A study on the role of guanxi in entrepreneurship and employment

This paper examines the role of guanxi in influencing the decision of an individual to be an entrepreneur facing a risky technology or to become a worker facing an unemployment rate. Individuals are assumed to vary in terms of the strength of their established guanxi that could be utilized either to lower the set-up cost as entrepreneurs or to secure jobs as workers. Compared with the case where guanxi can only be used to reduce the individual's set-up cost to become an entrepreneur, it is shown that if guanxi can also help a worker find a job, then whether the employment rate might be improved or worsened will depend on the absolute risk aversion that is increasing or decreasing in income.     

Increasing returns,entrepreneurship and imperfect competition

We study a simple bilateral oligopoly model in which individual agents, who are initially endowed with capital, decide sequentially (1) whether they want to act as producers (entrepreneurs) or as capital lenders (rentiers) and, then (2) which quantity of capital they would like to borrow or lend, though exchange of capital units against units of the produced good. Production takes place under increasing returns to scale. We show the existence of “natural equilibria”, at which wealthier capital owners become entrepreneurs while the remaining ones decide to be rentiers. We also study the efficiency of equilibria which is shown to increase by replication of the economy, but sometimes to decrease as a consequence of wealth redistribution.We thank an anonymous referee for his insightful comments     

Bitcoin and entrepreneurship: breaking the network effect

This paper explores the question of whether the market process is capable of bringing about a spontaneous monetary switch to a new currency in the presence of strong network effects of the incumbent currency as well as the absence of contingencies such as extreme inflation or political instability. It does so by examining current happenings around Bitcoin. It finds that two mechanisms stand out: the coordinating efforts of the profit-maximizing entrepreneur as well as the ability to use the old and the new currency simultaneously. Specifically, it finds that marginal decisions made by rational agents merely seeking to maximize net private benefit irrespective of the network effect, be it entrepreneurs or users of the new currency, are capable of setting in motion a switch to a new currency. Whether or not these mechanisms play out fully in the case of Bitcoin still remains to be seen.     

Tax competition and the political economy of public employment: a model for Austria

In this work, we simulate the effects of the tax autonomy of the Austrian states on the levels of public employment in each state. We show that depending on the strength of the public sector lobby, tax autonomy would require a reduction of employment in the public sector of between 25 and 35% of the current level. We also show that tax autonomy increases welfare levels by 1–1.5%; that is, the positive change in the disposable income of the workers more than offsets the welfare loss resulting from the lower provision of public goods. Finally, we show that the reduction of public employment is superior in terms of welfare to an alternative scenario in which employment levels are held constant but the wage levels in the public sector are adjusted.     

Financial markets and firm size: The role of employment protection laws and barriers to entrepreneurship

This article provides evidence on the institutional determinants of firm size for the period 1980–1998. Using a comprehensive longitudinal database across 29 industrial sectors in 15 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, we study how labour regulations and barriers to entrepreneurship (BE) affect industrial organization in the presence of capital market frictions. We show that strict employment protection laws (EPL) and high BE negatively affect firm size in sectors that are more dependent on external funds. Our findings demonstrate that the interaction between market regulations and financial market imperfections help to explain some of the differences in firm structure across countries.     

Entry regulation and entrepreneurship: a natural experiment in German craftsmanship

This paper uses the 2004 amendment to the German Trade and Crafts Code as a natural experiment for assessing the causal effects of this reform on the probabilities of being self-employed and of transition into and out of self-employment. This is achieved by using repeated cross-sections (2002–2009) of German microcensus data. I apply the difference-in-differences technique for three groups of craftsmen which were subject to different intensities of treatment. The results show that the complete exemption from the educational entry requirement has fostered self-employment significantly by substantially increasing the entry probabilities, while exit rates have remained unaffected. I find similar, though weaker relative effects for the treatment groups that were subject to a reduction of entry costs or a partial exemption from the entry requirements. Moreover, I consider effect heterogeneity within each of the treatment groups with respect to gender and vocational training, and show that the deregulation of entry requirements has been most effective for untrained workers.     

Prices versus quantities: environmental regulation and imperfect competition

By exercising market power, a firm will distort the production, and therefore the emissions decisions, of all firms in the market. This paper examines how the welfare implications of strategic behavior depend on how pollution is regulated. Under an emissions tax, aggregate emissions do not affect the marginal cost of polluting. In contrast, the price of tradable permits is endogenous. I show when this feedback effect increases strategic firms’ output. Relative to a tax, tradable permits may improve welfare in a market with imperfect competition. As an application, I model strategic and competitive behavior of wholesalers in a Mid-Atlantic electricity market. Simulations suggest that exercising market power decreased emissions locally, thereby substantially reducing the regional tradable permit price. Furthermore, I find that had regulators opted to use a tax instead of permits, the deadweight loss from imperfect competition would have been even greater.     

Effect of public procurement regulation on competition and cost-effectiveness

Journal of Regulatory Economics - This study empirically investigates the impact of public procurement regulation quality on the competition for tenders and the cost-effectiveness of awarded...     

Ramsey pricing and competition: The consequences of myopic regulation

This paper addresses the welfare consequences of applying the Ramsey rule when the regulated firm is not a monopolist in all of its markets. The partially regulated optimum and the outcome of myopic regulation, the Short-Sighted Ramsey Equilibrium (SSRE), are examined in a differentiated duopoly model. In the optimum, the markup of competitive substitute goods is relatively high. In the SSRE, the regulator is likely to set the price of competitive substitute goods lower than optimal, and complementary goods higher than optimal. Strategic reactions by a competitor may reverse the result.I thank Kenneth Train, Michael Crew (the editor), seminar participants at the University of California, Berkeley, and an anonymous referee for comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Culture and innovation: The moderating effect of cultural values on corporate entrepreneurship

In the few last decades researchers have paid attention to the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in productivity, employment, and economic and social development. In addition, literature has focused on the entrepreneurship that occurs within organizations, such as corporate entrepreneurship. Also, the role of culture is crucial for the development of innovation. Consequently, it is vital to understand why some firms are more innovative and develop more entrepreneurial projects than others, and what determines innovation performance. This research uses Institutional Economics as a conceptual framework with the objective of analyzing the environmental factors that condition innovation within the firms. Specifically, the study determines the moderating effect of cultural values on corporate entrepreneurship. The study uses a logistic regression and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – GEM – database from the years 2004–2008, with information of 62 different countries (718.758 observations). The main findings highlight the impact of the environmental factors on organizational innovation, specifically on corporate entrepreneurship. Variables such as living in an entrepreneurial culture and media exposure (informal factors), and the number of procedures necessary to create a new business or access to finance (formal factors), appear to be significant for corporate entrepreneurship. Moreover, informal factors behave as moderators between formal factors and corporate entrepreneurship. The article has several implications from both theoretical perspective (advancing in the application of Institutional Economics for the study of innovation within the firms) and from the practical point of view (providing insights for governmental policies interested in fostering innovation and corporate entrepreneurship).     

Quality competition,welfare, and regulation

In this paper, we study the supply of quality in imperfectly competitive markets, and explore the role of regulation in markets where firms may use both quality and price to compete for customers. In a model where firms first choose qualities and then prices, we find that quality decisions have strategic effects: firms react to quality disadvantages by price reductions. Because of this strategic effect, firms do not have the correct incentive to set socially efficient quality levels. Price and quality competition results in a socially suboptimal quality level. Efficiency can be restored by lump-sum transfers and price regulatory policies. Simple price regulation may result in lower price and higher quality.We thank Nicholas Economides, Randall Ellis, Thomas McGuire, Michael Riordan, and Monika Schnitzer for discussing various issues in this research with us. We are also grateful to a referee for helpful comments and suggestions. The first author acknowledges support from the Management Science Group, Department of Veterans Affairs at Bedford, Massachusetts. The ideas here do not represent those of the Department of Veterans Affairs.     

The employment effect of reforming a public employment agency

By how much does an increase in operating effectiveness of a public employment agency (PEA) and a reduction of unemployment benefits reduce unemployment? Using a recent labour market reform in Germany as background, we find that an enhanced effectiveness of the PEA explains about 20% of the observed post-reform unemployment decline. The role of unemployment benefit reduction explains just about 5% of the observed decline. Due to disincentive effects resulting from the reform, the reform of the PEA could have had an even higher impact on unemployment reduction if there had been less focus on long-term unemployed workers.     

The effect of competence exploration and competence exploitation on strategic entrepreneurship

Strategic entrepreneurship captures firms’ efforts to simultaneously excel at opportunity seeking and advantage seeking. But little research exists into mechanisms that might facilitate strategic entrepreneurship. Drawing on the twin concepts of competence exploration and competence exploitation, we study their effects on strategic entrepreneurship. Theoretically, the entrepreneurial components of strategic entrepreneurship (an entrepreneurial mindset and creating innovation) should benefit from competence exploration while its strategic components (managing resources strategically and executing competitive advantages) should benefit from competence exploitation, but not vice-versa. Our findings, however, suggest that this theoretical dichotomy does not hold up in practice.     

Technical change and employment under imperfect competition with perfect and imperfect information

We consider the implications of process innovation for the aggregate level of employment of assuming that not all firms adopt new technologies simultaneously and that non-innovators adopt (temporarily)disequilibrium strategies (due to imperfect information about the introduction of the new technology). Two alternative scenarios are explored. In one, consumers' demands arise from symmetric homothetic preferences, and in the other from asymmetric (Hotelling-type) preferences. We find that there may be a reduction in employment in the transition to the new equilibrium under both types of preferences even if there is no decrease (or an increase) in the new (long-run) equilibrium level of employment. The conditions under which this will occur are however different for the alternative preference structures. Further, the latter are shown to have different implications for theequilibrium effects of process innovation.     

The effects of regulation and competition on the price of AT&T intrastate telephone service

Using data on AT&T intrastate toll prices, this study examines the effect of changing regulatory practices and increased competition on AT&T pricing behavior in the intrastate long-distance telecommunications industry. The results suggest that, with some qualification, the price of AT&T telephone service is lower in states which have the longest history of departure from rate-of-return regulation. Moreover, the regulatory climate has a far more significant effect on AT&T prices than does competition. The paper outlines several possible explanations for these results.     

Network costs and the regulation of wholesale competition in electric power

We characterize the cost function for electric power transmission. It is complex and non-linear, exhibiting scale economies over its range. The social planning problem for network transmission expansion is illustrated with a simple numerical example. The regulatory problem for joint generation and transmission cost minimization is addressed. It is shown that information asymmetries about the transmission cost function can lead to coordination losses when there is competition in the generation segment. We parametrize the tradeoff between potential coordination losses in transmission planning and benefits of competition and examine some potential alternatives for improved regulation of the transmission planning process.