			Home About us Contact

Firm-level Data (firm-level + data)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	83%
Humanities and Social Sciences	16%

Selected Abstracts

OVERSEAS R&D ACTIVITIES AND HOME PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE FIRM-LEVEL DATA,

THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008
YASUYUKI TODO
This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level data for Japanese multinational enterprises. Based on survey responses, we classify each overseas subsidiary's R&D as either ,innovative R&D,' which we hypothesize is likely to lead to the acquisition of foreign knowledge, or ,adaptive R&D,' which is more likely to lead to adaptation to local conditions. We find that overseas innovative R&D raises the parent firm's productivity growth, while adaptive R&D has no such effect. In addition, overseas innovative R&D does not improve the rate of return on home R&D. [source]

A Richer Understanding of Australia's Productivity Performance in the 1990s: Improved Estimates Based Upon Firm-Level Panel Data,

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 265 2008
ROBERT BREUNIG
Australian industry is characterised by differences across firms, entry of new firms and exit of unsuccessful firms. These facts highlight the inappropriateness of measuring productivity using aggregate production functions based upon representative firms. In this study, we model heterogeneous firms which change over time. We model the interrelationship between productivity shocks, input choices and decisions to cease production. Firm-level data provides production function estimates for 25 two-digit Australian industries. A new aggregation method for industry-level data allows us to separate productivity changes from output composition changes. Our study sheds new light on the Australian productivity performance. [source]

Capital Investment and Earnings: International Evidence

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2009
Ahmet Can Inci
ABSTRACT Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: We examine the nature of the dynamic linkage (causality) between earnings and capital investment using firm-level data from around the world to see whether the legal environment, including corporate governance and monitoring mechanisms, and financial development are important in the profitability of capital investment. Research Findings/Insights: Using firms in 40 countries over the period 1988,2004, we find that the causality from earnings to capital investment is positive and strong in almost all countries, irrespective of the type of legal system and the degree of financial development. However, the causality from capital investment to earnings is generally negative for firms in civil law and financially undeveloped countries, while the causality is generally positive in common law and financially developed countries. Therefore, our international cross-country study enables us to find that the legal system and financial development are factors in the determination of the profitability of capital investment. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our findings imply that internal financing is a significant constraint for capital investment, which provides support for the pecking order theory even for financially developed markets and for the free cash flow theory. Common law and financially developed countries tend to provide better shareholder protection with more efficient corporate governance and better investment decisions. Practitioner/Policy Implications: To encourage managers to make capital investments in value-increasing projects, it is important to further improve a legal environment that includes corporate governance, monitoring, and incentive mechanisms. Financial development that includes effective financial regulatory agencies should be sought. [source]

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks

ECONOMETRICA, Issue 3 2009
Nicholas Bloom
Uncertainty appears to jump up after major shocks like the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the OPEC I oil-price shock, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This paper offers a structural framework to analyze the impact of these uncertainty shocks. I build a model with a time-varying second moment, which is numerically solved and estimated using firm-level data. The parameterized model is then used to simulate a macro uncertainty shock, which produces a rapid drop and rebound in aggregate output and employment. This occurs because higher uncertainty causes firms to temporarily pause their investment and hiring. Productivity growth also falls because this pause in activity freezes reallocation across units. In the medium term the increased volatility from the shock induces an overshoot in output, employment, and productivity. Thus, uncertainty shocks generate short sharp recessions and recoveries. This simulated impact of an uncertainty shock is compared to vector autoregression estimations on actual data, showing a good match in both magnitude and timing. The paper also jointly estimates labor and capital adjustment costs (both convex and nonconvex). Ignoring capital adjustment costs is shown to lead to substantial bias, while ignoring labor adjustment costs does not. [source]

Extraregional Linkages and the Territorial Embeddedness of Multinational Branch Plants: Evidence from the South Tyrol Region in Northeast Italy

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2006
Markus Perkmann
Abstract: This article reevaluates the regional embeddedness of multinational manufacturing branch plants in view of recent work on global production networks and extraregional links. It argues that the predominance of extraregional production linkages is not necessarily detrimental to regional economies and that such linkages can even compensate for weak territorial innovations systems in noncore regions. The arguments are supported by a case study of the South Tyrol region of Italy, using firm-level data from surveys and interviews, complemented by evidence on institutional conditions. The findings suggest that neither the branch plants nor the locally owned manufacturing firms are strongly embedded in the region in terms of material linkages and interorganizational relationships, indicating that the ownership status of firms is not a good predictor of embeddedness. Second, compared to local firms, branch plants are more innovative and hence contribute to a larger degree to regional upgrading processes. Third, South Tyrol's core institutional structures, such as those governing the labor force, play a decisive role in the competitiveness of branch plants and therefore create codependencies that bind these producers to the territory. The results suggest a more differentiated assessment of the role of branch plants within noncore regions. [source]

Determinants and effects of foreign direct investment: evidence from German firm-level data*

ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 41 2005
Claudia M. Buch
SUMMARY FDI Firm-level evidence Foreign direct investment is an essential aspect of ,globalization' yet its empirical determinants are not well understood. What we do know is based either on poor data for a wide range of nations, or good data for the US and Swedish cases. In this paper, we provide evidence on the determinants of the activities of German multinational firms by using a newly available firm-level data set from the Deutsche Bundesbank. The specific goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relative role of country-level and firm-level determinants of foreign direct investment. We focus on three main questions: First, what are the main driving forces of German firms' multinational activities? Second, is there evidence that sector-level and firm-level factors shape internationalization patterns? Third, is there evidence of agglomeration effects in the foreign activities of German firms? We find that the market access motive for internationalization dominates. Firms move abroad mainly to gain better access to large foreign markets. Cost-saving motives, however, are important for some manufacturing sectors. Our results strongly suggest that firm-level heterogeneity has an important influence on internationalization patterns , as stressed by recent models of international trade. We also find positive agglomeration effects for the activities of German firms that stem from the number of other German firms that are active on a given foreign market. In terms of lessons for economic policy, our results show that lowering barriers to the integration of markets and encouraging the formation of human capital can promote the activities of multinational firms. However, our results related to the heterogeneity of firms and agglomeration tendencies show that it might be difficult to fine-tune policies directed at the exploitation of synergies and at the creation of clusters of foreign firms. , Claudia M. Buch, Jörn Kleinert, Alexander Lipponer and Farid Toubal [source]

TNC Strategies and Variations in Intra-firm Trade: The Case of Foreign Manufacturing Affiliates in Sweden

GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2000
Inge Ivarsson
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the forms and determinants of intra-firm trade, i.e. international trade between different units under common TNC ownership, this being a major indication of ,deep economic integration' between developed countries in the 1990s. Theoretically, intra-firm trade can be explained by the existence of economies of common governance and are often found to be associated with R&D-intensive industries and economies of scale. In empirical studies, intra-firm trade is often found to consist of intermediate inputs goods, resulting in vertically integrated production chains. The study is based on detailed firm-level data from around 300 foreign majority-owned affiliates (MOFAs) in manufacturing, in Sweden in 1993. The results show that intra-firm sales by MOFAs in Sweden are as high as those found in studies of manufacturing affiliates of US TNCs. Almost all of MOFAs' intra-firm exports are finished products, while intra-firm imports consist of material inputs and finished products for resale. This suggests that these MOFAs are only marginal involved in vertically integrated production chains, especially in terms of exports. The results of a regression analysis complement earlier studies by showing that the level and composition of intra-firm trade is significantly affected by the international strategy applied by TNCs when operating foreign manufacturing affiliates. Intra-firm exports of finished products and material inputs are positively associated with efficiency-seeking FDI, e.g. affiliates engaged in rationalised production. Market-seeking FDI is associated with intra-firm imports of complementary finished products for resale. By contrast, resource-seeking and strategic asset-seeking FDI was negatively associated with intra-firm trade. [source]

Financial Globalization, Governance, and the Evolution of the Home Bias

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2009
BONG-CHAN KHO
ABSTRACT We merge portfolio theories of home bias with corporate finance theories of insider ownership to create the optimal corporate ownership theory of the home bias. The theory has two components: (1) foreign portfolio investors exhibit a large home bias against countries with poor governance because their investment is limited by high optimal ownership by insiders (the "direct effect" of poor governance) and domestic monitoring shareholders (the "indirect effect") in response to the governance and (2) foreign direct investors from "good governance" countries have a comparative advantage as insider monitors in "poor governance" countries, so that the relative importance of foreign direct investment is negatively related to the quality of governance. Using both country-level data on U.S. investors' foreign investment allocations and Korean firm-level data, we find empirical evidence supporting our optimal corporate ownership theory of the home bias. [source]

The Impact of Activity-Based Costing on Managerial Decisions at Insteel Industries,A Field Study

JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 2 2002
V.G. Narayanan
In this field-based study, we interview top- and middle-level managers at Insteel Industries and conduct statistical analysis of firm-level data in order to shed light on whether activity-based costing (ABC) provides new information to managers and whether activity-based management (ABM) significantly influences product and customer-related decisions. We find that after the ABC analysis, Insteel undertook a number of process improvements that resulted in significant cost savings. Additionally, Insteel displayed a higher propensity to discontinue or increase prices of products and discontinue customers that were found comparatively unprofitable in the ABC study. Thus we provide empirical evidence that ABC influences both strategic and operational managerial decisions. [source]

The labour market effects of globalization in Kenya

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2004
Damiano Kulundu Manda
Since the 1980s, Kenya has been gradually integrating with the global economy. Using both industry-level and firm-level data, the paper examines the effects of globalization on employment and earnings in the Kenyan manufacturing sector. The industry-level analysis suggests that the overall effect of international trade on manufacturing employment has been negative in the 1990s. The firm-level analysis indicates that less skilled workers experienced losses in earnings, and that the inequality in earnings between skilled and unskilled workers increased during this period. This suggests that globalization has been associated with adverse labour market outcomes in Kenya. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Firm-sponsored Apprenticeship Training in Germany: Empirical Evidence from Establishment Data

LABOUR, Issue 2 2002
Michael Beckmann
This paper investigates the determinants of firm-sponsored apprenticeship training empirically using German firm-level data. The hypotheses for this study are based mostly on recent theoretical models about the financing of apprenticeship training which take labour market imperfections (e.g. mobility costs, asymmetric information, and wage floors) into account. Applying the usual probit, tobit, and truncated regression models, some empirical evidence is found supporting the relevance of active or passive poaching. Moreover, the results reveal some differences in the training behaviour of West and East German firms. [source]

Job Creation, Job Destruction and the Role of Small Firms: Firm-Level Evidence for the UK,

OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 5 2010
Alexander Hijzen
Abstract Evidence on job creation and destruction for the United Kingdom is limited, dated, and refers almost entirely to the manufacturing sector. We use firm-level data from 1997 to 2008 for almost all sectors, including services, and show that firms in the service sector exhibit much higher rates of job creation, but almost exactly the same rates of job destruction as those in manufacturing. ,Small' firms account for a disproportionately large fraction of job creation and destruction relative to their share of employment. Jobs created by small firms are no less likely to persist than those created by large firms. [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]

THE ROLE OF SUNK COSTS IN THE DECISION TO INVEST IN R&D,

THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2009
JUAN A. MÁÑEZ
We present a dynamic empirical model of a firm's R&D decisions that is consistent with the existence of sunk R&D costs, taking into account that these costs may differ between small and large firms, and among different technological regimes. We estimate a multivariate dynamic discrete choice model using firm-level data of Spanish manufacturing for 1990,2000. Conditional on firm heterogeneity and serially correlated unobservable factors, we find that R&D history matters. This true state dependence allows inferring the existence of sunk R&D costs associated with performing R&D. Sunk R&D costs are found to be higher for large, high-tech firms. [source]

OVERSEAS R&D ACTIVITIES AND HOME PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM JAPANESE FIRM-LEVEL DATA,

To Signal or to Control: The Determinants of Open-Market Share Repurchases in Japan,

ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2009
Dong Keun Choi
Abstract Using listed firm-level data in the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the 1995,2006 period, we show that ultimate owners of firms with large cash flow and voting rights deviations announce and repurchase stocks more aggressively than do those of firms with small deviations. We also find that Keiretsu (business group)-affiliated firms are most aggressive in repurchasing their own shares when large deviations exists between cash flow rights and voting rights. Consistent with the view of the takeover deterrence hypothesis, our findings suggest that firms with greater deviations in these two rights are likely to make large stock repurchases to increase both the cost of toehold and the price of the offer. [source]

Firm survival, performance, and the exchange rate

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2009
Jen Baggs
Abstract This paper examines the impact of exchange rate movements on firm survival and sales. We exploit detailed Canadian firm-level data from 1986 to 1997, a period in which the Canadian dollar appreciated approximately 30% in the first six years and depreciated 30% in the later six years. We find that survival and sales are negatively associated with appreciations in the Canadian dollar. The impact on survival is less pronounced for more productive firms. The magnitude of the impact of exchange rate changes on firm survival and sales was comparable to the effect of CUSFTA-mandated tariff changes. Ce texte étudie l'impact des mouvements dans le taux de change sur les ventes et la survie des entreprises. On exploite une base de données détaillées au niveau de l'entreprise pour la période 1986,1997 , une période durant laquelle le dollar s'est apprécié d'à peu près 30% au cours des premiers six ans, et s'est déprécié de 30% au cours des six dernières années. Il appert que survie et ventes sont négativement co-reliées quand le dollar s'apprécie. L'impact sur la survie est moins prononcé pour les entreprises plus productives. La magnitude de l'impact des mouvements dans le taux de change sur la survie et les ventes des entreprises a été comparable à l'effet des changements de tarifs commandés par l'Accord de libre-échange Canada-US. [source]

Large real exchange rate movements, firm dynamics, and productivity growth

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2008
Loretta Fung
Abstract., This paper examines the influence of large real exchange rate movements on firm turnover and production scale, and the contribution of these decisions to productivity growth. Our theoretical model predicts that home currency appreciations cause firm closure and reduce surviving firms' exports while boosting domestic sales. The net effect on sales and productivity therefore depends on changes in domestic sales and exports. Taiwanese firm-level data are used to test these predictions. The results show that real currency appreciations lead to scale expansion of surviving firms which in turn raises productivity. Our findings suggest the existence of a significant scale effect. Ce mémoire examine l'influence de changements importants dans les mouvements du taux de change réel sur le roulement des firmes et la taille de la production, et la contribution de ces décisions à la croissance de la productivité. Le modèle théorique proposé prédit que des appréciations de la monnaie domestique vont entraîner la fermeture d'entreprises, réduire les exportations des entreprises qui survivent, et accroître les ventes sur le marché local. L'effet net sur les ventes et la productivité dépend donc de la nature des changements dans les ventes locales et les exportations. On utilise des données taiwanaises au niveau de la firme pour mettre au test ces prédictions. Les résultats montrent que les appréciations de la monnaie en termes réels entraînent une expansion de l'échelle de production des entreprises qui survivent, ce qui enclenche une augmentation de productivité. Les résultats suggèrent l'existence d'un effet d'échelle significatif. [source]