Size structure,stability and performance of the largest British and EEC firms

This paper indicates that industrial as wel' as aggregate concentration of the largest European firms is increasing. Inside the group itself, the British firms show a marked decline of their size superiority over the EEC firms and a lower survival rate. At performance level, the actual increase in economic concentration does bring inferior results in terms of profit and growth rates along with it. The main consequence of a larger size is to reduce the firm's exposure to risk as expressed by the coefficient of profit variation. Comparing the two groups, the effect of a lower British survival rate is strengthened by the fact that the surviving British firms grow systematically more slowly than the continental firms. On the other hand, the British firms have a higher rate of profit and a lower coefficient of profit variation.     

The largest European firms and their changing size structure: An entropy measure

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether size disparity among the 50 largest EEC and British industrial firms (in terms of assets) has changed from the period 1958 through 1969 and among the 100 largest firms from the period 1962 through 1969. The entropy measure has been selected because it can be decomposed into a within-group component and an among-group component. The main results of the study indicate that for the whole group,concentration has decreased over the period, but that a striking difference appears between the set of EEC firms characterized by a marked decline in relative concentration, and the set of British firms showing a relatively stable degree of concentration. Furthermore the differential growth of British and EEC firms appears clearly.     

Political control and performance in China's listed firms

The performance implications of the involvement of grassroots local party committees of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the decision making of China's listed firms are investigated. First, we show that the decision-making power of local party committees relative to the power of the largest shareholders is associated positively with firm performance. This result suggests that party control restrains the largest shareholders from expropriation but that the existing level of party control is insufficient to control the largest shareholders. Second, we show that the decision-making power of local party committees relative to managers is associated negatively with firm performance. This result suggests that the political costs associated with party control over managers are more detrimental to firm performance than are agency problems and that the existing level of party control over managers is excessive. On balance, our results indicate that the existing level of party control is excessive and that reducing the decision-making power of local party committees would improve the performance of China's listed firms. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 617–636.     

Distortions,efficiency and the size distribution of firms

We develop a model of firms’ growth in which the tax and credit environments act as selection mechanisms. Such a model, parametrized and validated using a variety of data restrictions, can rationalize observations about input choices and size patterns typical of many developing countries. Using counterfactual experiments, we show that firms’ optimal responses to the tax environment are effective in reducing efficiency losses. As a consequence, tax distortions only account for 13% of the gap in output per worker between an undistorted economy and the benchmark. Credit constraints account for 44% of this gap. However, the interaction between the cost of capital and credit constraints appears to be the most important source of misallocation and can explain up to 85% of the difference in output per worker between the benchmark and first-best.     

Relatedness and coherence in technological and product diversification of the world's largest firms

The present paper investigates relatedness and coherence with reference to both product and technological diversification. In particular, it is argued that: (i) relatedness can be disentangled into three dimensions: industry-, technology- and firm-specific; and that (ii) coherence refers to both product and technological diversification. We provide empirical support of our premises with a study of a large cross-firm panel of technological and economic activity for 248 large firms over the period 1977–1995. The results support the view that large firms’ diversification processes are characterised by product-based coherence at the beginning of the period considered, and by technology-based coherence more recently.     

Risk aversion,innovation and performance in family firms

An analysis of the effect of family governance on the relationships among risk aversion, innovation and performance is the purpose of this study. Beyond the level of risk and innovation, we are interested in analysing the relationship between them and their influence on performance in family firms. Traditionally, risk-seeking has been associated with innovation and performance. Our results confirm both components to be independent and, furthermore, show relationships with opposite signs as expected in the literature. In a sample of 500 firms, the results confirm an idiosyncratic behaviour in family firms; innovation contributes to performance to a higher extent in family firms, and at the same time, risk aversion is positively associated with performance only in non-family firms.     

Interest rate,size and book-to-market effects in Australian financial firms

The Fama–French three-factor model (1993) has been extensively used to study the pricing of nonfinancial stocks. This study provides the first examination of the pricing of Australian financial stocks using the Fama–French framework. The four-factor model (market, size, book-to-market and momentum) augmented with the level, slope and curvature of the interest rate term structure is used to examine the pricing of Australian financial stocks. The interest rate factors have not been previously considered for pricing Australian stocks within the Fama–French framework. Consistent with US evidence, we use a system-based estimation to show that the size and book-to-market factors are not priced in the cross section of the equity returns of Australian financial stocks. Momentum and term spread are priced in the equity returns of both financial and nonfinancial stocks. These findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables such as default spread, the inflation rate and a dummy variable for the global financial crisis.     

Size distributions and the optimal size of firms

Conclusions We have assumed a specific statistical process which governs the competition among firms on the market.This process assumes that the consumer choice in the market is the decisive factor in determining size distributions. There are clearly many other relations e. g. between firms that are important for the process. We have assumed that they are of minor importance.We have assumed that the size distribution has reached an equilibrium and it is this equilibrium that we have studied. This is at best only true approximately. An extension of the presentation above would be to study non-equilibrium situations (open systems) which has proved to be fruitful in other contexts.     

An evolutionary model of the size distribution of firms

An analytical study of the evolution of the distribution of firm size in an industry is presented. A drift-diffusion model is proposed to express the time-evolution of density of firm size within the industry. The model blends the conventional, more or less static, determinants with the kinds of dynamic considerations introduced by stochastic processes of evolutionary dynamics. The steady-state distribution as well as the dynamic behavior of the model are derived. Parameters in the resulting analytical expressions are then fit to a population of firms in the non-manufacturing service sector. The empirical portion of the paper validates the proposed evolutionary model.     

The industry life-cycle of the size distribution of firms

This paper analyzes the evolution of the distributions of output and employment across firms in U.S. manufacturing industries from 1963 until 1997. The firm size distribution changes significantly as an industry goes through stages of its life-cycle. The evolutions of the employment and output distributions also differ significantly, but display strong inter-industry regularities, including that the nature of the evolution depends on whether the industry is experiencing growth, shakeout, maturity, or decline. The observed patterns have implications for theories of industry dynamics and evolution.     

Location,internationalization and performance of firms in Italy: a multilevel approach

Competition is increasingly global. However, location still matters: often firms cluster in the same geographic areas in order to exploit locational externalities and improve their competitiveness. This article analyses how Italian firms' performance, proxied by their propensity to export, depends both on geographical and institutional context and on individual characteristics. Using a multilevel approach, we estimate and distinguish the effect of individual (firm level) and context (province level) variables on the performance of internationalized Italian firms. We show that both firms and province heterogeneity shape the results.     

Economic performance,government size,and institutional quality

This paper studies the empirical link between government size, institutions and economic activity using a panel of 140 countries over 40 years. Our results, robust under different econometric techniques, show mostly a negative effect of government size on output, while institutional quality has generally a positive impact. Moreover, the detrimental effect of government size on economic activity is stronger the lower institutional quality, and the positive effect of institutional quality on output increases with smaller government sizes.     

Voluntary zero-dividend paying firms: characteristics and performance

We investigate the characteristics of ‘voluntary zero dividend paying’ firms and their subsequent performance. We define NDR_HP (no dividends or repurchases, with high profitability) firms as those with profits above the industry median and yet pay out zero dividends (including share repurchases). Signalling, agency, residual dividend, and life cycle theories explain firm characteristics and dividend payouts, to which we add the novel variables CEO overconfidence and market competition. We discover that growth opportunity, capital expenditure, and CEO overconfidence are positively related to NDR_HP. In addition, we find that the NDR_HP group outperforms all other groups in terms of future performance.     

Industry specific effects in investment performance and valuation of firms

A necessary criterion for a performance measure in corporate governance is the degree to which it mirrors how well the management succeeds in maximizing firm value. Such a performance measure is marginal q which links changes in firm value to the investments undertaken by the management. Empirical studies of investment and performance based on marginal q have demonstrated the usefulness of this measure. Most research however, has mainly focused on long-term performance. This paper takes a short-term perspective and, based on the marginal q-theory, considers how firms’ market values change in the extreme stock price cycle of a stock market bubble. Using a data set of listed Swedish corporations we find an anomaly in form of a new industry specific effect that, in addition to investment, explains changes in firm value.

Vertical integration,escalating commitment and technological performance: evidence from firms in the US computer industry

We set out in this study to analyse the impact on the technological performance of firms arising from their vertical integration, along with their escalating commitment to capital investment. Our findings reveal a positive relationship between vertical integration and the technological performance of such firms. A positive correlation is also found to exist between vertical integration and escalating commitment to capital investment; in other words, a firm's rising commitment to its capital investment may well strengthen the positive effects of vertical integration on the technological performance of the firm. More importantly, the interactive effects on technological performance will tend to differ, largely dependent on the type of vertical integration. The findings of this study also indicate that vertical integration can effectively neutralise the threat to exit barriers resulting from a firm's escalating commitment to its prior investment.     

Vertical alliance portfolios and the business performance of small technology-based firms

This paper discusses how small technology-based firms (STBFs) effectively manage vertical alliances by choosing proper alliance structures to both manage challenges and pursue higher performance. We consider the main challenges of STBFs’ vertical alliances as opportunistic risk and coordination concern between partners, and derive four types of vertical alliance portfolios with different extents of risk and return based on the relational perspective. We then examine the impact of each portfolio on performance and the moderating effect of STBFs’ age and technological capability. The results show the portfolio focusing on bilateral alliances is not helpful for STBFs, while the others are useful. The portfolio focusing on unilateral alliances promises young firms better performance, while hybrid portfolios of unilateral and bilateral alliances are more helpful for older STBFs. In hybrid portfolios, bilateral alliance in the upstream is beneficial to specific technology-focused firms, while bilateral alliance in the downstream is recommended to STBFs whose technology covers a wider range.     

Political connections, financing and firm performance: Evidence from Chinese private firms

This paper examines the role of affiliation with the ruling Communist Party in the operation of private enterprises in China. Using a nationwide survey of private firms, we find that the Party membership of private entrepreneurs has a positive effect on the performance of their firms when human capital and other relevant variables are controlled. We further find that Party membership helps private entrepreneurs to obtain loans from banks or other state institutions, and affords them more confidence in the legal system. Finally, we find Party membership to be more important to firm performance in regions with weaker market institutions and weaker legal protection.     

Industry diversity and its impact on the innovation performance of firms

This paper investigates empirically the impact of diversity on the innovation performance of a firm. We created a measure for diversity that mirrors differences in the resource base of firms within an industry and tested its impact in addition to more traditional factors such as technology-push, demand-pull, and firm-size, based on panel data stemming from three representative cross sectional surveys carried out in the years 1996, 1999, and 2002, respectively. In fact, diversity has a significant positive impact on the innovation intensity of firms and thus supports more theoretical findings in this area. We also find empirical evidence for the technology push and the demand pull hypotheses, as well as the importance of competition for innovation.     

市场结构、流通能力与我国农产品流通企业扩张绩效

通过对企业扩张影响因素全面的理论梳理,构建一个新的企业扩张行为分析模型,可以认为企业扩张行为并非是外部因素决定的,企业扩张行为绩效的决定是内部性的.在这一企业扩张新假设条件下,企业在竞争中的能力的积累是流通企业扩张行为取得绩效的根本来源.运用这个模型对中国农产品企业扩张问题进行实证研究,从而对我国农产品流通企业扩张的合理化提出相关建议.