Dear all,

I would like to pose a theoretical question. I am studying the impact of firm dynamics (let's take net entry of firms as an example) on productivity growth at regional level using panel data. I have taken account of fixed effects through LSDV and within-estimator. The first through country dummies, the second accounting for individual effects.

From a textbook point of view, with these estimators I canceled the fixed effects through de-meaning the X and the Y, on the basis of the country mean in first case or the regional mean in the second.

My question is when interpreting the coefficients, does this mean that an increase of X from the country/region mean, produce a beta effect on Y. Or, is it to be interpreted as OLS regression: an increase of X produces a beta effect on Y?

To be precise, I need to confront the peak of a curvilinear relationship of the explanatory variable, and I need to understand if the peak is an absolute value, or rather should be seen as with respect to the country/region mean?


Thanks to whom will help me.