Essays on International Activities of Firms, Innovation, and Financial Constraints PDF Download

Author: Luke Emeka Okafor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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This dissertation consists of three essays, focusing on the productivity effects of both international and innovative activities of firms and the link between financial constraints and trading behaviour.The first essay investigates whether the use of imported inputs leads to improvement in productivity. This includes examining the influence of absorptive capacity in the underlying relationship between imported inputs and productivity. This investigation uses firm-level panel data of manufacturing firms in Ghana covering the period between 1991 and 2002. Lagged relative productivity improvement (LRPI) is proposed as a new proxy for absorptive capacity (ABC). For any given period, LRPI is defined as the natural logarithm of a firm's real value added per worker in the previous period relative to the firm's initial real value added per worker. An alternative measure of ABC considers total factor productivity instead of real value added per worker. Both the direct and indirect methods of estimating production function are used. Both methods show that firms with high levels of ABC enjoy productivity benefits from the contemporaneous and past use of imported inputs. The results also suggest that firms operating in the input-intensive sectors such as machines, in addition to having high levels of ABC enjoy higher productivity benefits from the current and past use of imported inputs. The second essay examines the effect of higher participation in international activities on productivity, as well examining the effect of innovative activities on productivity. This investigation uses European firms in a global economy (EFIGE) dataset, a representative cross-country firm-level data across seven European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK. Firms simultaneously engaging in a larger number of international activities gain more productivity benefits than firms involved in a smaller number. Evidence is also found that innovating internationally active firms attain higher productivity benefits than innovating domestic-focused firms. Firms that introduce new products or adopt new or improved production technologies or register industrial designs also gain substantial productivity benefits than those that do not. Evidence is also found that innovation output, broadly defined, leads to a substantial improvement in productivity for internationally active firms, whereas its effect is negative for domestic-focused firms. Domestic firms are potentially more vulnerable to the disruptive effect of innovation than internationally active firms.The third essay analyses the effect of access to credit, public financial incentives, and tax-based financial incentives on trade outcomes and foreign market participation using the same cross-country firm-level dataset employed in the second essay. Access to credit, public, or tax-based financial incentives are found to lead to a substantial improvement in a firm's export performance, and the utilization of a larger share of imported inputs or services in the production process. The effect of financial constraints is found to be size dependent. In general, medium-sized firms with access to credit, public, or tax-based financial incentives display better international trade performance than others. These results provide new evidence on the role of public and/or tax-based financial incentives in promoting internationalization.

Author: Gabriele Pellegrino
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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"The main aim of my doctoral thesis has been to provide new insights regarding the determinants, nature and effects of the barriers to innovation. The thesis is structured in three different but strictly related papers. In the first paper, I try to examine the impact that different types of barriers (cost factors, knowledge factors, market factors, regulation issues) can have in hindering firms' innovation activity. The analysis of this topic is certainly of policy relevance, as removing or alleviating hindrances might be an effective device to enlarge the population of innovators and increase the innovation performance of the existing base of innovators. However, an overwhelming majority of contributions have confined the analysis to the impact of financial obstacles. The implicit rationale of limiting the analysis on financial constraints is that - once ascertained that firms do not innovate because they lack liquidity or innovation costs are too high- it is straightforward to draw policy implications: financing constraints are removed or at least alleviated by pouring liquidity in the form of additional subsidies/tax credits to increase levels of (mainly R & D) investments. However, firms might encounter different types of obstacles and persist in their systemic failure in engaging in innovation activities and/or in translating financial effort into the actual introduction of successful new goods, services and processes. Accordingly, in the first paper I have tried to add to the evidence on the impact of obstacles to innovation and the implications in terms of innovation policy in three main respects. The results of the estimation show that market structure and lack of demand are as important hindrances for firms as the financing constraints that most traditional literature had emphasized on the basis of cash-flow models. Therefore, it is possible to infer that the presence of strong competitors and the lack of demand are as decisive for firms to give up innovation projects despite an initial investment, as are financial constraints. While in the second chapter of this thesis I have tried to give a broad picture of the negative effects of the different obstacles on the firms' realization of innovative products and/or processes, in the third chapter the focus is on a specific category of hindrance that could obstruct or slow down the firm's innovation activity, namely the lack/uncertainty of demand. In particular I try to look at the demand pull perspective in a novel way that is to say from the viewpoint of barriers to innovation. More in detail, by making use of a long comprehensive panel of Spanish firms, I specifically look at the effects of demand uncertainty and stagnancy on firm's decisions to engage in R & D activities and the amount of financial effort devoted to it. Furthermore I conduct a careful sectoral analysis by giving evidence about whether firms active in high or low tech manufacturing or in knowledge intensive or low tech services are more or less dependent on demand conditions when deciding to perform R & D. The results of the econometric analyses show that uncertain demand and lack of demand are perceived as two completely different barriers. While uncertainty on demand does not seem to constrain R & D efforts, the perception of lack of demand does strongly reduce not only the amount of investment in R & D but also the likelihood of firms to engage in R & D activities. Moreover, sectoral affiliation does not seem to be particular relevant when it relates to demand conditions, giving support to the speculation that positive expectations on market demand is a structural condition to be fulfilled for all firms prior to invest in R & D. While in the first two paper the focus is on the impact that different obstacle factors have in hindering the firms' innovative activity, in the fourth chapter the main research aim is related to the impact that some factors can have in affecting the firm's perception of the different type of obstacles to innovation activity. In particular, this work focuses on the role of firm's age in affecting the firm's perception of the barriers to innovation. I try to shed some light on these issues by exploring a comprehensive panel of Spanish manufacturing and services firms for the period 2004-2010. The empirical results show that different types of obstacles are perceived differently by firms of different ages. Firstly, a clear-cut negative relationship between firm's age and firm's assessment of both internal and external lack of funds is identified. Moreover, firms at the early stages of their life seem to be less sensitive to the effect of lack of qualified personnel when they have to start an innovative project, but more affected by this type of obstacles when they are already engaged in innovation activities. On the other hand, firms in the mature stage of their life are significantly obstructed in their attempt to engage in innovation activity by the lack of qualified personnel. Finally, mature firms appear to assign more importance to obstacles factors related to market and demand conditions than firms characterized by a lower degree of experience."--TDX.

Author: Lai Wei
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781361036686
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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This dissertation, "Essays on Finance and Economic Growth: International Capital Markets and Corporate Innovation" by Lai, Wei, 魏錸, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: This thesis consists of two essays on finance and economic growth. Using the passage and the enforcement of capital market laws, the essays study whether and how the development of international capital markets can influence corporate innovation, a vital source for long-term economic growth around the world. In the first essay, I study the question: Do legal restrictions on insider trading accelerate or slow technological innovation? Based on over 75,000 industry-country- year observations across 94 economies from 1976 to 2006, I find that enforcing insider trading laws spurs innovation, as measured by patent intensity, scope, impact, generality, and originality. Consistent with theories that insider trading slows innovation by impeding the valuation of innovative activities, the relation between enforcing insider trading laws and innovation is larger in industries that are naturally innovative and opaque, and equity issuances also rise much more in these industries after a country enforces its insider trading laws. In the second essay, I examine the effect of activating M&A markets on the rate of technological innovation, using staggered adoption of international M&A laws. Based on more than 65,000 industry-country-year observations across 46 economies from 1976 to 2006, I find that adopting the M&A laws increases innovation in the high-tech industries of a country, as measured by patent intensity, scope, impact, generality, and originality. The results are consistent with the incentives provided by an active M&A market that amplifies the valuation of and returns to innovation, and boosts exit liquidity for the entrepreneurs and corporate investors. I also find that M&A volume increases in the high-tech industries, and the improvement of innovation is mainly contributed by the private firms. Subjects: Capital market - Law and legislation Technological innovations Economic development

Author: Jiahong Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This dissertation aims at improving the understanding of the relation between innovation investment, financial constraints and capital structure in the context of emerging economies. Since early 1930s, economists have argued that innovation is essential for firm survival, economic growth and development. An independent strand of the literature demonstrates that innovation by firms is a key driver of economic growth. Meanwhile, people also recognized that innovation investment is difficult to finance in a competitive marketplace due to various factors such as taxes, transaction costs, and especially informational asymmetries with external investors. Therefore, financing of innovation becomes an important managerial and policy challenge. A lot of studies have focused on identifying the financial constraints related to risky R&D and innovation investments. Nevertheless, there is little research highlighting the mechanisms that different external financing sources can affect innovation activities differently. Moreover, the implications of innovation investment for future capital structure decisions have not been fully analyzed. I try to shed light on these issues using micro evidence in the context of emerging markets, where financial markets, political systems and economic systems are different than those in the industrialized economies such as the US. Both of the chapters imply the importance of equity financing on innovation investment in developing countries especially for those young, small and private firms. The finding points to the significance of the private equity market for financing of innovation in the emerging economy context.

Author: Albert N. Link
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780387250106
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Edwin Mansfield was a research pioneer into the economics of R and D and technological change. As appreciation and remembrance for his scholarly contributions, eminent scholars have contributed original papers for this edited volume. The authors have followed the "Mansfieldian” approach of emphasizing economic insight and intuition over mathematical rigor and as a result are very accessable. Essays in Honor of Edwin Mansfield has the potential to serve as a reader in all advanced undergraduate and graduate classes/seminars in the economics of R and D and technological change. This edited volume will be the definitive work in the field.

Author: Andrea Ciani
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464815585
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Author: Pascal Alphonse
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303129050X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Author: João Leitão
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030871126
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This edited book focuses on strategic aspects of innovation in the context of resilience during and after a crisis. It investigates the strategies that firms utilize in order to cope with change especially in the competitive global marketplace. The book contends that, by design, entrepreneurship is strategic and innovative in every decision and action of a business. The goal of this book is to focus on the innovation and resilience behind these strategies in order to understand the business motivations. In particular, it focuses on the uncertainties initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the growing research and practice experiences of resilient entrepreneurial businesses and innovations that continued to be stable and successful. The book thus extends current research on strategic entrepreneurship by integrating it with the field of resilience. This will help to bridge the gap between practice and theory with regard to strategic entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it enables an effective advancement of strategic entrepreneurship research in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Author: Daniel Lederman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 146480012X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Entrepreneurship -- manifested in the entry of new firms or products into new markets, or substantial improvements in technological capacity or process innovation by incumbent firms -- is widely considered to be an important ingredient for long term economic development. This report argues that entrepreneurship is also a source of employment generation, export growth, and resilience during economic downturns. Although the conventional wisdom suggests that Latin American and Caribbean countries underperform relative to China and other emerging markets in terms of its entrepreneurial dynamism, t.