How the Internet Promotes China's Exports: A Firm‐level Perspective

The development of information and communications technology (ICT), particularly the Internet, has reduced trade costs. However, it remains unclear whether these reduced costs are reflected in the “extensive margins” of firms’ exports (which refer to the probability of firms exporting) or the “intensive margins” (which refer to the value of firms’ export). To test this, we used the concepts of information cost and binary margins, an augmented trade model of firm heterogeneity, a two‐stage Heckman estimation, and data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey of Chinese firms in 2012. The results revealed that reduced trade costs from the use of ICT were positively related to extensive margins but that the connection with intensive margins was not significant. The results lead to the conclusion that reduced information costs related to a firm's exporting behavior were primarily reflected in variable trade costs. This study offers theoretical and empirical evidence for China's policies towards the Internet, which are relevant for the export of manufactured goods. The government should encourage the use of ICT to enhance firms’ export opportunities while facing current trade policy uncertainty.     

REGIONAL ANTI‐CORRUPTION EFFORT,POLITICAL CONNECTIONS AND FIRM INNOVATION EFFORT: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

This paper examines how firm characteristics and local anti‐corruption effort moderate the influence of political connections on enterprises’ private R&D investment using data from 2,587 Chinese A‐share listed enterprises. Our results show that the local anti‐corruption institutional environment significantly moderates the strong relationship between political connections and enterprises’ private R&D investment. Firm characteristics (i.e., firm size and firm age) also show a moderating effect on the relationship between political connection and enterprises’ private R&D investment; larger and older enterprises are more likely to have innovative resources and business cooperation partners, and thus are able to reduce their degree of reliance on political connections and government funding. The results of our study suggest the importance of having a transparent and fair institutional environment for enterprise innovation activities.     

A multivariate time series analysis of energy consumption,real output and pollutant emissions in a developing economy: New evidence from Nepal

Mountain economies will have to play a central role in attaining the global pursuit of green economic growth as crucial bearers of ecosystems goods and services. However, these economies are not adequately represented in the development policy debates in spite of their fundamental importance towards global sustainable development. This study examines the inter relationships between energy consumption, output and carbon emissions in a developing mountainous economy using an augmented Vector Autoregression model. Time-series data over the period 1975–2013 is studied applying a multivariate framework using population and gross fixed capital formation as additional variables for Nepal. Testing for Granger causality between integrated variables based on asymptotic theory reveals a long-run unidirectional Granger causality running from GDP to energy consumption, and a unidirectional Granger causality running from carbon emissions to GDP. We suggest that the government of Nepal can address energy poverty by accelerating the adoption energy conservation policies such as rationing energy consumption and energy efficiency improvements to narrow the energy supply-demand gap. The opportunity to promote the uptake of decentralised off-grid renewable technologies in remote areas and the large scale development of hydropower at the national level also needs to be prioritized. Our results remain robust across different estimators and contributes to an emerging literature on the nexus relationships between energy consumption, income and carbon emissions in mountainous developing economies.     

The effect of cash holdings on firm performance in large Italian companies

This paper examines the relationship between cash holdings and performance in Italy over 36 years. Specifically, in light of the presence of conflicting evidence concerning the worth of cash stock, which could lead to a positive effect rather than a negative one, the role of moderating factors that can shape the magnitude of this relationship is investigated. The results show that the value of cash holdings is affected by firm‐specific characteristics, as well as factors related to the institutional context. Although other studies have analyzed moderators one at a time, this is the first work to consider how they jointly work. When the moderators are considered together, some of them become no longer statistically significant while others become even more economically and statistically relevant.     

股权金融市场、增长方式选择与平衡增长：传统与新兴部门视角*

为探究股权金融市场对增长方式选择和平衡增长的影响，本文基于传统与新兴部门的差异，构建动态理论模型并利用“Simulink”技术进行数值模拟分析。理论分析发现股权金融市场效率对平衡增长具有增长效应且存在门槛条件，效率高于门槛值时股权金融市场发展将提高平衡增长率和创新贡献率。总体上，发展股权金融市场将促进我国平衡增长和增长方式转变，但东、西部地区存在差异，发展股权市场可以加快东部地区创新型增长而对西部地区没有显著作用。     

Picking cherries or lemons: A unified theory of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions

This article provides a theoretical framework that enhances understanding of empirical evidence suggesting that international mergers and acquisitions, a key source of foreign direct investment, seemingly target in‐country firms that are at the extremes of the productivity spectrum—either high‐productivity firms, so‐called cherries, or low‐productivity firms, the “lemons.” The framework demonstrates that foreign firms with intermediate inputs seek high‐productivity domestic firms, while foreign firms with managerial expertise seek low‐productivity domestic firms. We also show that because of the difference in available outside options, high‐productivity domestic firms can demand a significantly higher portion of profits in the partnership than low‐productivity domestic firms.     

Aid,policies and growth: a nonlinear reassessment

ABSTRACT

The association between foreign aid and growth has been controversial for decades and the evidence is quite mixed with results sensitive to data samples and modelling approaches. We reassess the relationship between aid, policy and growth implementing a novel semiparametric estimation method that allows for nonlinearities and controls for endogeneity. The results show that the aid-policy-growth relationship is complex. Aid inflows do not seem growth-enhancing, except at very high levels (above 7% of Aid/GDP), whereas the effect may arrive with a lag at lower levels. Policy improvements are positively correlated with growth at high policy levels (above the median value) but better policies do not increase aid effectiveness.     

Financial crises,debt overhang,and firm growth in transition economies

ABSTRACT

We examine the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European debt crisis of 2011 on the relationship between capital structure, investments, and performance for Eastern European companies. While the existing literature documents how firms’ investments are sensitive to the availability of internal funds and to debt holdings, we further investigate whether this investment sensitivity also translates in different levels of performance, and document that capital structure indeed has both a direct and an indirect effect, mediated by the capital expenditure channel. We show that firms with higher financial flexibility experience higher investments and returns on capital. Over-levered firms instead suffer from a debt overhang condition, forcing them to curb investments, and consequently experiencing lower performance. Overall, we provide evidence on the importance of capital structure and financial flexibility on investments and performance, showing the real consequences of the debt overhang condition on firm value creation. Firms should therefore aim at maintaining adequate financial flexibility in order to be able to pursue future profitable investment opportunities, and avoid the under-investment problem arising from a debt overhang situation.     

Digital Platforms and the Nature of the Firm

Abstract:

Digital platforms turn traditional approaches of the firm, which relied on the wage relation to explain the major difference between firm and market, upside down and underline the advantages of coordination through organization over coordination through market. This study aims to propose a definition of the firm able to integrate, besides the integrated firm, also hybrid forms such as networks of subcontractor/subcontracting firms as well as atypical forms such as digital platforms. By reactivating the firm-boundary problem, this article suggests putting valorization by labor at the heart of the firm’s decisions concerning integration. It suggests therefore a general definition of the firm as a techno-institutional center of capital valorization, provided that firms make profits by means of the appropriation of labor incorporated into their (productive, structural, intellectual) capital through institutional arrangements. By stressing the relation of production between the owners of the means of production and the direct producers, the approach of the firm supported here should allow to cover the different existing models of the firm, from the classical firm to hybrid models, around which the boundary debate has revolved, to digital platforms.     

Autocatalytic Growth and Development and the South-North Convergence

Abstract:

This article engages with the issue of income convergence between North and South by using the autocatalytic hypothesis of growth and development. Two system models describe positive and negative feedback loops which govern economic flows between North and South. The analysis of endogenous and exogenous negative feedbacks points to the process that would slowly push the world economy towards vanishing growth rates and, eventually, halt its material growth. The present work rejects convergence in per capita GDP between North and South from the theoretical perspective. Such an outcome would stand against one of the fundamental properties of autocatalytic dynamics—centripetality— that has its causal roots in the competitive process and capitalist institutions. In that sense, the autocatalytic hypothesis provides a theoretical explanation for those empirical analyses that dismisses convergence.