Direct investment in Asia by German small and medium-sized enterprises

The tremendous importance of small and medium-sized enterprises within the German economy is repeatedly stressed in policy discussions. That makes the disproportionately low level of involvement by SMEs in the Asian growth region stand out all the more prominently. What are the factors inhibiting greater involvement? What form ought promotion programmes for SMEs to take?     

A general equilibrium model of bilateral trade with strategic public investment in commercial infrastructure

We explore how public investment in commercial infrastructure affects the composition of trade between countries. To this end, we develop a model of bilateral trade in which two countries produce, consume, and trade a continuum of goods. Goods are produced by a single homogeneous factor, labor, the productivity of which depends on the quality of the country’s commercial infrastructure, broadly conceived to encompass transportation, communication, and power transmission networks; regulatory and legal institutions; and basic research and educational systems. Countries may improve the quality of their commercial infrastructures through increased public investment. However, returns on these investments are constrained by fixed ‘natural’ endowments, with the better-endowed country enjoying greater labor productivity for a given level of public investment. We begin by analyzing optimal investment in public infrastructure in one country when public investment by the trading partner is fixed. We find that, ceteris paribus, greater public investment in commercial infrastructure raises general labor productivity, leading to gains in workers’ real income. We then analyze a non-cooperative game in which both countries strategically vary public investment in commercial infrastructure. We find that, in a Nash game, the better-endowed country optimally spends more on infrastructure and produces the goods requiring the greatest labor productivity. However, in a Stackelberg game, the results are ambiguous. An empirical analysis based on recent international trade data supports our theoretical finding that investment in public infrastructure is positively related to the export of ‘high-end’ goods.     

Private equity investment decisions in family firms: The role of human resources and agency costs

This study examines decision making criteria that are employed by private equity (PE) investors selecting family firms. Hypotheses test the likelihood of investment based on family firm characteristics. Findings show that PE professionals take into account family-specific criteria, including human resources and opportunities to reduce agency costs. Furthermore, PE professionals prefer family firms that are already professionalized. This research contributes to the family firm literature on both a theoretical and a methodological level, exploring nonfamily succession routes and employing techniques— conjoint analysis for data collection and multilevel models for data analysis— that have seldom been used in this context.     

Lifetime investment and consumption with recursive preferences and small transaction costs

We investigate the effects of small proportional transaction costs on lifetime consumption and portfolio choice. The extant literature has focused on agents with additive utilities. Here, we extend this analysis to the archetype of nonadditive preferences: the isoelastic recursive utilities proposed by Epstein and Zin.     

Assessment of the public tools used to promote R&D investment in Spanish SMEs

In this paper, we identify the potential determinants of firm R&D to understand the effectiveness of public policies. Our results suggest a considerably low impact of tax credits and public grants on the R&D investment of the Spanish manufacturing firms. Tax credits are mainly considered by large firms that use them as a reduction in the tax burden in the corporate tax, while SMEs use public grants to alleviate financial constraints. This evidence leads to discuss alternatives to the current design of the public policies analyzed.     

The aftermarket performance of small firm initial public offerings

The dream of many entrepreneurs is to some day take his or her growing small firm public and, to thereby become the CEO of a publicly-traded corporation. Currently, entrepreneurs are continuing to utilize initial public offerings (IPOs), as a viable source of venture financing. IPOs also represent a viable mechanism for harvesting venture capital and entrepreneurial investments. The touted entrepreneurial benefits of taking a company public include the abilities to borrow additional funds; return to the public equity market; negotiate mergers without depleting cash; the potential for enhanced personal wealth and so forth. Investors in small firm public equity issues are often motivated by the potential for discovering another Apple Computer, or perhaps an IBM at the “ground floor.”This study empirically examines the aftermarket returns of small publicly-held firms that have issued initial public offerings. Aftermarket returns refers to stock returns immediately after a stock begins trading. The study specifically examines two questions. First, “Is there a positive risk-return relationship for small firm aftermarket returns, where higher firm risk will generate higher aftermarket return?” Second, “Will aftermarket returns show on industry effect, where certain industries will automatically generate higher returns?” Answers to these questions will affect the strategic financial alternatives available to entrepreneurs both before and after going public and, will also affect the decisions of investors interested in financing small public corporations.The research findings indicate that entrepreneurs planning to take younger firms public will probably not have available to them numerous subsequent financial alternatives, utilizing corporate stock, if the true aftermarket performance of their stock is taken into consideration. Likewise, investors in small firm public issues may also be disappointed in the aftermarket performance of younger firms. A positive risk-return relationship, where age was a proxy measure of risk, did not exist. This was true even though the initially quoted returns of these same younger firms may have been substantial. On the other hand, the aftermarket performance of older firms is typically favorable.Finally, the study suggests that neither entrepreneurs nor investors should bet solely on a particular industry categorization to “carry” their aftermarket stock performance. While certain industries indicated significant positive initial returns, aftermarket returns based on industry classification were generally not statistically significant. Investors should therefore always exercise firmspecific due diligence and research before investing in small firm public equity issues, since the variance of their aftermarket market returns tends to be large.     

R&;D investment and financing constraints of small and medium-sized firms

This study tests for financial constraints on R&D investment and how they differ from capital investment. To identify constraints in the access to external capital, we employ a credit rating index. Our models show that internal constraints, measured by mark-ups, are more decisive for R&D than for capital investment. For external constraints, we find a monotonic relationship between the level of constriction and firm size for both types of investment. Thus, external constraints turn out to be more binding with decreasing firm size. On the contrary, we do not find such monotonic relationships for internal constraints. Differentiation by firms’ age does not support lower constraints for older firms.     

Private equity,investment and financial constraints: firm-level evidence for France and the United Kingdom

This paper analyses the effects of private equity firms on the investments and financial constraints of their portfolio firms. We use dynamic panel data techniques to account for unobserved firm heterogeneity and endogeneity of private equity backed buyouts and expansion financing, and apply our framework to a large panel data set of firms in the UK and France. In both countries, we find that portfolio firms are characterized by higher investment levels and fewer financial constraints after expansion financing. In the UK, private equity backed buyouts outperform non-private equity backed firms in terms of both indicators.     

Cost of capital and public loan guarantees to small firms

In this paper, we study the determinants of the spread charged by banks under a UK policy intervention scheme, aimed at supporting access to the credit market for small firms through guarantee backed loans. We exploit a unique dataset containing data on 29,266 guarantee backed loans under the UK SFLG scheme over the period 2000 to 2005. Results suggest that lower spreads are offered for loans of larger amounts and higher durations, for service firms, for larger firms, and for those located in the most advanced regions. Higher spreads are applied to high-tech manufacturing firms and to loans issued for working capital purposes. We also find that the presence of other extant debt is associated with a relatively higher spread and that this effect is especially significant for the subset of firms that have reached a maximum debt capacity based on collateralized assets. Further, we also find that the higher the incidence of the publicly guaranteed debt over the total amount of outstanding loans, the lower, on average, the spread. However, an increase in the guaranteed coverage leads to a contraction in the spread only for loans aimed at covering working capital needs rather than investments.     

Foreign direct investment by small and medium sized enterprises: The theoretical background

This paper is an attempt to give a theoretical background to research on foreign direct investment by small and medium sized enterprises. Section 2 examines alternative theoretical approaches to SMEs investing abroad. Section 3 outlines the special issues which arise from SME foreign ventures and ends with an attempted synthesis of the theoretical approaches. In Section 4, a brief discussion of the nature of foreign direct investment by SMEs takes place. The paper ends with a short conclusion.     

The capital structure and investment decisions of the small owner-managed firm: Some exploratory issues

In the burgeoning literature on small firm financing, the problem of underidentification in respect to the supply of, and demand for, capital has not been fully resolved. In an attempt to progress this issue, the current paper looks at some of the issues influencing the demand for finance in small firms which are owner-managed. The paper is primarily exploratory in nature and argues that a greater emphasis might usefully be placed on the cost of capital dimension in future research into small business financing. In particular, it is suggested that where the objective of an owner-manager is to maintain control of the firm, interdependent investment and financing strategies may be chosen to control the small firms cost of capital. This in turn indicates that the tendency for some small firms to invest sub-optimally and exhibit slower than average growth may not be primarily determined by limitations on their supplies of finance. On the demand side, it may well be that in addition to equity aversion, a suboptimal capital structure decision is made in the form of a reduced demand for debt. In other words, given the level of equity that an owner-manager chooses, debt may not be fully expanded to the capacity limit consistent with value maximisation.     

Modeling extended manufacturing processes with service-oriented entities

The architectural style of next generation technological platforms intended to support design, deployment, and execution of extended business processes inside organizational networks, must be guided by interoperability principles at the processes, services, or data level. Service-oriented architectures, these being design patterns, and not merely technology, attempt to address these issues. Yet we believe that some of their underlying concepts (i.e., service providers, interfaces, and instances) must still be included at the business models level. This study attempts to show that how by introducing the Abstract and Concrete Service Entities concept at the extended business process models level, it could be possible to address most of the current interoperability issues inside a manufacturing network.     

浅谈房地产投资项目投资控制管理办法

只有加强房地产投资项目的内部投资控制管理,才能让建设项目的投资能得以合理的控制.本文根据房地产项目投资实施管理情况,对项目内部投资控制的制定和管理提出了一些建议.     

浅谈政府投资项目的投资控制

针对政府投资项目在投资控制方面存在的一些问题,站在项目工程管理专业的角度,从政府投资项目决策、可行性研究、项目初步设计、投资概算、招投标和施工阶段及监管、审计等方面,论述了政府投资项目投资控制的必要性,提出了投资控制的要点和控制方法,并向投资项目的决策层和承建者提出了一些建设性意见.     

外商投资在中国的现状与未来

改革开放近30年,中国经济实现高速成长,其原因是多方面的,但有种现象却是任何人都无法忽视的。那就是:由政府主导,长时期坚持引进外资,逐渐形成一个规模显著的外资经济,由此成为中国经济增长中的重要存在。对比日本和韩国当年走过的     

浅谈政府投资项目的投资控制

针对政府投资项目在投资控制方面存在的一些问题,站在项目工程管理专业的角度,从政府投资项目决策、可行性研究、项目初步设计、投资概算、招投标和施工阶段及监管、审计等方面,论述了政府投资项目投资控制的必要性,提出了投资控制的要点和控制方法,并向投资项目的决策层和承建者提出了一些建设性意见.     

话说房产投资

上海的房产热已持续了4个年头,4年来上海房价翻了两番。房价会不会出现泡沫?会不会突然下跌?根据有关专家分析,上海的房地产并没有出现过热或是价格的泡沫现象。上海的房地产基本是符合该行业一般发展规律的。上海目前的房价比香港还低5倍,而城市的发展速度和在国际上的大都市地位明显优于香港。2004年购买上海商品房的境外人士和外省人群已超出上海商品房购买者的60％,这充分说明了上海已不仅仅是上海人的上海,上海是全中国和全世界的上海;自然,上海的房地产行情也以世界的地产行情做参考。当然,事物的发展都不是绝对的,对于投资房产的人士,我们还是应该理性分析不同情况下的特殊性。本期地产沙龙,我们提供一些分析与探讨,让购房者参考。