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on Business Economics |
| By: | Laurent Loic Yves Bossavie; Erkan Duman; Aysenur Acar Erdogan; Mattia Makovec; Sirma Demir Seker |
| Abstract: | The central hypothesis of this research is that there is a strong, positive correlation between good management practices and firm performance, for which we find strong evidence in a survey on management practices of Turkish manufacturing firms. To better understand this relationship, we investigated the drivers of firm heterogeneity in management practices. We find that product market competition and firm-level factors such as size, multinational status, work effort in the workforce, the level of managerial hierarchy, and ownership are significant determinants of management practices. We also find that family ownership and management are significant deterrents to good management practices and are strongly associated with declines in firm performance. Through this study, we also explored whether the adoption of better management practices comes at the expense of a good work-life balance. In this regard, we find that better-managed firms, in addition to attaining higher performance levels, provide better working conditions for their employees, resulting in improved employee well-being. |
| Date: | 2024–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:193764 |
| By: | Mohrenweiser, Jens; Pfeifer, Christian |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies find that firms with employee representation have a higher productivity than firms without employee representation. The exact mechanisms for this consistent finding remain unclear, however. A frequent theoretical argument postulates that employee representation provides a safeguarding mechanism which improves justice perceptions of employees that in turn improves cooperation and performance. Using a German longitudinal linked employer-employee dataset, we show that employees in firms with a collective bargaining agreement have higher individual and shared justice perceptions. These higher justice perceptions contribute to the productivity premium of firms with collective agreement. In contrast, justice perceptions are not higher in firms with than in firms without a works council. |
| Keywords: | works councils, collective bargaining, organisational justice, firm performance |
| JEL: | J53 M54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1499 |
| By: | Elodie Andrieu; John Morrow |
| Abstract: | How do firms diffuse resources and do they spillover outside headquarter intensive areas? We show R&D subsidies induce French firms to hire new workers, often in new establishments and commuting zones. Using subsidy induced labor demand shocks and past employment patterns, we estimate a within industry spillover elasticity of .26 to non-subsidy firms, rising to .35 for openings outside of headquarter areas. Spillovers are also significant across firm branches and for firms. While subsidies are nominally awarded to headquarters, firms expand to distribute spillovers more broadly. |
| Keywords: | multi-establishment firms, subsidies, directed growth, spillovers |
| Date: | 2024–09–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2035 |
| By: | Giuseppe Berlingieri; Filippo Boeri; Danial Lashkari; Jonathan Vogel |
| Abstract: | We study capital-skill complementarity in a multi-sector framework featuring firm-specific, multi-factor production functions and allowing for firm-specific factor-price wedges. We characterize the elasticity of the skill premium to the price of capital equipment in terms of firm-level elasticities of substitution across factors, elasticities of substitution across firms and sectors, and factor intensities. Using French data, we provide credible identification of these firm-level elasticities. Combining these elements we offer the first identification of aggregate capital-skill complementarity that allows for arbitrary trends in the unobservable skill-bias of productivity at the firm, industry, and aggregate levels. We find an economically and statistically significant degree of aggregate capital-skill complementarity, but this force alone is insufficient to generate the full increase in the relative demand for high-skilled workers observed in the data. There is a substantial role for skill-augmenting technical change not embodied in capital equipment. |
| JEL: | E10 E23 E25 J30 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33000 |
| By: | Erik Engberg (Orebro University); Holger Gorg (Kiel Institute for the World Economy); Magnus Lodefalk (Örebro University); Farrukh Javed; Martin Langkvist; Natalia Monteiro; Hildegunn Nordas; Giuseppe Pulito (Rockwool Foundation Berlin); Sarah Schroeder (Aarhus University); Aili Tang (Örebro University) |
| Abstract: | We unbox developments in artificial intelligence (AI) to estimate how exposure to these developments affect firm-level labour demand, using detailed register data from Denmark, Portugal and Sweden over two decades. Based on data on AI capabilities and occupational work content, we develop and validate a time-variant measure for occupational exposure to AI across subdomains of AI, such as language modelling. According to the model, white collar occupations are most exposed to AI, and especially white collar work that entails relatively little social interaction. We illustrate its usefulness by applying it to near-universal data on firms and individuals from Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, and estimating firm labour demand regressions. We find a positive (negative) association between AI exposure and labour demand for high-skilled white (blue) collar work. Overall, there is an up-skilling effect, with the share of white-collar to blue collar workers increasing with AI exposure. Exposure to AI within the subdomains of image and language are positively (negatively) linked to demand for high-skilled white collar (blue collar) work, whereas other AI-areas are heterogeneously linked to groupsof workers. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence; Labour demand; Multi-country firm-level evidence |
| JEL: | E24 J23 J24 N34 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2414 |
| By: | Peter J. Klenow; Huiyu Li |
| Abstract: | Over time and across states in the U.S., the number of firms is more closely tied to overall employment than to output per worker. In many models of firm dynamics, trade, and growth with a free entry condition, these facts imply that the costs of creating a new firm increase sharply with productivity growth. This increase in entry costs can stem from the rising cost of labor used in entry and weak or negative knowledge spillovers from prior entry. How entry costs vary with growth matters for welfare. For example, our findings suggest that productivity-enhancing policies will not induce entry of firms, thereby limiting the total impact of such policies on welfare. |
| JEL: | O41 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32974 |
| By: | Marc Claveria-Mayol; Pau Milán; Nicolás Oviedo Dávila |
| Abstract: | We study the problem of a principal designing wage contracts that simultaneously incentivize and insure workers. Workers’ incentives are connected through chains of productivity spillovers, represented by a network of peer-effects. We solve for the optimal linear contract for any network and show that optimal incentives are steeper for more central workers. We link firm profits to organizations’ structure via the spectral properties of the co-worker network. When production is modular, the incentive allocation rule is sensitive to the link structure across and within modules. When firms can’t write personalized con- tracts, better connected workers extract rents and total surplus is reduced. In this case, unemployment emerges endogenously because large within-group differences in centrality can decrease firm’s profits. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, Organizations, contracts, Networks, moral hazard |
| JEL: | D21 D23 D85 D86 L14 L22 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1457 |
| By: | Paola Conconi (University of Oxford, CEP, CESifo and CEPR); Fabrizio Leone (Université Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES) and CESifo.); Glenn Magerman (Université Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES), CESifo and CEPR); Catherine Thomas (London School of Economics, CEP, CESifo and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a novel explanation for the dominant role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in international trade: after being acquired by an MNC, firms face lower trade frictions in and around the network of countries in which their parent has a presence. We provide a model of firms’ export and import choices that isolates “MNC network effects” from other channels through which multinational ownership can affect trade participation. We bring the model to the data by combining rich information on the universe of Belgian firms and on MNCs’ global networks. We find that acquired firms are more likely to start trading with countries that belong to—or that are exogenously added to—their parental network. Network effects extend beyond MNC boundaries and dominate traditional firm-level channels in explaining affiliates’ entry in new markets. Our analysis suggests that the growth rate of acquired firms is more than twice as large as that of the median domestic firm due to MNC network effects. |
| Keywords: | Multinational Firms, International Business, Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis.s |
| JEL: | F23 D22 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202409-456 |
| By: | Paul Bergin; Ling Feng; Ching-Yi Lin |
| Abstract: | While the trade literature has tended to view export activity and innovation as complementary activities, we present evidence that financial constraints are a reason the two activities can act as substitutes for small exporters. In particular, we find that small exporters have lower expenditure on R&D than comparable non-exporters, and we find a corresponding pattern in the leverage ratio of the capital structure of small firms. A model that combines firm decisions regarding the amount of innovation, exporting, and endogenous financial capital structure is able to account for these empirical findings. The model implies that small firms are unable to fully reap the gains from exporting due to financial constraints, as they reduce R&D to finance the costs of export participation. |
| JEL: | E44 F41 G32 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32904 |
| By: | Christophe André; Peter Gal |
| Abstract: | This review takes stock of the large body of evidence on aggregate productivity growth, its structural drivers, and the role of a wide range of policies. It aims to synthesise evidence on how public policies can promote productivity through their impacts on both the incentives and the capabilities of businesses and workers, taking account of different specificities of firms at the frontier and below, and integrating complementarities across policy areas. It also identifies gaps in knowledge, thus offering potential directions for future work. |
| Keywords: | Economic policy, Efficiency frontier, Entrepreneurship, Firm Performance, Intangible capital, Investment, Productivity, Technological diffusion |
| JEL: | D24 E22 E24 E6 J24 L25 L26 L5 O31 O32 O33 O38 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1822-en |