The Impact of Collaborative Agreement on Firms' Performances: The Case of the IT Industry in the 1990s1

In the information technology (IT) industry, which confronted a major transition phase during the 1990s, partnerships became a strategic component of the new ‘divided technical leadership’ that emerged from the industry's vertical disintegration. This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of 1676 partnerships on the financial performance (revenue and profit) of 14 large firms and 725 of their partners. On average, there is a positive impact of collaborative agreements on large incumbents and their partners' financial performance. These results vary according to the type, form and content of the agreement and according to the partner's field of activity. Incumbents get the most benefit from broad informal alliances while smaller and more hierarchical forms of partnerships (consortia, joint-ventures) do profit to their partners. For large incumbents, partnerships are more effective with partners from the services industry than with partners from the IT industry.     

The impact of IT investment on firm performance in China: An empirical investigation of the Chinese electronics industry

Over the past three decades, the impact of information technology (IT) investments on firm performance has been the subject of active research. Although many studies have shown positive and significant benefits derived from IT investment, the findings of almost all these studies are based on data collected in developed countries. Few studies have been conducted to validate these results and to determine whether or not they are still applicable in developing countries. This study tries to investigate the effects of IT investment on firm financial performance in the electronics industry of China, still classified as a developing country, and compare it with the United States. Findings show that IT investment has a positive impact on firm performance in China. Moreover, the impact in China is not different from what occurred in the United States in terms of direction and the size against the assertion of previous studies and expectations.     

Information Technology and Productivity Changes in the Banking Industry

This paper analyses the effects of investment in information technologies (IT) in the financial sector using micro-data from a panel of 600 Italian banks over the period 1989–2000. Stochastic cost and profit functions are estimated allowing for individual banks' displacements from the best practice frontier and for non-neutral technological change. The results show that both cost and profit frontier shifts are strongly correlated with IT capital accumulation. Banks adopting IT capital-intensive techniques are also more efficient. On the whole, over the past decade IT capital-deepening contribution to total factor productivity growth of the Italian banking industry can be estimated in a range between 1.3 and 1.8 per cent per year.     

SPECIAL INTERESTS AND FINANCIAL LIBERALIZATION: THE CASE OF MEXICO

Financial liberalization is often believed to enhance economic growth. Yet in many cases a few powerful incumbents seem to capture most of the gains from the reform. In this paper, I construct a model with endogenous formation of special interest groups that could reap most of the benefits of financial liberalization. In particular, these groups lobby to limit entry by other firms, while taking advantage of improved borrowing opportunities. I then use the model to study the Mexican financial liberalization of 1988. Analysis of firm‐level panel data on manufacturing plants reveals patterns suggested by the model. Specifically, large firms in more concentrated or more corrupt sectors benefit more from liberalization. In addition, domestically owned firms gain more than firms with foreign ownership. I also propose a new way to measure corruption at the industry level based on the Mexican 10% profit sharing rule.     

我国流通企业赢利模式的创新研究

随着信息技术和信息处理能力的增强,以及新经济时代的来临,流通产业显露出了一些新特点,这些新特点给我国流通企业的发展带来了新的挑战与机遇。本文从流通企业的赢利模式角度来探讨在宏观经济环境发生较大变化的条件下,我国流通企业的发展对策。在分析流通产业的新特点、流通企业现有赢利模式不足等基础上,提出现代流通企业赢利模式创新思路,并就如何从传统赢利模式向现代流通企业赢利模式的转变提出了具体实现途径。     

The Role of Firms' Collaborative Agreements in the Information Technology Industry Transformation

While most articles on firm partnerships focus on the firm, the alliance or networks, we investigate the role of collaborative agreements during industrial transformation phases. Observation of a single industry, the Information Technology (IT) industry, shows that the growth of collaborative agreements formed by industry leaders in the early 1990s can be interpreted as an attempt to absorb a major industry shock characterized by vertical disintegration and the emergence of 'divided technical leadership'. Such firms have adopted collaborative agreements to maintain their leadership by controlling new entrants in the new industry segments that have resulted from the disintegration. Partnerships became a strategic component of the new 'divided technical leadership' market structure that emerged from the competitive crash of the early 1990s.     

The impact of compatibility on innovation in markets with network effects

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the relationship between compatibility and innovation in markets with network effects using a model of competition with endogenous R&D, commercialization and compatibility. Compatibility is a mutual decision between firms and demand is partially dependent on overall consumption across compatible networks. Incumbent acquisition of an innovation or profit from entry provides entrepreneurs with an incentive for developing technological improvements and entrepreneurs receive greater returns if larger incumbents offer compatibility with their installed base. But for sufficiently weak network effects a large incumbent increases demand for its own product by denying compatibility to rivals. As a result, a credible threat of incompatibility reduces the entrepreneur's reserve to sell an innovation, but can also increase offers from smaller incumbents to acquire the innovation if it also avoids an incompatibility response from a larger incumbent. In response, entrepreneurs adjust their research effort in order to target a favourable compatibility regime that maximizes profit from entry or offers to acquire the innovation from incumbents. This leads to a complex relationship between the strength of network effects, innovation incentives, the entrepreneur's ambition for improvement and potentially disrupting the compatibility regime.     

Private equity deal success and pre-acquisition determinants – empirical evidence from Germany

Shortly after a fall-back linked to recent financial crises, private equity investing has been undergoing a strong revival, especially in Germany. In a country known for the large number of small- and medium-sized companies, private equity investors can profit from a large choice of potential targets. Researchers have been broadly studying the field of private equity for many years, especially exploring post-investment value creation. But most articles missed to address the importance of pre-acquisition determinants such as target characteristics. Under these circumstances, this study focuses on exploring the relationship between pre-acquisition target characteristics and deal performance by analysing a sample of 125 transactions in Germany using an ordinal logistic regression analysis.

The findings suggest that asset lightness, management experience and the healthcare industry are positively linked to the deal success by increasing the likelihood of achieving a higher return category.

This implies that private equity investors active in Germany could outperform if they set according to investment preferences. Similarly, investors are likely to get a higher return from general partners who invest in companies presenting such characteristics.     

Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: The Role of Inflation Targeting

This article examines the relationship between Inflation targeting (IT) and financial instability from 1990 to 2015 for Asian economies. To measure financial instability, a multidimensional financial conditioning index is calculated following the ECB's approach. Using a fixed effects panel data model the study finds that adoption of IT policy in Asian economies has an adverse impact on financial stability, thus rejecting the ‘conventional wisdom’ hypothesis. Further, the Vector Autoregression (VAR) result shows that an IT regime increases housing returns and encourages investors to take higher risks.     

Large lending and banks performance. Is there any relationship? Empirical evidence from US banks

Large lending in the banking industry has sparked concerns about banks’ efficiency performance, particularly, if it is related to their credit risk, as trade credit, provided by large, creditworthy firms. We provide evidence of a rather neglected issue regarding the impact of large lending on banks’ efficiency using cost and profit stochastic functions. A unique dataset was constructed concerning all US banks collected from the Statistics on Depository Institutions report compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Our sample contains US banks tracked yearly for the period 2010–2017, creating an unbalanced panel of year observations. An econometric framework based on nested non-neutral frontiers was developed to estimate the influence and the decomposition of large lending on the three banks’ performance aspects. Moreover, different types of frontiers aiming at the cost and profit sides have been investigated, and the associated elasticities have been calculated. We notice that large lending plays a crucial role in banks’ technical efficiency. Variations among different frontier models, type of bank and size, banks’ ownership structure, and macroeconomic conditions appear to be present. By considering all capital adequacy asset quality management earnings liquidity parameters, we notice that banks’ financial strength affects banks’ efficiency.     

Optimal ownership in joint ventures with contributions of asymmetric partners

This paper addresses two questions concerning Joint Venture (JV) agreements. We first study the formation and the performance of a JV when the partners’ contribution has a different impact on the JV profits. Then, we check whether the JV is more likely as well as the welfare level improves when the decision on JV profit sharing among partners is delegated to an independent JV management (Management sharing) rather than jointly taken by partners (Coordinated sharing). We find that the firm whose effort has a higher impact on the JV’s profits should have a larger profit share. Moreover, at least in some cases, Management sharing increases both welfare and the probability that the JV is formed.      

梯度转移格局中的西部IT产业发展博弈分析

在金融危机的影响下,众多跨国IT企业更加注重以外包、合资、合作等形式实现产业的全球性战略转移。分析了信息产业转移与西部经济发展间的关系,总结了西部IT产业发展存在的问题,通过梯度转移格局中的西部IT产业发展复制进化学习博弈模型研究,发现西部地区在IT产业全球性转移的趋势中,尽可能地实现产业转移双方的合作共赢,努力增大产业转入方利益的同时,促进产业转入方的技术吸收、消化与再创新利益,有利于增强转入产业的根植性。     

非金融企业金融化后的财务绩效分析 ——来自中国制造业企业的实证研究

选取2007—2018年制造业上市公司的样本数据,分析制造业上市公司金融化程度对其自身财务绩效的影响.研究发现:上市公司进行金融化投资后,企业财务绩效表现变差;对制造业上市公司而言,其金融化投资水平越高,企业的财务绩效表现越差;无论是投资过度还是投资不足的实体企业,其金融化投资均与财务绩效显著负相关,而投资效率高的企业可以缓解制造业上市公司金融化带来的对财务绩效的影响.为了避免内生性问题,采用工具变量法、差分GMM和系统GMM模型对制造业上市公司金融化水平与财务绩效之间的关系进行回归检验,发现二者之间的负向关系依旧显著.为了确保本文研究结论的稳健性,改变了金融化测算方法,继续对制造业上市公司的金融化水平与财务绩效进行回归,研究结论依旧成立.     

企业数字化转型与财务绩效 ——来自上市公司数字专利数据的证据

作为“数字中国”战略的重要建设内容,企业数字化转型能否带来正向的财务回报,已成为业界重点关注问题。本研究以2010—2022年间中国A股上市公司为研究样本,创新性地使用上市公司数字技术专利拥有量来衡量数字化转型,并详细分析数字化转型对财务绩效的影响机制。研究发现：数字化转型可以有效地改善财务绩效,且该结论在经过稳健性检验后依旧成立;数字化转型通过提升运营效率、优化内部治理、降低经营风险和信息不对称、缓解融资约束来提升企业的财务绩效;大型企业转型程度越高,对财务绩效的促进作用越强。其无论是选择自主研发还是引进方式实现数字化转型,对财务绩效均具有显著的促进作用。而中小型企业数字化转型与财务绩效之间存在“倒U型”关系,其通过引进方式实现数字化转型更能促进财务绩效的提升;对于处于财务困境和竞争激烈环境中的企业,数字化转型对其财务绩效的促进作用将更加显著。此外,企业所处的外部环境越优越,这种促进作用也会越强。     

信息技术与国有商业银行产出率:一种实证分析

关于投资于信息技术是否会提高产出率的研究已有许多.这些研究大多集中产业层面和企业层面,而在企业层面的讨论更多是考察了制造业企业.本文则试图研究国有商业银行信息技术投资对产出率的作用.本文的结论是用于信息技术的投资并没有提高绩效而更多的是出于竞争目的的战略需要,分析的结果同时表明由于信息技术劳动有着巨大的投资回报,因此银行应该从重视信息技术资本投资转向重视信息技术劳动激励.     

RIGHT ON TARGET: EXPLORING THE FACTORS LEADING TO INFLATION TARGETING ADOPTION

This paper examines which economic, fiscal, external, financial, and institutional characteristics of countries affect the likelihood that they adopt inflation targeting (IT) as their monetary policy strategy. We estimate a panel binary response model for 60 countries and two subsamples consisting of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non‐OECD countries over the period 1985–2008. The findings suggest that past macroeconomic performance of a country, its fiscal discipline, exchange rate arrangements, as well as the structure and development of its financial system have a significant impact on the likelihood to adopt IT. However, the factors leading to IT adoption differ significantly between OECD and non‐OECD countries. (JEL E42, E52)     

The exceptional performance of Chinese outward direct investment firms

This paper finds that Chinese manufacturing firms that engage in outward foreign direct investment (ODI) have better economic performance than non-ODI manufacturing firms. Overall, ODI firms are more productive and have higher profitability than non-ODI firms. The sector analysis shows that the exceptional performance is significant for labor-intensive industries. Finally, the ODI activity can raise the productivity of other firms in an industry. The larger the ODI within an industry, the higher the productivity of all firms in that industry. The paper suggests that domestic firms set up their firm’s global strategy and reallocate the firm’s resources according to the changing investment environment, taking advantages of profit opportunities outside of domestic markets and invest abroad to get new markets and new technology.     

The socially responsible choice in a duopolistic market: A dynamic model of “ethical product” differentiation

The increasing attention of profit maximizing corporations to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new stylized fact of the contemporary economic environment. In our theoretical analysis we model CSR adoption as the optimal response of a profit maximizing firm to the competition of a not for profit corporate pioneer in the presence of a continuum of consumers with heterogeneous preferences towards the social and environmental features of the final good. CSR adoption implies a trade-off since, on the one side, it raises production costs but, on the other side, it leads to accumulation of “ethical capital”. We investigate conditions under which the profit maximizing firm switches from price to price and CSR competition by comparing monopoly and duopoly equilibria and their consequences on aggregate social responsibility and consumer welfare. Our findings provide a theoretical background for competition between profit maximizing incumbents and not for profit entrants in markets such as fair trade, organic food, ethical banking and ethical finance.     

商业银行财务绩效评价指标体系研究

运用因子分析法,检验了国际上185家上市银行的财务绩效.结果表明,盈利绩效、管理绩效和风险绩效三类主因子,可以衡量和解释商业银行的财务绩效水平,以此为基础,可以根据评价得分对现有商业银行进行绩效检验和排序.     

Performance and productivity in Islamic and conventional banks: Evidence from the global financial crisis

We assess the performance and productivity of Islamic and conventional banks using financial ratios, a two- and a four-component meta-frontier Malmquist productivity index (MPI). We focus on the relatively homogenous GCC region over the 2006–2012 period that covers the global financial crisis. We find that Islamic banks exhibit worse cost and profit performance but are on a par with regards to revenue performance compared to the conventional ones. The components of the meta-frontier MPI suggest that the technology of conventional banks improves markedly in years leading to the financial crisis and declines thereafter. Islamic banks show a similar but more muted pattern. By contrast, the pronounced within-Islamic bank group variation in technical efficiency and technology suggests that Islamic banks are quite heterogeneous as a group. Overall, the MPI analysis suggests that the two bank types are more aligned following the global financial crisis. Policy makers should be wary of the important variations within the Islamic banking industry when implementing bank regulations.