Emerging and small open economies,unconventional monetary policy and exchange rates – a survey

At the outset of the Great Recession emerging in 2007, central banks of major-currency economies have adopted non-standard monetary policies. We examine whether and to what extent these measures pose a challenge to central banking in emerging and small open economies. In particular we assess how global liquidity spillovers caused by major central banks affect the economic dynamics of emerging and small open economies. In this respect, economies which are close to or even at the periphery of major-currency economies are particularly prone to “unbalanced” real exchange rate dynamics. In the short run, corresponding level and volatility effects in key relative prices may endanger financial stability in the recipient country. The long-term effects include a metamorphosis of the anchoring of private-sector inflation expectations into a perilous tightrope act in central banking of these economies.     

Foreign entry and domestic welfare

Foreign Entry and Domestic Welfare. — This paper discusses the consequences for domestic welfare of entry by foreign firms into a domestic market. A simple Bertrand model with differentiated products and a Cournot model with homogeneous goods are investigated and it is shown that welfare is non-monotonic in foreign entry in both cases. A “little” entry is harmful but a “lot” is beneficial. It is shown that this depends on the number of domestic firms in the industry.     

The role of foreign direct investment in the host-country firm selection process: firm-level evidence from Slovenian manufacturing

This paper examines the role of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in firm selection processes in the Slovenian manufacturing sector in the 1994–2003 period. It adopts the firm dynamics framework that allows testing of selection effects directly by assessing the impact of foreign firms’ activity on the probability of exiting of local firms (crowding out). The results show that intra-industry productivity spillover effects offset only a minor part of the competition pressure which results from foreign firm entry, hence incumbent firms experience a drop in their survival probability upon a foreign firm’s entry within a particular industry. This result is driven by foreign firm entry of the greenfield type, as entry through the acquisition of existing firms has no significant effect. The strength of the crowding-out effect decreases with the incumbent firm’s export propensity. There is no significant evidence that inward FDI would stimulate the selection process through backward linkages in the upstream supplying industries, whereas foreign firms’ activity reduces the exit probability of downstream local customers (through forward linkages).     

Nexus between export,productivity, and competitiveness in the Indian manufacturing sector

This article assesses the nexus between export, productivity, and competitiveness in the Indian manufacturing sector. To do this, we examine the “learning by exporting” and “self-selection” hypotheses using firm-level data relating to Indian manufacturing firms relating to period from 1994 to 2017. The empirical analysis supports the “learning by exporting” hypothesis, but does not support the “self-selection” hypothesis. We also investigate the impact of export on competitiveness, and the results indicate a positive relationship. These findings remain consistent when we segregate manufacturing firms based on industries, intensity use of labor and capital, and firm ownership. In the light of these findings, we recommend that policy focus on enhancing the export capacity of manufacturing firms to further strengthen the competitiveness of Indian manufacturing.     

Entry and the accumulation of capital: A two state variable extension to the Ramsey model

In this paper we consider the entry and exit of firms in a dynamic general equilibrium model with capital. At the firm level, there is a fixed cost combined with increasing marginal cost, which gives a standard U‐shaped cost curve with optimal firm size. Entry is determined by a free entry condition such that the cost of entry is equal to the present value of incumbent firms. The cost of entry (exit) depends on the flow of entry (exit). Equilibrium is saddle‐point stable and the stable manifold is two‐dimensional. Transitional dynamics can, under certain circumstances, be non‐monotonic.     

Trade Policy Reform and the Competitive Response in Kwazulu Natal Province,South Africa

Like many other formerly protected economies, the liberalization of the external trade regime has placed new competitive pressures on South African enterprises. Detailed research in over 130 enterprises in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province of South Africa shows the extent to which firms have been able to respond to these new competitive pressures and particularly on their ability to “hear” and to meet more demanding customers' requirements. Inevitably the response has been varied, but there are reasons to be concerned that the pace of adjustment has been suboptimal. This reflects imperfections in information markets, the challenges poses by the need for new social relations in production, and the limited implementation of new “supply-sided” policies designed to compensate firms for the reduction in protective barriers.     

新一代信息技术能否成为动力变革的重要支撑?——基于新兴产业分类与企业数据挖掘的实证分析

新一代信息技术作为新一轮科技革命的核心,可以通过“产业机制”和“赋能机制”推动和支撑经济发展动力变革。本文收集14514家样本企业,通过文本分析挖掘比照《战略性新兴产业分类(2018)》重新划分样本企业行业归属。在此基础上,筛选高成长企业,将其行业分布与新一代信息技术及其他战略性新兴细分行业对比,并构造表征新一代信息技术的代理变量,就其与省域经济增长及全要素生产率的关系进行计量检验。结果表明:虽然战略性新兴产业企业在样本企业中占比仅为30%左右,但筛选出的高成长企业60%以上都归属于战略性新兴产业;高成长企业中又有60%~70%属于新一代信息技术产业及数字创意产业。面板分析结果显示,新一代信息技术对省域经济增长有着明显的促进作用,但并不能提升全要素生产率;新一代信息技术已成为促进我国经济发展动力变革的重要支撑,但主要是通过产业机制来实现。未来我国应着力进行生产组织、设施完善、人员培训等方面的适应性改造,发掘新一代信息技术赋能机制方面的潜力。     

External balance sheets as countercyclical crisis buffers

The external balance sheets of many emerging market countries are distinguished by their holdings of assets primarily in the form of foreign debt and foreign exchange reserves, while their liabilities are predominantly equity, either foreign direct investment or portfolio equity. We investigate the claim that this composition served as a buffer for the emerging markets during the global financial crisis of 2008–09. We use data from a sample of 67 emerging market and advanced economies, and several indicators of the crisis are utilized: GDP growth rates in 2008–09, the occurrence of bank crises and the use of IMF credit. Our results show that those countries that issued FDI liabilities had higher growth rates, fewer bank crises and were less likely to borrow from the IMF. Countries with debt liabilities, on the other hand, had more bank crises and were more likely to use IMF credit. We conclude that the “long debt, short equity” (hold debt assets, issue equity liabilities) strategy of emerging markets did mitigate the effects of the global financial crisis.     

民营企业家政治身份与经济收益

随着我国民营企业的兴起,民营企业家政治身份的相关研究也逐渐被学界所重视。结合民营企业家争相追逐政治身份的背景,探讨了企业家政治身份带来经济收益的现象,并提出民营企业家政治身份有利于民营企业突破行业壁垒实现行业多元化经营和进入战略性新兴产业,由此获得较好经济收益,从而构建了一个沟通和整合企业政治关联理论与进入壁垒理论的中介作用模型,并以第八次全国私营企业抽样调查的4098个企业为样本进行实证检验。研究结果表明,民营企业家政治身份能为企业带来显著的经济收益,民营企业多元化经营、进入战略性新兴产业与企业经济收益显著正相关,并且验证了多元化经营、进入战略性新兴产业是民营企业家政治身份带来经济收益的中介途径。     

An Economic Analysis of Audit and Nonaudit Services: The Trade‐off between Competition Crossovers and Knowledge Spillovers*

In this paper, I present a model in which both markets for audit services and nonaudit services (NAS) are oligopolistic. Accounting firms providing both audit services and NAS will employ oligopolistic competition in each of these markets. In addition to auditors' gaining “knowledge spillovers” from auditing to consulting or vice versa, oligopolistic competition in one market will influence the counterpart in the other market ‐ what I call “competition crossovers”. Although scope economies due to knowledge spillovers (for example, cost savings) are always beneficial to auditors, such benefits can entice accounting firms to adopt strategies (for example, price reductions) to compete aggressively in the audit market so that some, or all, firms become worse off. A trade‐off arises between these two economic forces in the two oligopolistic markets. Given the trade‐off between competition crossovers and knowledge spillovers, accounting firms may not reduce their audit prices, even though supplying NAS enables firms to decrease auditing costs — a nontrivial impact of oligopolistic competition in two markets on audit pricing. The empirical implication of my results is that because of competition‐crossover effects between the auditing and consulting service markets, finding empirical evidence for knowledge‐spillover benefits is likely to be difficult. Control variables for “audit‐market concentration” concerned with competition‐crossover effects and “auditor expertise” concerned with knowledge‐spillover benefits should be included in audit‐fee regressions to increase the power of empirical tests. With regard to policy implications, my analyses help explain the impact of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act on “market segmentation” and, hence, the profitability of accounting firms.     

Capital market distortion,firm entry and wage inequality

Distortions in the capital market are notable in developing economies like China. By building up a dual production structure with oligopolistic competition in urban manufacturing, this paper investigates the distributional and welfare effects of capital market distortions. We find that in the short run, an increase in the capital market distortion in favor of urban firms can lower both the skilled and unskilled wages. However, in the long run, the preferential policy on reducing capital cost to the urban sector attracts new entry of firms, which can worsen the skilled-unskilled wage inequality in the economy. This firm-entry effect of the capital market distortion on wage inequality is empirically confirmed for China.     

Does agglomeration promote internationalization of Chinese firms?

Knowledge spillover from the agglomeration of exporters can reduce the initial costs of exporting faced by other firms and thereby facilitate exports. We use a large dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms to assess whether industrial agglomeration lowers the minimum productivity level required for exporting and whether it increases a firm's probability of exporting. Semi-parametric quantile regressions reveal that the productivity advantage of exporters against non-exporters is markedly smaller in agglomerated regions. Furthermore, a parametric estimation of an export entry model indicates that the agglomeration of incumbent exporters contributes significantly to export participation, although its magnitude is limited. These spillover effects are generated not only by the agglomeration of exporting foreign invested firms (FIFs), but also, more importantly, by that of indigenous Chinese exporters. In fact, the agglomeration of exporting FIFs only contributes to the export entry of FIFs.     

Fragmentation,welfare, and imperfect competition

In this paper, we explore the effect of fragmentation of production processes on social welfare in the imperfectly competitive market. We consider a situation in which firms located in a country strategically decide whether they produce at home or move their production overseas. We show that, in such a situation, there exists a Nash equilibrium in which all of the firms move production overseas although domestic production is socially desirable. This implies that “reverse imports” do not necessarily benefit the country. We also discuss the effectiveness of a subsidy for domestic production in improving the social welfare of the country. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (3) (2007) 365–378.     

Accounting Comparability,Audit Effort,and Audit Outcomes

Accounting comparability among peer firms in the same industry reflects the similarity and the relatedness of firms’ operating environments and financial reporting. From the perspectives of “inherent audit risk” and “external information efficiency,” comparability is helpful for auditors in assessing client audit risk and lowers the costs of information acquisition, processing, and testing. I posit that the availability of information about comparable clients helps improve audit efficiency and accuracy. Empirical results show that comparability is negatively related to audit effort (surrogated by audit fees and audit delay). Moreover, comparability is negatively associated with the likelihood of audit opinion errors. These findings are robust to different specifications of regression models, particularly for the “endogeneity” issues due to the possible reverse causality that auditor style might influence client firms’ comparability. In sum, the study shows that accounting comparability enhances the utility of accounting information for external audits.     

Tax Loss Carryovers in a Competitive Environment*

The fact that incumbent firms can immediately deduct research and development (R&D) investments from taxable income is generally believed to give them a strategic advantage over new firms that cannot deduct the investment cost, but instead generate a net operating tax loss carryover. Using an analytical model, we show that this conventional wisdom need not hold in a competitive environment. We examine operating and investment decisions in a duopolistic industry in which an initial investment in R&D yields an immediate tax benefit for one firm, but creates a net operating loss carryover for the other firm. If both firms invest in R&D, the firm with the net operating loss carryover makes more aggressive capital investment decisions following successful R&D. This may deter the incumbent firm from investing in R&D despite the lower aftertax costs of this investment. Changing the tax loss carryover rules would thus not only affects start‐up or loss firms, but would also affect the investment decisions of profitable firms in the same industry.     

LINKAGES: DO FOREIGN FIRMS BUY LOCALLY IN TAIWAN?*

Linkages are important potential impacts of DFI upon host economies. Since these potentialities are not necessarily realized, we must separate the potential (ex ante) and actual (ex post) results of these effects. Empirical data for Taiwan in the 1970s show that DFI may tend to concentrate in industries with strong backward linkages. More significantly, DFI located in EPZs or controlled by non-Chinese investors had a clear tendency to import more and, hence, to form enclaves. However, this group of firms greatly improved its procurement policies over time. Thus, while discernible in the short run, the enclavistic phenomenon linked to DFI becomes insignificant in the long run, as shown by Taiwan's experience. Needless to say, the gradual rise of the local content rate of foreign firms is in line with successful development of the local material industries in Taiwan in the 1970s (Schive, forthcoming). In addition to the time factor, several firms specific factors such as foreign ownership structure, export propensity, status as a producer of either final or intermediate goods, status as a “neighboring” or “distant” investor, and the scale of operation all have a bearing on foreign firms' local purchasing behavior. To determine whether these findings pertain to Taiwan only, further country comparative studies are needed.     

经理人市场对高管薪酬的影响—来自高管跳槽现象的证据

基于2007－2014年A股上市公司数据，从高管跳槽现象的视角，对经理人市场如何影响高管薪酬进行探究。研究发现，公司在发生高管跳槽之后会显著提高现任高管的薪酬，尤其是基于股权的薪酬。现任高管的薪酬提升幅度与其在经理人市场上的流动性有关，也与跳槽高管的特征（对原公司的重要性、新工作的吸引力）有关。同时，通过引入倾向得分匹配（ PSM）模型，发现发生高管跳槽的公司在事前有显著的薪酬劣势，而事后的加薪使这些公司显著的薪酬劣势消失。另外，加薪措施能够有效地防止现任高管的跳槽。研究结果说明，经理人市场中的高管跳槽行为是公司薪酬政策的重要决定因素之一。     

中国制造业集聚经济特征与最优集聚问题——对112个三位数产业的实证研究

本文使用第三次工业普查的75万家企业数据,通过估计四个行业112个产业的生产函数,研究制造业的集聚经济特征、产业最优集聚规模及集聚水平的内生性问题。结果表明:集聚经济的存在形式为市级范围的本地化经济,省级范围的城市化经济虽然存在,但实际影响很小;企业层面规模报酬递减说明集聚经济更可能来源于城市经济理论所强调的技术外部性;随着集聚规模的上升,集聚经济呈先升后降的倒U型变化,各产业存在一个集聚效应最大化的最优集聚规模,但实际集聚规模普遍远小于最优集聚规模;与最优集聚规模相对应,以指数衡量的产业集聚水平也具有内生性。     

Policy Analysis and Development Evaluation of Digital Trade: An International Comparison

As an extension of traditional trade, digital trade is a new type of trade in the era of the digital economy. In this paper, we first analyze the digital trade‐related strategies of eight leading economies through word clouds and dissect China's digital trade‐related policies using the word frequency method by sorting through the digital trade‐related policy documents of 26 economies and Chinese provinces. We then evaluate the status quo of digital trade development in 111 countries and Chinese provinces by building a digital trade index system to determine the development environment and market potential. The results show that all countries attach great importance to digital technology, data and government guidance in the development of digital trade. The results also reveal that “development,” “service” and “construction” are the three most frequently used words in various Chinese documents. The overall level of China's digital trade is at the global vanguard, but is characterized by uneven regional development. In the era of digital trade, traditional international trade theory is also in urgent need of breakthroughs and innovation.     

Are Related Party Transactions Red Flags?

This study investigates whether or not related party transactions serve as “red flags” that warn of potential financial misstatement. We hand‐collect related party transactions for S&P 1500 firms in 2001, 2004, and 2007 and find a positive correlation between these transactions and future restatements, suggesting restatements are more likely when a firm engages in related party transactions. The association is concentrated among transactions that appear to reflect “tone at the top” rather than arguably more necessary business transactions. We also find RPT firms pay lower audit fees. However, “tone RPT” firms that subsequently restate pay higher audit fees, providing evidence that auditors recognize the individual restatement risks of these firms. Our results suggest that tone‐based RPTs serve as signals of higher risk of material misstatement.