Firm selection and industry evolution: the post-entry performance of new firms

A dynamic framework based on the process of firm selection and industry evolution is used to analyse the post-entry performance of new firms. In particular, it is hypothesized that, based on the stylized fact that virtually all new firms start at a very small scale of output, firm growth and survival are shaped by the need to attain an efficient level of output. The post-entry performance of more than 11,000 U.S. manufacturing firms established in 1976 is tracked throughout the subsequent tenyear period. Firm growth is found to be negatively influenced by firm size but positively related to the extent of scale economies, capital intensity, innovative activity, and market growth. By contrast, the likelihood of survival is identified as being positively influenced by firm size, market growth, and capital intensity, but negatively affected by the degree of scale economies in the industry. When viewed through the dynamic framework of firm selection and industry evolution, the empirical results shed considerable light on several paradoxes in the industrial organization literature, such as the continued persistence over time of an asymmetrical firm-size distribution consisting predominantely of suboptimal scale firms, and the failure of capital intensity and scale economies to substantially deter the entry and start-up of new firms.     

产业差异与中小企业空间集聚

我国中小企业发展具有突出的空间不均衡性,呈现出集聚特征.不同的产业具有不同的技术经济特征,对企业规模构成产生内在的规定性,从而形成不同产业类型企业规模结构的差异性.不同产业类型的中小企业空间集聚具有显著差异性,而且从动态变化上看,具有集聚度提高、由沿海导向向中部扩散的发展趋势.根据中小企业集聚过程中的空间选择动力机制、产业特征的不同,中小企业空间集聚主要有资源型集聚、市场型集聚、外向型集聚和产业关联型集聚等不同类型,每种类型可持续发展面临的制约因素及其发展战略存在差异.遵循产业发展不同阶段空间区位选择规律,推动具有创新能力和区域特色的中小企业集聚发展,成为协调区域经济发展的重要力量.     

企业特征、高管薪酬结构与企业绩效

利用2005—2010年我国沪深两市A股非金融保险行业1654家上市公司的高管年度薪酬数据,结合企业特征,对不同类型企业的高管薪酬结构与企业绩效的关系进行了实证研究,细化锦标赛理论和行为理论在不同类型企业中可能形成的差异化实施效应。结果显示:我国不同类型的企业都比较适宜采用锦标赛理论制定高管薪酬激励政策,竞争性的高管薪酬结构对于提升企业绩效具有正面作用,均等化高管薪酬结构不利于企业的价值创造;相对于民营企业、小规模企业、低成长企业而言,我国国有企业、大规模企业、高成长企业更宜采用锦标赛理论设计企业高管薪酬结构。因此我国不宜对非金融保险行业国有企业的高管薪酬进行过度均等化的管制,否则会负面影响企业绩效提升和企业价值创造。     

Regulation,Local Monopolies and Spatial Competition

Many regulated industries involve an oligopoly market structure. We examine optimal incentive regulation for a duopoly model of spatial competition when firms have private cost information. Market structure is endogenous as regulation determines market segments for firms and output distribution across consumers in each firm's market. By varying the assignment of consumers to firms, a relatively more efficient firm can be rewarded with a larger market, thus reducing quantity incentive distortions. We derive the optimal policy, assess the impact of asymmetric information relative to full information, and examine extensions to allow for ex ante asymmetries in firm structure.     

企业规模异质性与产业集聚：来自中国制造业的证据

基于中国制造业数据,本文检验了企业规模异质性与制造业地理集中的互动联系。研究表明企业规模因素对制造业地理集中具有显著影响。按素密集度对制造业的分类回归进一步表明,上述影响存在行业差异：劳动力与资源密集型行业的相关性不稳健,但资本技术密集型行业的结果是稳健的。这意味着资本技术密集型行业的企业规模分布具有地理集中倾向：大市场集中分布了更多大规模企业。这一结论表明制造业集聚具有规模异质性：小规模企业通过集聚经济,促进生产率提高形成制造业集聚,大规模企业则通过集中分布在大市场而形成制造业集聚。另外,从制造业集聚的驱动力量看,制造业集聚的强化效应与地区异质因素两股力量都在推动制造业地理集中,由此可以判断制造业集中趋势还将持续。     

中国制造业集聚的实证研究：基于企业规模异质性视角

本文基于中国制造业集聚的数据,从企业规模异质性视角出发,检验中国制造业集聚经济效应。首先考察影响制造业集聚的一般因素,然后重点考察了企业规模因素对集聚经济的影响机制。研究发现：除了运输成本优势、劳动力成本等影响制造业集聚的一般因素之外,企业规模异质性也对集聚经济效应产生影响。最后通过构造隐含企业规模因素的集聚经济新变量,对企业规模异质的集聚经济效应进行检验。本文的研究发现,小型企业的专业化经济和竞争效应大于大中型企业。这一结论不仅反映了不同规模企业对制造业集聚影响的差异,也说明了小型企业对制造业集聚的重要性。     

高技术产业军民共生模式与发展路径研究

高技术产业是国家军民融合发展的核心领域，构建完善有效的军民生态系统是助力军民融合有序发展、激发军民互动活力的基础。基于共生理论与Logistic增长理论，设计高技术产业军民共生系统框架，构建高技术产业军民共生演化方程。选取雷达及其配套设备制造业等典型产业，对其发展趋势进行拟合，并模拟和分析高技术产业军民共生的各类模式及参数。结果表明，1995—2019年，高技术产业主营业务收入与我国经济发展趋势总体协调，推进高技术产业军民共生发展需要激发新的增长活力。在高技术产业发展中，互惠共生是高技术产业军民共生模式生成新能量的主要模式，提高军民共生系数、扩大产业规模容量是提升军民共生能量层级的重要路径。在此基础上，从建设互惠共生交流机制、建设双向能量流动机制、优化互惠共生界面、扩大高技术产业容量、推动产业链协同5个方面凝炼推动高技术产业军民共生发展的对策建议。     

Firm growth and liquidity constraints: evidence from the manufacturing and service sectors in Italy

We use a large firm-level panel data set to analyse the relevance of liquidity constraints on firm growth in Italy. In most European countries, mainstream financial institutions are scantly able to provide affordable credit facilities to small firms. Thus, these firms are forced to finance their growth almost exclusively through retained earnings. We estimate a dynamic version of Gibrat-law, incorporating cash flow as a measure of financial constraints, for two different size classes within small and medium size enterprises and for several industries in manufacturing and service sectors. The findings show that, in general, small manufacturing firms have higher growth-cash flow sensitivities with respect to medium firms. Conversely, our results highlight, for the services, a significant heterogeneity in the impact of liquidity constraints on firm growth. In particular, the sensitivity of growth rates to the cash flow appears relatively high for small firms belonging to Knowledge Intensive Business Services. Validation of Gibrat-law in the services suggests that an important group of industries, with a superior capacity of encouraging firm’s competitiveness, need more financial resources to promote their growth and that of the manufacturing sectors with whom they are connected.     

INVENTOR PRODUCTIVITY AND FIRM SIZE: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA ON INVENTORS

It has long been recognized that worker wages and productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, economists have been interested in the efficiency of large firms in R&D enterprises. This paper uses inventor panel data to examine the relationship between inventor productivity and firm size in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In both industries, we find that inventors' productivity increases with firm size even after controlling for inventors' experience, education and other firm characteristics. We find evidence in the pharmaceutical industry that this is partly accounted for by differences in the way in which large and small firms organize R&D activities.     

Firm size distributions in an industry with constrained resources

We propose an equilibrium model for firm size distribution in an industry with a constrained essential input. The model applies when the population of firms is small and homogeneous and the supply of the necessary input factor is perfectly inelastic. We argue that although the Gibrat assumption obtains, this does not result in the lognormal distribution because of the entries, exits and mergers of firms competing for the inelastic essential resource. Using our own 32-year database of firms, we test the broken-stick, or random-ordered-interval, model that we call the Whitworth distribution, successfully applied by others to a number of data sets, including the abundances of bird species. We propose the Whitworth as the basic model of the equilibrium distribution of firm sizes for such supply-constrained industries, and find it fits our 31-year database best.     

The strategic nature of advertising in segmented markets

We develop a simple model in which firm-specific advertising has cooperative and predatory effects. Our model is set in a static market where firms are naturally segmented into two distinct submarkets: several large firms located in the core, with small firms operating as a fringe. We test the net effect of opposing market size (cooperative) and market share (predatory) effects of both fringe and core firm advertising on the advertising decisions of large firms in several US consumer industries. Empirically, fringe firm advertising leads to an increase in advertising efforts by large firms, implying strategic complementarity. On the other hand, increased advertising by core firms in an industry decreases advertising expenditures of other core firms, indicating they are strategic substitutes. Our findings imply that equilibrium levels of advertising can be greater with asymmetric, rather than symmetric, strategic interactions.     

STRATEGIC DEBT AND RJV COMPETITION*

Firms first choose their debt level, next form an RJV and choose R&D investment, and then choose output in Cornot competition. Through the use of debt, a firm commits an aggressive stance, a higher output level, and higher R&D investment, whereby the latter helps solve the free‐riding problem that usually exists in R&D studies. However, a firm in an unleveraged industry gains the highest profit, while a leveraged firm in an asymmetric industry (which achieves the highest profit in Brander and Lewis (1988)) gains the lowest profit. As a result, both firms using debt and both firms not using debt are the two equilibria, and the latter survives as a focal outcome. This is in sharp contrast to Brander and Lewis who find that both firms using debt is a prisoner's dilemma outcome.     

Firms and industries in evolutionary economics: lessons from Marshall, Young, Steindl and Penrose

Evolutionary economists have tended to assess firms and industries separately, neglecting the role of their interaction in the process of economic growth and development. We trace the separation of firms and industries to the introduction of population thinking in the discipline of industrial economics, including some broadly evolutionary analyses. If researchers conflate a population of firms with an industry, they introduce “thin” means of relating firms to one another and to industries. Despite his device of the ‘representative firm’, Marshall develops “thick” means of relating firms to industries by means of their internal and external organizations. Penrose avoids the notion of industry by focussing on heterogeneous and potentially mobile firms. Young and Steindl develop mundane explanations of firms’ relations within groups and locate the impetus for economic growth in a poorly understood environment. We conclude that evolutionary economists should revisit firms’ boundaries, not in the sense of explaining the existence of firms but in a relating and communicating sense in which boundaries signify the selective means of firms’ relationships.     

Interrelationship among foreign presence,domestic sales and export intensity in Chinese manufacturing industries

Using panel data on six Chinese manufacturing industries over the period 2005–2007, this article explores the interrelationship among foreign presence, domestic sales and export intensity of local firms. We find that the domestic sales and exports are complementary for local firms in China’s pharmaceutical industry, whereas in the case of the textile, transportation equipment, beverage, communication equipment and general equipment manufacturing industries, domestic sales and exports are substitutes. An increase in the average domestic sales increases foreign presence in all industries. The same applies to an increase in the average export intensity. An increase in the level of competition in China’s textile industry increases the export intensity as well as domestic sales of local textile firms. However, an increase in the level of competition in the pharmaceutical industry leads to a very large decrease in export intensity of local pharmaceutical firms. In the case of China’s transportation equipment manufacturing industry, an increase in the level of competition decreases domestic sales of local firms. Furthermore, an increase in the firm size increases domestic sales of Chinese firms in all six manufacturing industries.     

Chinese firm and industry reactions to antidumping initiations and measures

China has been the subject of large numbers of both antidumping initiations and measures. This article explores the reactions of Chinese firms and industries to these actions by using dynamic system GMM estimator and industrial panel data on all Chinese firms in the industry, foreign firms operating within China and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) for aggregated firms group between 1997 and 2007. We find that antidumping actions by developed and developing countries negatively impact industrial profits and employee and firm numbers and also exports, but improve labour productivity. We also find that different kinds of firms show different responses. All firms together in an industry react to antidumping the most, and foreign and SOE firms show a much smaller response. Further, antidumping effects from different countries are different. Developed countries’ antidumping actions have more negative impact than developing countries’ actions; the effects of US actions are different from the European Union’s.     

R&D subsidies in a model of growth with dynamic market structure

This paper presents the effects of an R&D subsidy in a Schumpeterian general equilibrium model with rich industry dynamics. R&D subsidies raise the long-run growth rate, but they also raise the level of industry concentration. In the model firms compete for market share through process R&D endogenously determining the market structure within and across industries. Endogeneity of the market structure allows for analysis of changes in the moments of the firm size distribution in response to policy. R&D subsidies primarily benefit large incumbent firms who increase their innovation rates creating a greater technological barrier to entry. Concentration increases with fewer firms and a higher variance in the market shares. In general equilibrium, the greater distortions in the product market cause the wage rate to fall which leads to increased turnover rates. In addition, the analysis demonstrates that the model captures a large number of empirical regularities described in the industrial organization literature, but absent from most endogenous growth models. These features, such as entering firms are small relative to incumbents, the hazard rate of exit is negatively related to firm size, and large firms spend more on R&D than small firms play important roles in understanding the impact of R&D subsidies on the economy.     

ASYMMETRIC MULTIPRODUCT FIRMS, PROFITABILITY AND WELFARE

In a differentiated multiproduct Cournot duopoly with linear demand, industry profit usually falls (even though concentration rises) when the distribution of products across firms becomes more asymmetric, if the products are not very differentiated or the total number of products is large. Consumer surplus and overall welfare always fall as the degree of asymmetry increases. These results contrast with the conventional wisdom on the effects of firm heterogeneity and the links between concentration and industry profits.     

Regulating away competition: the effect of regulation on entrepreneurship and employment

Many scholars have worried that regulation deters entrepreneurship because it increases the cost of entry, reduces innovation in the regulated industry, and benefits large firms because they can overcome the costs of complying with regulations more easily than smaller firms. Using novel data on the extent of US federal regulations by industry and data on firm births and employment from the Statistics of US Businesses, we run fixed effects regressions to show that more-regulated industries experienced fewer new firm births and slower employment growth in the period 1998–2011. Large firms may even successfully lobby government officials to increase regulations to raise their smaller rivals’ costs. We also find that regulations inhibit employment growth in all firms and that large firms are less likely to exit a heavily regulated industry than small firms.     

INEQUALITY,INCOMPLETE CONTRACTS,AND THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF BUSINESS FIRMS*

This article analyzes the effects of intrafirm bargaining on the formation of firms in an economy with imperfect capital markets and contracting constraints. In equilibrium, wealth inequality induces a heterogeneous distribution of firm sizes, allowing for firms both too small and too large in terms of technical efficiency. The findings connect well to empirical facts such as the missing middle of firm‐size distributions in developing countries. The model can encompass a nonmonotonic relationship between aggregate output and inequality. It turns out that an inflow of capital may indeed decrease output in absolute terms.     

The dynamics of market structure and firm-level adjustment to India's pro-market economic liberalizing reforms, 1988–2006: A Time Varying Panel Smooth Transition Regression (TV-PSTR) approach

This paper for the first time employs the Time Varying Panel Smooth Transition Regression (TV-PSTR) approach to model the dynamic adjustments of firms and the evolution of industrial structure in the bigger setting of decades against the backdrop of India's dramatic liberalizing reform starting from 1991. Using Indian manufacturing firm data, it finds that the transition of market structure and productivity after liberalization did follow a smooth transition process. Instead of the previously assumed instantaneous ‘big-bang’ shift just after reforms, it actually took years for the Indian manufacturing industries start to react to the reforms, and the transitional impact of reforms took approximately four to eight years to complete. There is strong evidence of increased competition after the transition, with shrinked returns to scale (RTS) in most industries except for leather and chemical industries. The results on total factor productivity (TFP) are mixed: most import-competing industries, which suffer most from the shrinking of market size experienced no change or decreasing TFP growth; whereas the export-oriented industry, as the industry which benefits most from economy of scale, enjoyed a huge TFP growth following the reforms.