series. Abstract: This talk is based on a paper that examines learning-by-doing that is specific not just to individual firms, but to pairs of firms working together in a contracting relationship. Using new oil and gas drilling data, the author finds that the productivity of an oil production company and its drilling contractor increases with their joint experience. This learning is relationship-specific: drilling rigs cannot appropriate the productivity gains acquired through experience with one production company to their work for another. This result is robust to ex ante match specificities. Moreover, the author finds that producers' and rigs' contracting behavior is consistent with the maximization of relationship-specific learning's
productivity benefits. (Prof. Kellogg's website.) The seminar is sponsored by the MIT Economics Department, Sloan School of Management, and The Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.