What Does Consulting Do?

Summary

We thank seminar audiences at Brown, Berlin Applied Micro, Cal Poly, IWH Halle, Mannheim, NBER Summer Institute: Macroeconomics and Productivity, Northwestern/Kellogg, and Yale/Cowles as well as Nick Bloom, Miriam Bruhn, Steven Davis, Edward Freeland, John Haltiwanger, David Sraer, and Alexander Willén for useful feedback and discussions. We thank Francisca Afantchao Biakou, Simon Handreke, Pauline Kermoal, and Gabriel Koiran Portier for excellent research assistance. We also thank the respondents in our surveys of academic experts and consulting professionals for their generous and thoughtful responses. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Bank of Belgium or the National Bureau of Economic Research.