|
on Small Business Management |
| By: | Chanyoung Hong; Jung In Yeon; Jeong-Dong Lee |
| Abstract: | Research and development (R&D) is regarded as a core factor which decides the productivity of a firm in the analysis of modern industrial economics. But the R&D behavior and the consequent effect are observed to be different depending on the firm size and industry belonging. Despite the tendency to show less amount in its expenditure, R&D of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is important because SMEs occupy major part in the number of firms and employees of a nation. This research analyzes the effect of R&D subsidy for SMEs across industry and national economy. In order to achieve the purpose, macroeconomic model of computable general equilibrium (CGE) is used. The typical form of CGE model is modified into knowledge-based one which has additional accounts and equations to incorporate R&D-related factors. Furthermore, social accounting matrix (SAM) in the model differentiates between SMEs and large firms in each industry. The simulation results are expected to show us that R&D in SMEs causes different effects and implications on various sides such as employment, knowledge stock and GDP growth. For example, subsidy for SMEs may not be relatively effective for GDP growth, but it may cause more increase in employment. |
| Keywords: | South Korea, General equilibrium modeling, Public finance |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:006356:6846&r=sbm |
| By: | Rosario Sanchez; Angeles Díaz |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this work is to analyse the effect of exports intensity and R & D activities in technical efficiency using data of Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 2004-2009. In a previous work, Diaz and Sanchez (2008) found that size was an important determinant of technical efficiency. Also, in Sánchez and Díaz (2013) innovation was an important determinant of efficiency for large firms but not for small and medium sized firms. Perhaps because large firms are more easily able to obtain external financing and thus finance their R & D activities and obtain product and process innovation that allows them to gain competitiveness in foreign markets. Size is also related to the ability of firms to compete in foreign markets. So we will focus on exporting companies to investigate the relationship between exports, and efficiency. As it is well known the exporting firms are more competitive than those that are not focused on foreign markets. To obtain empirical evidence we estimate a value added production function following the methodology of the Stochastic Frontier Approach, first developed by Farrell (1957) and widely used in empirical works. Using this methodology several works have analysed technical inefficiency: Caves and Barton (1990) analyse technical efficiency for manufacturing firms in United States; Green and Mayes (1991) analyse technical inefficiency for United Kingdom; and Patibandla (1998) proves the relevance of capital market imperfections on the structure of an industry; Dilling-Hansen et al. (2003), and Kumbhakar et al., (2011) analyse the effect of R&D investment on relative efficiency; Diaz and Sánchez (2008) analyse the impact of size on efficiency; and Sánchez and Diaz (2013) focus in the effect of product and process innovation over technical efficiency, obtaining that large firms’ innovation are more efficient than the small one. The inefficiency determinants can be due to environmental or firm specific factors. Here we focus on these firms specific factors to provide an explanation to the differences in technical inefficiency across Spanish manufacturing firms. Inefficiency tends to be smaller for firms with a higher ratio of gross investment over capital. Firms that account for this kind of investment become more competitive as a consequence of having a higher efficiency in their production process. Also, we found that exporting firms are closer to the stochastic frontier. They have to be more competitive to sell in international markets. Only the most efficient firms survive in the highly competitive international market. Size is another determinant of technical efficiency. Even though the impact of size in technical efficiency is not clearly determined in empirical and theoretical frameworks, here we obtain a positive and significant effect over efficiency. What it means that large firms are closer to the efficient frontier. In addition, efficiency tends to be smaller for those firms with a higher proportion of external funds over value added. |
| Keywords: | Spain, Trade issues, Sectoral issues |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:006356:6783&r=sbm |
| By: | Loriane Py; Antoine Bozio; Delphine Irac |
| Abstract: | R&D and innovation are seen as key determinants of productivity and competitiveness and it has been recognized that the low growth performances of EU countries of the last decades can largely be attributable to their poor research performance, as compared to the US. As a consequence, most EU countries, in particular since the adoption of the Lisbon strategy, have provided tax incentives to increase business R&D, which still remains below the targeted level of 2% of GDP. In the actual context of large public deficit and given the amount of public spending involved, it is crucial to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of these policies. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this literature by evaluating the impact of the research tax credit system on both R&D investments and innovation. In our empirical analysis, we focus on the 2008 French reform, which was marked by the adoption of a pure volume-based scheme.Our empirical analysis relies on an ex post econometric evaluation of the 2008 reform. It is based on the combination of four datasets over the period 2004-2010: i) the yearly survey on R&D investments conducted by the French Ministry of Research which contains detailed information on firms' R&D, ii) the PATSTAT dataset of the European Patent Office which enables us to measure innovation at the firm-level (as measured by a count of the number of patents) iii) the tax files which enables us to identify all the firms in France which benefit from the research tax credit as well as it amount, and iv) the FIBEN dataset of the Banque de France which is used to control for firms' economic and financial characteristics. Our final sample includes 48,111 firms, from which 51.3% have taken advantage of the research tax credit. Our econometric strategy relies on the implementation of a difference in difference which amounts to comparing R&D and innovation outcome for firms which benefit from the research tax credit and for those which do not, before and after the implementation of the reform. The fact that each year in France, nearly 49% of firms which are registered in the R&D survey and which have positive R&D expenditures do not ask for the research tax credit can have several explanations: firms might not be aware of the policy, their R&D activities might not be eligible to the tax credit, asking for the research tax credit might be too complex and costly or firms might want to avoid a tax audit. Nevertheless, as we cannot exclude the possibility of a selection bias in the sample of treated and control firms, we also implemented propensity score matching analysis and are currently trying to refine our empirical strategy by using the suppression of the research tax credit ceiling. Our preliminary results suggest that firms which did benefit from the R&D tax credit relative to those that did not ask for it have significantly increased their R&D expenditures after the 2008 reform. Our results also show that the estimated elasticity differs when we focus on the intensive margin (i.e. when the sample is limited to firms which already ask for the research tax credit before the reform) as the reform led to a large number of firm entry in the tax credit scheme which are relatively smaller in terms of R&D investments. More importantly, we do not find evidence of a significant impact on innovation as measured by the number of patents at the firm level, up to 2 years after the implementation of the reform. Though the time span of analysis is short and that patenting can take more years, these preliminary results suggest that the effects of research tax credit on innovation might be more limited than expected. Finally, our results enable us to shed light on the relative effectiveness of the volume scheme as compared to the incremental one. |
| Keywords: | France, Tax policy, Impact and scenario analysis |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:006356:6873&r=sbm |
| By: | Bruhn, Miriam; Loeprick, Jan |
| Abstract: | Using a panel of administrative data and regression discontinuity analysis, this paper examines how the introduction of preferential tax regimes for Georgian micro and small businesses in 2010 affects formal firm creation and tax compliance. The results show that the new tax regime for micro businesses increased the number of newly registered formal firms by 18-30 percent below the eligibility threshold during the first year of the reform, but not in subsequent years. The analysis does not find an effect of the new tax regime for small businesses on formal firm creation in any year. Policy makers are often concerned about abuse risks stemming from differentiated tax treatment of micro and small businesses. The analysis in this paper reveals reduced tax compliance in 2010 around the micro business eligibility threshold, but does not find significant evidence of reduced compliance by Georgian firms in later years. The results also do not show any significant evidence of strategic sorting around the regime eligibility thresholds. |
| Keywords: | Debt Markets,Taxation&Subsidies,Microfinance,Emerging Markets,Access to Finance |
| Date: | 2014–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7010&r=sbm |
| By: | Fabian Unterlass |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the interplay between exports and innovation and both their effects on economic performance. The European Union makes major efforts to improve the innovation performance of its companies with the aim to improve the global competitive position of the Union and create jobs and wealth. Firms that are involved in international activities through exports or foreign direct investment are typically top performers in terms of their capability to generate value added as well as employment and productivity (see e.g. Mayer and Ottaviano 2007). From the policy point of view this implies that more of Europe's innovative companies should compete and be competitive on global markets and create revenue and jobs at home. However, the relationship between innovation, exporting and economic performance is by no means unidirectional. It is difficult to show whether superior export performance is determined by a superior innovation performance, or whether internationalisation supports innovation. The major issue here is to control for endogeneity between these two dimensions. Exporting might positively affect innovation via learning effects, resource effects and / or incentive effects. On the other hand, innovation improves productivity and therefore increases a company's competitiveness such that it selects itself into the export market. Alternatively, product innovations might also create (temporary) monopolies in niche markets. Testing these issues emerging from the literature we use firm level data from the 3rd European Community Innovation Survey (CIS3) for 21 countries for the years 1998-2000 accessed at the Eurostat Safe Centre in Luxemburg. In order to overcome problems referring to endogeneity, we empirically investigate the effects of exporting in the first year of the observed time frame on innovation input, while we explain in a second model exports in the final observed year by innovation output indicators. We find strong evidence that innovation improves the export performance of companies, whereas this pattern varies with the stage of economic development. While firms in highly innovative sectors in the more advanced member states need high degrees of appropriability, i.e. the possibility to protect their innovations, and have to continuously improve their knowledge base to participate in export markets, it is productivity and price-based competitiveness for low innovation-intensive sectors. This reflects the alternative patterns of niche markets on one hand, and self-selection on the other, that allow firms to export. While the nature of the data does not allow us to draw satisfactory conclusions on the causal link between exports and innovation, we could find positive effects of exporting on innovation activities only for small companies, while large companies are not more likely to innovate when they are exporting. We therefore conclude that the positive impact of exports results from additional financial resources available for exporting SMEs, while learning effects are comparably small. However, we only investigated exports but did not consider different kinds of internationalisation due to data constraints. The picture might change in this case. Finally, we argue that both innovation and exports have positive effects on a firm's economic performance. We find strong evidence that innovation is an important driver for productivity growth, whereas the positive effect increases when a company (and the country the firm is located in) approaches the technology frontier. Furthermore, our results indicate that in the medium to low innovation intensive sectors productivity growth is mainly driven by process innovations, while in high-technology sectors in the more advanced member states productivity growth is strongly driven by product innovations. This is in line with the idea that in high-tech niche markets it is product quality which leads to higher prices. Competition in these markets is not based on prices but on product quality. In the low-technology sectors, competition is mainly based on prices and therefore process innovation plays a decisive role. In addition, we also find evidence that the effects of innovation and exporting on employment and turnover growth follow patterns that are dependent of the stage of technological development. The impact of exports on employment growth increases with an increasing distance of the company's home country from the technological frontier. Companies in these countries have a comparative advantage in wage levels. Interestingly, exporting has positive effects on labour productivity mainly in highly innovation-intensive sectors in the more advanced countries on the one hand, and in less innovation-intensive sectors in countries that are further away from the technological frontier. Probably, this result reflects comparative advantages and volume effects (economies of scale) of exporting. The prior companies increase their export share by increased competitiveness based on high-quality products, the latter based on wage levels. Finally, the joint effects of exporting and innovation on turnover growth and therefore also productivity growth are positive for high-tech sectors in technologically advanced countries. This indicates that companies that are active in these sectors have to internationalise their economic activities to reap the benefits from their innovation efforts. Domestic markets tend to be too small and niche. This result claims for supporting innovative companies in these sectors to start exporting. See above See above |
| Keywords: | EU, Impact and scenario analysis, Impact and scenario analysis |
| Date: | 2013–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:004912:5655&r=sbm |
| By: | Forstner, Bernhard; Koester, Ulrich |
| Abstract: | The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has repeatedly pointed out that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in some southern European countries face major constraints to access to credit and that removing these constraints for SMEs could contribute to reducing unemployment. He promised to support special loans programs. According to press reports the European Central Bank is also considering low-cost loans for national banks if they provide credit for SMEs. In this article it is argued theoretically and empirically that the single-business investment support does not address the causes of high unemployment and could result, due to the difficulty in monitoring, in great inefficiencies. Studies that have focused on rural development measures to improve regional economic structures do not show that investment support is an efficient economic policy measure. There are more efficient measures available. An ex-ante evaluation, which is in accordance with EU regulations for the conception of new policies, projects and programs (EU Commission 2006), was conducted to test this recommendation. Any adoption of such policy, should be based on the results of economic analyses and - if available - empirical studies. -- Der Präsident des Europäischen Parlaments, Martin Schulz, hat wiederholt betont, dass kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen nur begrenzten Zugang zu Krediten haben. Eine Förderung dieser Unternehmen sei daher sinnvoll, um die Arbeitslosigkeit zu verringern. Laut Presseberichten erwägt auch die EZB eine verbilligte Kreditvergabe an nationale Banken, wenn diese kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen kreditieren. Im Beitrag wird aus theoretischer Sicht und anhand von Ergebnissen empirischer Untersuchungen argumentiert, dass die einzelbetriebliche Investitionsförderung nicht an den Ursachen der hohen Arbeitslosigkeit ansetzt und aufgrund ihrer schwierigen Steuerbarkeit große Effizienzprobleme aufweist. Untersuchungen der Maßnahmen zur "Förderung der ländlichen Entwicklung", der "Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur" sowie der "Ländlichen Entwicklung" belegen nicht, dass Investitionsförderung eine effiziente wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahme ist. Es gibt effizientere Maßnahmen. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iamopb:17e&r=sbm |
| By: | INOUE Hiroyasu; NAKAJIMA Kentaro; SAITO Yukiko |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the localization of establishment-level knowledge creation by using data from the Japanese patent database. Using distance-based methods, we obtained the following results. First, Japanese patent-creating establishments are significantly localized at the 5% level, with the range of localization at approximately 80 km. Second, localization was found for all patent technology classes, while the extent of localization differs among the classes. Third, the extent of localization is stronger in more creative establishments, in terms of both the number of patents created and the number of citations. These results suggest that geographical proximity is important for knowledge spillover regardless of the concerned technology and that creative establishments require external knowledge. |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14053&r=sbm |
| By: | Julien Hanoteau; Virginie Vial |
| Abstract: | Baumol (1990) famously argues that entrepreneurs are individuals who exploit opportunities, be they in the productive (enterprises) or the unproductive sector (lobbying, rent-seeking, corruption…), and that the prevalence of one or the other type of entrepreneurship depends on the quality of surrounding institutions: high quality institutions foster productive entrepreneurship, whereas failing institutions trigger unproductive entrepreneurship. However, recent empirical studies evidence that the effect of institutions quality on productive entrepreneurship might be more ambiguous. Dreher and Gassebner (2013) observe that if poor quality of institutions is detrimental to firms’ entry, this effect is nonetheless moderated in presence of corruption. Our central argument in this paper, is that productive entrepreneurs may be forced by their institutional environment to bribe so as to be able to start and develop their venture. As a result, a same quality of institutions has different effects on bribing and non-bribing productive entrepreneurships. This has strong implications for the literature addressing the effect of institutions on entrepreneurship. We complement Baumol’s (1990) theory, by acknowledging that productive entrepreneurs do not form a homogenous population, but have characteristics that are shaped by the institutional context in which their venture is embedded. This recognition is likely to unveil the true effects of institutions on productive entrepreneurship, whereas analyses that make a clear distinction between productive and unproductive entrepreneurship and treat the former as a homogenous population, are likely to result in misleading observations. This contribute to the embryonic literature regarding the role of entrepreneurship in the development of emerging countries (Bruton et al., 2008; Naudé, 2010; Peng and Zhou, 2005; Stenholm et al. 2013). We use panel data econometrics, with a unique dataset that merges two databases, the Statistik Industri from the Indonesian Bureau of public statistics (BPS) and the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) from the Rand Corporation. It enables us to analyze the effect of varying formal and informal institutions quality, across regional districts (190), on the 5-digit sector-level (321) entry rates of bribing and non-bribing new ventures, over the period 2001-2007. Although cross-country studies are more robust (Bruton et al., 2010), Indonesia compensates with its institutional features (administrative inefficiency, pervasive corruption, ethnic diversity…) that are common to many emerging countries (Miguel et al., 2005) while presenting large within institutional quality variations, and will therefore allow an easier generalization of our findings. Analyzing patterns across districts within a single country permits to use homogenous survey instruments of institutions and consistently available data on the bribing component of entrepreneurship, which is rarely the case for cross country regressions and reduces some of their problems of measurement and omitted variables (Miguel et al., 2005; Sobel, 2008).The results show that regulative and resource-allocative institutions are significant factors impacting the rate of entrepreneurship. Moreover, the results confirm our main conjecture that these institutions have differentiated effects on bribing and non-bribing entrepreneurship, taken at the local and 5-digit sector level. On the one hand, deficient regulative (low quality of business permits delivery and excessive indirect taxations) and resource-allocative institutions (poor quality of access to transport infrastructures and services) are detrimental to entrepreneurship. On the other hand, we find that bribing new ventures suffer less than other ventures, from a deteriorated access to high quality business permits delivery and transport infrastructures and services. Our results also show that in districts and 5-digit sectors with a poor supply of banking services, bribing entrepreneurs have a better entry rate than others, suggesting that they have a better access to financings through corruption. |
| Keywords: | Indonesia, Developing countries, Miscellaneous |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ekd:006356:6689&r=sbm |
| By: | Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh (NYU Stern School of Business); Hanno Lustig (Anderson School of Business); Bryan Kelly (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We propose a network model of firm volatility in which the customers' growth rate shocks influence the growth rates of their suppliers, larger suppliers have more customers, and the strength of a customer-supplier link depends on the size of the customer firm. Even though all shocks are i.i.d., the network model produces firm-level volatility and size distribution dynamics that are consistent with the data. In the cross section, larger firms and firms with less concentrated customer networks display lower volatility. Over time, the volatilities of all firms co-move strongly, and their common factor is concentration of the economy-wide firm size distribution. Network effects are essential to explaining the joint evolution of the empirical firm size and firm volatility distributions. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:253&r=sbm |
| By: | Ayyagari, Meghana; Demirguc-Kunt, Asli; Maksimovic, Vojislav |
| Abstract: | The differences in financial development across Indian states, while seeming substantial, have a minor effect on firm lifecycle and growth. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, and for firms born before and after the major reforms. There is no evidence that firms in financially dependent industries have different lifecycle profiles or grow faster in financially developed states than underdeveloped states. Overall, firms in the formal manufacturing sector grow as they age whereas in the informal sector, firms have a declining lifecycle, but in both cases little evidence is found that financial institutions matter for firm lifecycle. The findings of this paper suggest that size and depth differences in financial development across Indian states are likely dwarfed by overall inefficiencies that characterize state-dominated financial systems, with important implications for the reforms of the Indian financial system going forward. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Markets,Access to Finance,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2014–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7008&r=sbm |