			Home About us Contact

Firms' Productivity (firm + productivity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	85%

Selected Abstracts

WORKFORCE COMPOSITION AND FIRM PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

ECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 4 2010
JIN-TAN LIU
We study the relationship between workforce composition and firm productivity based on a new employee-employer-matched data set, using an array of workforce characteristics and three alternative measures of firm productivity. While firm age is not essential for the performance of firms, those of smaller size and those in the steel and transportation industries outperform others. Moreover, labor quality, particularly the middle-aged with higher education, contributes significantly to firms' productivity. Furthermore, economic incentives and market competition both play important roles in the performance of firms. Finally, there is an employer-size premium with larger firms paying higher wages and nonwage benefits. (JEL C33, D20, J30) [source]

Spatial Agglomeration, Technological Innovations, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Industrial Districts

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2008
GIULIO CAINELLI
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact on firms' productivity of innovative activities and agglomeration effects among firms belonging to Marshallian industrial districts and the possible joint effect of these two forces. We study a sample of 2,821 firms active in the Italian manufacturing industry in the period 1992,1995. Our analysis uses an original data set based on three different Istituto Nazionale di Statistica statistical sources,Community Innovation Survey, Archivio Statistico delle Imprese Attive (Italian Business Register), and Sistema dei Conti delle Imprese (Italian Structural Business Statistics),to estimate an "augmented" Cobb-Douglas production function to account for the impact of technological innovations and district-specific agglomeration effects on a firm's productivity growth. Our data set allows us to distinguish between product and process innovations, thus, through econometric analysis, we hope to achieve a better understanding of which of these two types of innovative activities benefits most from participation in an industrial district. Our empirical results show that belonging to an industrial district and making product innovations are key factors in the productivity growth of firms and that product innovations appear to have a greater effect on the economic performance of district rather than non-district firms. [source]

Firm Productivity and Foreign Direct Investment into Non-core Activities,

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009
Andrzej Cie
F23 As foreign direct investment (FDI) often originates from multinational enterprises (MNEs) with non-core activities and not single-product firms, as MNE theory typically suggests, we hypothesize that such firms are more productive than MNEs without non-core activities as well as non-MNE firms. We test this hypothesis using Kolmogorov,Smirnov stochastic dominance Tests and Japanese firm-level productivity and FDI data for the period 1985,2001. We find that both manufacturing and service multinational firms with non-core foreign investments stochastically dominate firms without non-core activities. We also find cost-complementarities between certain core and non-core FDI activities that span both manufacturing and service affiliates. [source]

Industry dynamics with stochastic demand

THE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2008
James Bergin
We study the dynamics of an industry subject to aggregate demand shocks where the productivity of a firm's technology evolves stochastically over time. To characterize the intertemporal evolution of the distribution of firms, we discuss in particular how exit decisions, aggregate output, profits, and distributions of firm productivities vary (a) across different demand realization paths; (b) along a demand history path, detailing the effects of continued good or bad market conditions; and (c) for different anticipated future market conditions. We show how poor demand conditions can lead to increased exit of low-productivity firms at all future dates and states and raise welfare due to the impact on exit decisions. [source]

WORKFORCE COMPOSITION AND FIRM PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

Insider ownership and firm performance in Taiwan's electronics industry: a technical efficiency perspective

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 5 2005
Her-Jiun Sheu
This paper applies agency theory to explore the relationship between insider stock ownership and firm performance, particularly in terms of technical efficiency. Insiders are further classified into executives, outside directors, and large shareholders to conduct a detailed study. Six-year (1996,2001) panel data of 416 Taiwanese listed electronics firms are examined by the stochastic production frontier approach. It is observed that raising the executive-to-insider holding ratio first causes a decrease and then an increase in technical efficiency, forming a U-shaped relationship. However, the board-to-insider holding ratio is negatively associated with technical efficiency. The results indicate that equity ownership of top officers in high-tech firms should be encouraged to enhance firm productivity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Effects of Corporate Diversification on Productivity

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 6 2002
Antoinette Schoar
Using plant-level observations from the Longitudinal Research Database I show that conglomerates are more productive than stand-alone firms at a given point in time. Dynamically, however, firms that diversify experience a net reduction in productivity. While the acquired plants increase productivity, incumbent plants suffer. Moreover, stock prices track firm productivity and this tracking is equally strong for diversified and stand-alone firms. Therefore, lower transparency of conglomerates is unlikely to explain the discrepancy between productivity and stock prices on average. Finally, I offer some evidence that this discrepancy may arise because conglomerates dissipate rents in the form of higher wages. [source]

Is the Current Accounting Treatment of Education and Training Costs Appropriate?

AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING REVIEW, Issue 3 2010
James R. Frederickson
This paper addresses the apparent disconnect between the economic consequences of firm-sponsored education and training and the accounting and disclosure treatment of those costs. Research suggests that firm-sponsored education and training enhances firm productivity and performance, yet accounting standards require firms to treat education and training costs as expenses. This study discusses not only the rationale for this accounting treatment, but also what firms and accounting standard setters can do to enhance the information provided to capital market participants about firm-sponsored education and training. [source]

Market Size and the Survival of Foreign-owned Firms,

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 2007
ROD FALVEY
We develop a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and foreign direct investment cost uncertainty and investigate the survival of foreign-owned firms. The survival probabilities of foreign-owned firms depend on firm-level characteristics, such as productivity, and host country characteristics, such as market size. We show that a foreign-owned firm will be less likely to be shut down when its parent firm's productivity is higher and its indigenous competitors are less productive. Although a larger market size will always reduce the survival probability of indigenous firms, it can lead to a higher survival probability for foreign-owned firms if their parent firms are sufficiently productive. [source]

WORKFORCE COMPOSITION AND FIRM PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

Spatial Agglomeration, Technological Innovations, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Industrial Districts

The Impact of Public Ownership and Competition on Productivity

KYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 4 2005
José Manuel González-Páramo
Summary Are private firms more efficient than public ones? Does privatisation improve performance? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to disentangle the impact of ownership and competition upon business performance. This paper presents empirical evidence relating to the hypothesis that public ownership and competition are determinants of firms' productivity. It concludes that public ownership has a significant negative effect on productivity and also that privatisation has a positive impact on efficiency. Furthermore, increased competition is found to have a positive effect on productivity. These results are interpreted as confirming that privatisation is effective as a means of increasing firms' efficiency, at least in a non-regulated and relatively competitive sector, such as manufacturing. [source]

Do Firms Increase Productivity in Order to Become Exporters?,

OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 5 2009
Ricardo A. López
Abstract Recent studies find that exporters are more productive than non-exporters and that entry into exporting does not increase firms' productivity. Thus, firms self-select into foreign markets. This paper examines productivity before entry into exporting. Using Chilean plant-level data, we find that productivity and investment increase before plants begin to export. Moreover, productivity of entrants to exporting, but not that of non-exporters and exporters, increases in response to increases in foreign income, before entry but not after that. The results suggest that the productivity advantage of future exporters may be the result of firms increasing their productivity in order to export. [source]

FDI spillovers in new EU member states

THE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 3 2010
Marcella Nicolini
Foreign direct investment; transition countries; spillovers Abstract Using an unbalanced panel of firm-level data in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, we examine the impact of foreign firms on domestic firms' productivity. In particular, we try to answer the following research questions: (1) Are there any spillover effects of foreign direct investments (FDI), and if so, are they positive or negative? (2) Are spillover effects more likely to occur within or across sectors? (3) Are the existence, the direction and the magnitude of spillovers conditioned by sector and firm-specific characteristics? Our findings show that FDI spillovers exist both within and across sectors. The former arise when foreign firms operate in labour-intensive sectors, while the latter occur when foreign firms operate in high-tech sectors. Moreover, we find that domestic firm size conditions the exploitation of FDI spillovers even after controlling for absorptive capacity. We also detect a great deal of heterogeneity across countries consistent with the technology gap hypothesis. [source]