Firms' Innovation,Public Financial Support,and Total Factor Productivity: The Case of Manufactures in Peru

Based upon an adjusted Crepon–Duguet–Mairesse (CDM) model, this paper analyzes the relationship between investment intensity, public financial support, innovation, and total factor productivity (TFP) for a sample of manufacturing firms of Peru with data obtained from the 2004 survey of science, technology, and innovation (STI) activities. The estimation of the model indicates that large firms are more likely to invest in STI activities and firms' size increases the probability of producing technological inovation (TI) and non‐technological innovation (NTI). STI firms' investment intensity and public financial support have also helped manufacturing firms to increase the probability of producing TI outcomes. Further, such support may have increased firms' investment on STI activities. The innovation effects on TFP, however, were statistically not clear or robust. Thus, whereas investment intensity did increase firms' TPF in low‐tech manufacturing firms, this is not the case for high‐tech firms. For this group of firms, relatively high capital–labor ratio and the availability of a high level of human capital seem to promote higher levels of TFP.     

Barriers to network-specific investment

We examine incentives for network-specific investment and consider the implications for network governance. We model a two-sided market in which participants making payments over a network platform can invest in a technology that reduces the marginal cost of using the platform. A network effect results in multiple equilibria—either all agents invest and use of the platform is high or no agents invest and use of the platform is low. The high-use equilibrium can be implemented if commitment is feasible. When the platform cannot commit to usage fees, investment in the platform-specific technology will be held up, thus implementing the low-investment equilibrium. As a result, governance structures necessary to achieve commitment will be preferred to those necessary merely to achieve coordination. For example, mutual ownership by users of a network platform may emerge where users face risk of ex post renegotiation. Such a governance structure will also be sufficient to avoid low investment attributable to the network effect.     

The Division of Labor, Inequality and Growth

We present a model that links the division of labor and economic growth with the division of wealth in society. When capital market imperfections restrict the access of poor households to capital, the division of wealth affects individual incentives to invest in specialization. In turn, the division of labor determines the dynamics of the wealth distribution. A highly concentrated distribution of wealth leads to a low degree of specialization, low productivity, and low wages. In that case workers are unable to accumulate enough wealth to invest in specialization. Hence, in a highly unequal society, there is a vicious cycle in which the degree of specialization, productivity and wages stay low, wealth and income inequality stays high and the economy stagnates. By contrast, greater equality increases investment in specialization and leads to a greater division of labor and higher long run development.     

A macroeconometric analysis of the effects of taxation on financing and real investment in equipment in Canada

This paper analyses the impact of taxation on corporate financing and corporate investment in machinery and equipment in Canada. A coherent macroeconometric model of the firm's real and financial decision process is theoretically developed and empirically tested on Canadian data. Estimates of the impact of taxation in general and of the 1987 Canadian government's White Paper in particular, are analysed. The estimates suggest that income taxation has a negative but relatively small impact on equipment investment in Canada, and that models that ignore the link between the real and financial decisions overestimate the impact of taxation on real investment. With respect to tax reform, the White Paper reduces the incentive to save and invest in equity capital, and is expected to decrease real capital investment in the long run.     

ENDOGENOUS JOB CONTACT NETWORKS

We develop a model where workers, anticipating the risk of becoming unemployed, invest in connections in order to access information about available jobs that other workers may have. The investment in connections is high when the job separation rate in the labor market is moderate, whereas it is low for either low or high levels of job separation rate. The equilibrium response of network investment to changes in the labor market conditions generates novel empirical predictions. In particular, the probability that a worker finds a new job via his connections increases in the separation rate when the separation rate is low, whereas it decreases when the separation rate is high. These predictions are supported by the empirical patterns that we document for the U.K. labor market.     

Network externality and incentive to invest in network security

Breaches of network security can result in substantial losses for businesses. A game theory-based model is developed to investigate in the short run how network externality influences the optimal strategy of competing online firms producing homogenous services to invest in NS. A firm's self-protect rate and survival probability against NS security incidents differ depending on its related investment decisions. The incentive of a firm to invest in NS is derived, and the impact of the survival probability and the effect of the number of firms investing in NS on a firm's incentive to invest in NS are also analyzed. Policy implications drawn from the study are provided at the end the work.     

Preemptive investment game with alternative projects

This paper investigates a duopoly with two alternative investment projects. We examine a situation in which a firm cannot invest in any project that has been taken by the rival firm. The first mover's advantage in project choice leads to an equilibrium quite different from that in previous studies. Specifically, we show that in equilibrium, the investment time and the option value are between those in a duopoly with one project and a monopoly with one project. Moreover, we show that a high correlation between project values, unlike in a monopoly with two projects, plays a positive role in mitigating preemptive competition. The results complement the literature of real options games and of max-options and entail new empirical implications.     

How corporate cultures coevolve with the business environment: The case of firm growth crises and industry evolution

This paper shows how cognitive human dispositions that take effect at the level of an individual firm's corporate culture have repercussions on an industry's evolution. In our theory, the latter is attributable to evolving corporate cultures coupled with changes in a firm's business environment. With the help of a formal model of evolving corporate cultures, we demonstrate how firms can establish a cooperative cultural regime that yields competitive advantages in an innovative, fast changing environment. Depending on within-firm social learning processes and cognitive constraints of human agents, organizations then reach a critical cognitive firm size in their development beyond which the level of cooperation deteriorates rapidly—they systematically face a growth crisis. Organizations successful in such an environment and reaching a critical technological size may, however, reap economies of scale in a later, mature and stable business environment with altered corporate culture. Furthermore, we relate these findings to empirical evidence on firm survival and performance in different industries, the evolution of organizational structures, and technological advancements in production technologies, and we identify some determinants of market structures.     

The Impact of Transfer Fees on Professional Sports: An Analysis of the New Transfer System for European Football*

We evaluate the effect of the recently approved transfer system for European professional football which will replace the current system (implemented by the Bosman judgment in 1995). The focus is on the comparison of wages, profits, the length of contracts and investment incentives. Our main findings are that (i) the new regime reduces a player's overall payoff because it increases the new club's renegotiation payoff, and (ii) since training generates a general skill, the new regime will also diminish incentives to invest in the education of young talents, because a new club benefits more from the initial club's investment.     

Gender Quotas and Human Capital Formation: A Relative Deprivation Approach

We study a quota's effect on individual human capital investment incentives beyond merely altering individual's overall probability of being promoted. We assume that individuals sense relative deprivation from unfavorable (income) comparisons within their reference group and that comparisons take place within the same gender. The introduction of a female quota increases (decreases) the number of women (men) holding top positions. On one hand, the relative deprivation to which female individuals are subjected to increases. These female individuals respond to an increase in their relative deprivation by acquiring additional human capital which, because it enables them to increase their earnings, reduces their relative deprivation. On the other hand, male individuals invest less in human capital in response to a decrease in relative deprivation. We show that the human capital formed by women who are encouraged to do so by the quotas is larger than the human capital that men who are discouraged by the quotas refrain from forming. However, the positive human capital accumulation effect hinges on a certain level of ability by gender and on how much individuals perceive relative deprivation.     

Fiscal limits and monetary policy: default vs. inflation

This paper studies the monetary policy trade-off between low inflation and low sovereign risk in the environment where fiscal authorities fail to fully ensure the sustainability of government debt. Building on the Fiscal Theory of Price Level (FTPL) and the Fiscal Theory of Sovereign Risk (FTSR), this paper differs in its baseline assumption about the monetary policy objective, which is neither to rule out defaults regardless of inflation costs (as in FTPL), nor to follow inflation targeting regardless of associated sovereign risk (as in FTSR). Instead, we study the case in which the central bank controls the risky interest rate to minimize the probability of default while ruling out large inflation hikes. We show that this policy regime can mitigate default risks only when the central bank is expected to allow sufficient increases in inflation. When agents believe that the central bank's tolerance toward inflation hikes has increased, equilibrium risk premium goes down, suggesting that information concerning changes in the central bank's preferences over inflation directly impacts default risks.     

The endogenous formation of an environmental culture

This paper presents a mechanism explaining the surge in environmental culture across the globe. Based upon empirical evidence, we develop an overlapping generations model with environmental quality and endogenous environmental culture. Environmental culture may be costlessly transmitted intergenerationally, or via costly education.The model predicts that for low wealth levels, society is unable to free resources for environmental culture. In this case, society will only invest in environmental maintenance if environmental quality is sufficiently low. Once society has reached a certain level of economic development, then it may optimally invest a part of its wealth in developing an environmental culture. Environmental culture has not only a positive impact on environmental quality through lower levels of consumption, but it also improves the environment through maintenance expenditure for wealth-environment combinations at which, in a restricted model without environmental culture, no maintenance would be undertaken. Environmental culture leads to a society with a higher indirect utility at steady state in comparison to the restricted model.Our model leads us to the conclusion that, for societies trapped in a situation with low environmental quality, investments in culture may induce positive feedback loops, where more culture raises environmental quality which in turn raises environmental culture. We also discuss how environmental culture may lead to an Environmental Kuznets Curve.     

“创新”抑或“关系”？ 儒家文化视角下社会资本与企业战略研究

在经济社会转型期复杂的外部环境下,中国民营企业如何在激烈的市场竞争中调整战略、获取竞争优势并谋求长期发展？基于儒家文化视角考察了社会资本对民营企业战略导向的影响。以中国私营企业为研究样本,发现社会资本降低了企业的资源约束,但也“绑架”企业持续进行关系投入,促进了民营企业的创新战略和关系战略。儒家文化则规制了这种作用,在一定程度增强了企业的创新战略并削弱了关系战略。进一步研究发现,竞争激烈的环境更容易激发企业的战略变革,但外来文化冲击导致的文化冲突削弱了儒家文化的影响。机制检验发现,社会资本通过缓解融资约束,从而支持了民营企业的战略投入。以上结果经过工具变量回归及一系列稳健性检验后依然成立。上述发现拓展了非正式制度下企业行为的研究,为解释中国情境下民营企业的战略行为提供了经验证据。     

Credit market imperfection,labor supply complementarity,and output volatility

This paper argues that output volatility depends on the degree of credit market imperfection. In the early stages of financial development, agents are constrained in their borrowing ability. As a result, the individual savings, affected by the labor supply, play a dual role in the economy, having repercussions on the interest rate. On the one hand, high savings imply high investment, low marginal product of capital and thus low interest rate. On the other hand, high savings affect the agents' ability to run highly productive investment projects, which increases the interest rate. When the former effect is dominant, a dynamic complementarity between individual and aggregate labor supply arises. This leads to a local and global indeterminacy of equilibrium paths. If the borrowing constraint is relaxed, the complementarity between individual and aggregate labor supply decisions weakens, equilibrium becomes globally unique and the possibility of having aggregate fluctuations in output disappears.     

Human capital investment,credentialing, and wage differentials

This study considers how individuals determine at what ratio they will invest in two different types of education. The first type contributes to the development of labor skills, while the other does not. We refer to the former as human capital investment and the latter as unproductive investment, which improves test scores but has no beneficial effect on students' human capital. We formulate an overlapping‐generations economy in which the rich and poor households invest in both types of education. We find that the ratio of human capital investment to unproductive investment is lower in the economy with medium size of the wage differentials. In a dynamic analysis, we identify two patterns of stable steady states for the dynamics of the wage differentials, namely, no‐inequality and high‐inequality steady states. Further, we show that a rapid increase in the level of skill‐biased technology may cause a switch from a steady state with no‐inequality to one with high inequality. This causes at least a temporary increase in the ratio of unproductive investment during the transition to the new steady state.     

Human capital and income distribution dynamics

The paper assumes a continuum of two period-lived agents; agents are identical except for inherited income. Young agents allocate their inheritance between consumption and investment in human capital under uncertainty. In the second period they receive a wage proportional to the accumulated human capital and invest in offspring. Two main results arise: a low earning per unit of human capital leads economy to converge to a stationary income distribution whatever the initial distribution and vice versa, for a sufficiently high wage, endogenous growth operates and the distributive dynamics depends on initial conditions. In this case different redistributive policies are analysed.     

Foreign ownership and investment: evidence from Korea

This study examines whether an increase in foreign ownership affects investment in Korea. Many studies have shown that in an imperfect financial market, a firm's investment depends on the availability of internal funds. If high foreigners’ shareholding is a sign of a firm's good financial position, and if foreign investors demand better corporate governance to protect their investments, then cash-flow sensitivity of investment decreases with the level of foreign ownership. Using data from Korean firms, it is found that cash-flow sensitivity of investment is lower in firms with high foreign ownership than in those with low foreign ownership. This finding is regarded as evidence for a potential benefit of open financial markets.     

Constitutional Design and Investment in Cooperatives and Investor‐Owned Enterprises

Abstract This paper studies the role of the corporate governance system in cooperatives and in investor‐owned enterprises. We abstract from all possible differences between the two systems except the type of majority needed to take decisions: this is one‐head‐one‐vote for cooperatives and proportional to capital invested in investor‐owned firms. We show that the institutional form chosen matters for the initial investment decision of the agents: in particular we find that members of a cooperative invest less than they would in an investor‐owned enterprise.     

The effects of irreversibility on the timing and intensity of lumpy investment

This paper examines how changes in irreversibility of investment affect the timing and intensity of lumpy investment. We develop a continuous-time model wherein a firm is endowed with a perpetual option to invest in a project at any time by incurring a partially reversible investment cost at that instant. The amount of the investment cost is directly related to the intensity of investment that is endogenously chosen by the firm at the instant when the investment option is exercised. We show that higher irreversibility of investment induces the firm to raise its optimal investment trigger, thereby deferring the undertaking of the project. Furthermore, we show that changes in irreversibility of investment have no impact on the firm's optimal investment intensity due to two opposing effects that exactly offset each other. Finally, we show that higher irreversibility of investment reduces the value of the investment option and, therefore, makes the firm less valuable.     

Dividend taxes,corporate investment,and ‘Q’

Taxes on corporate distributions have traditionally been regarded as a ‘double tax’ on corporate income. This view implies that while the total effective tax rate on corporate source income affects real economic decisions, the distribution of this tax burden between the shareholders and the corporation is irrelevant. Recent research has suggested an alternative to this traditional view. One explanation of why firms in the United States pay dividends in spite of the heavy tax liabilities associated with this form of distribution is that the stock market capitalizes the tax payments associated with corporate distributions. This capitalization leaves investors indifferent at the margin between a corporation's decision to pay out dividends or to retain earnings. This alternative view holds that while changes in the dividend tax rate will affect shareholder wealth, they will have no impact on corporate investment decisions.This paper develops econometric tests which distinguish between these two views of dividend taxation. By extending Tobin's ‘q’ theory of investment to incorporate taxes at both the corporate and personal levels, the implications of each view for corporate investment decisions can be derived. The competing views may be tested by comparing the performance of investment equations estimated under each theory's predictions. British time series data are particularly appropriate for testing hypotheses about dividend taxes because of the substantial postwar variation in effective tax rates on corporate distributions. The econometric results suggest that dividend taxes have important effects on investment decisions.