The co-evolution of business incubation and national innovation systems in Taiwan

Incubation has already proven to be of great value in promoting small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurship activities and technological development in developed and developing countries. Incubation not only provides a diversified and integrated service for entrepreneurial ventures but also contributes upward to regional and national innovation and economic growth. Building upon the logic of co-evolution theory, this paper argues that incubation acts at the meso-level as a critical interface between macro-innovation systems and micro-business ventures. These multi-directional coupling elements in innovation ecology co-evolve to achieve collective interests and excellence, which in turn may stimulate technological development and social change. Important processes/mechanisms, including a policy kit and action, strategic networking, supportive associations, knowledge and intellectual capital management, among others, are discussed. Drawing on the national innovation system (NIS) and business incubation (BI) experience in Taiwan, we discuss the future prospects of incubation and innovation policies, including industrializing and globalizing incubation activities and virtual business incubation.     

New Private Enterprises in Three Transitional Contexts: Central Europe,the Former Soviet Union and China

This article compares the new private businesses that have been created in three transitional (from communism) contexts: Central Europe (Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine) and Asia (China). There have been major differences among these world regions in the contexts created for the development of new enterprises: in the pace of change, the extent to which state control and the rule of law have been maintained or created, whether there has been economic growth, decline or stagnation, the degrees of political continuity and the length of the communist period. Despite the contrasting contexts, there have been many similarities in the characteristics of new private businesses, but alongside some major differences: in the types of business with which beginners have usually commenced, the match with their specialities, whether self-employment has normally been a full-time or part-time occupation, whether or not the state has been perceived as basically supportive, in uses of the second economies and bribery, and whether sole proprietorship or partnership has been the normal initial business arrangement. It is concluded that there are just two essential conditions for successful transition (as regards the development of small business sectors): economic growth and the rule of law. Thereafter everything seems to depend on creating a favourable configuration of conditions which, our evidence suggests, is most likely when countries have maximum scope to plot their own transitional routes. It is argued that imposing one allegedly correct approach will usually be counter-productive.     

Growth and welfare effects of business cycles in economies with idiosyncratic human capital risk

This paper uses a tractable macroeconomic model with idiosyncratic human capital risk and incomplete markets to analyze the growth and welfare effects of business cycles. The analysis is based on the assumption that the elimination of business cycles eliminates the variation in idiosyncratic risk. The paper shows that a reduction in the variation in idiosyncratic risk decreases the ratio of physical to human capital and increases the total investment return and welfare. If the degree of risk aversion is less than or equal to one, then economic growth is enhanced. This paper also provides a quantitative assessment of the macroeconomic effects of business cycles based on a calibrated version of the model. Even for relatively small degrees of risk aversion (around one) the model implies that the elimination of business cycles has substantial effects on investment in physical and human capital, economic growth, and welfare.     

金融科技与商业银行经营绩效

金融科技在创新业务、流程和产品的同时带来了利差的收窄,然而对商业银行经营绩效的影响尚未得到一致结论。本文使用文本挖掘法构建了我国135家商业银行金融科技发展水平指标,基于2012—2019年数据,实证检验了金融科技与商业银行经营绩效的关系。结果表明,样本期内银行内部金融科技对小银行经营绩效没有影响;剔除小银行后,金融科技对经营绩效的影响呈先降后升的“U”形关系。具体而言,底层金融科技对商业银行经营绩效无显著影响,应用金融科技对经营绩效的影响呈“U”形。地区金融科技的发展会降低商业银行的经营绩效。机制分析表明金融科技可以通过影响商业银行的成本管理、风险控制和经营效率三条路径影响商业银行的经营绩效。     

扎根理论下西安航空中小企业创新创业平台构建及运行机理研究

在大众创新万众创业的互联网时代,推动航空产业实现战略性快速发展,解决西安航空中小企业在创新创业中存在的突出问题,对于促进西安经济增长和西安航空中小企业竞争力提升具有重要的理论意义和实践价值。因此,提出构建与西安航空中小企业发展需求相匹配的创新创业孵化平台,剖析西安航空中小企业创新创业存在的问题及成因,并基于扎根理论,通过开放式访谈、半结构化访谈及焦点访谈,实现对航空中小企业创新创业平台构成因素的识别与选择,进一步解释平台内部构成。最后,深入分析西安航空中小企业创新创业平台运行机理,为指导航空中小企业创新创业服务提供有针对性的意见和建议。     

Access to Finance by Small and Medium Enterprises: a Cross‐Country Analysis with A New Data Set

Access to finance has always been a challenge for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), but the need to address this issue became more pronounced after the global financial crisis, as SMEs are perceived as engines of growth and job creation. However, lack of consistent indicators for SME finance at the country level restricts cross‐country analyses. The present paper introduces a supply‐side data set to fill this gap, and provides the first set of analyses with this new data set. Global SME lending volume is predicted as $US10tn, 70% of which is in high‐income OECD countries. On average, SME loans constitute 13 and 3% of GDP in developed and developing countries, respectively.     

The methodology used by Russian statistical bodies to analyse small business

Assessing the level of development of small business in Russia requires a critical analysis of official statistics, owing to the existence of several inconsistencies. In addition, the frequent changes in the methodology make it difficult to compare the data over a period. It must also be taken into account that Russian and Western official data on small business are not fully comparable, as the Russian definition of small business has several limitations. For this reason its contribution to the economy is understated. Officially, employment in small businesses has stopped growing since 1994. Survey‐based results, however, point to a continuous increase in the number of people employed by new private enterprises, suggesting that the emergence of entrepreneurship has been an organic process, as in the leading transition countries, although it has been much slower in Russia.     

企业在塑造品牌文化过程中的问题与对策探析

当今社会在产品层出不穷的浪潮之下,品牌文化的形成和发展对企业的成长与核心竞争力的培育,产生着越来越重要的影响作用。但是企业在塑造品牌文化往往会面临一些问题与困难,如何应对这些问题,是企业成长过程中不容忽视的重要环节。因此企业在发展过程中,需要从多个角度对问题进行分析,同时注重与消费者的情感链接,这样才能更好地促进品牌与企业的长期稳定发展。     

The Productivity Slowdown Puzzle. Technological and Non-technological Shocks in the Labor Market

Abstract

In this paper we examine the relationships between business cycles in the G7 countries. We focus on whether recessionary periods in one country are independent of the timing of recessions in other countries in the G7, using three different methods for dating recessions. We find that the evidence is mixed on whether phases of the business cycle in North America and in European countries are independent, or whether there is a common phase structure in the business cycle across all the G7 economies. NBER dates suggest that business cycles are synchronised, while other methods for generating business cycle chronologies are more consistent with regional, rather than international cycles. We also find mixed evidence on whether the UK is synchronised with European countries, while Japan quite clearly has the cycle that is most independent of other G7 countries.     

Does the Effectiveness of Employment Incentive Programs Vary by Firm Size?

This article examines the impact of national employment incentive programs on employment growth of individual firms in the original fifteen member states of the European Union (EU-15). We investigate whether this impact differs among firms of different size classes, and whether the effectiveness of employment incentive programs depends on the business cycle. We find that expenditures on employment incentives have a positive impact on employment growth for firms of all sizes. However, this impact is significantly reduced for smaller firms, suggesting that employment incentive programs are less effective for small firms. We also find that the employment impact of incentive programs is stronger during recessionary periods, but only for firms without any employees (i.e., own-account workers).     

Did firm age,experience, and access to finance count? SME performance after the global financial crisis

This paper examines the relationships between firm age and entrepreneurs experience on SME performance after the 2008/09 global financial crisis. We find that in general the crisis had a long-lasting scarring effect on the SME sector, but there is evidence of some recovery in performance. Interestingly, the well-established, and negative, firm age-growth relationship still holds, but entrepreneurial experience did not have any substantive effects on small business performance. Our findings suggest that the severity of the crisis meant that previous entrepreneur experiences had little value in this unique and uncertain environment. However, young firms still accounted for a disproportionately high share of growth, especially among the fastest growing firms.     

Public R&D subsidies,outside private support,and employment growth

In the aftermath of the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the employment effects of public subsidies have been scrutinized because of new emphasis on public accountability and transparency. In this paper, we investigate conditions in which public subsidies of research and development (R&D) in small firms stimulate employment growth. We find, based on an empirical analysis of employment growth induced by US Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research program awards, that the stimulated employment growth is greater under two conditions: one, the presence of outside investors providing additional funding for the R&D and, two, when an exceptional amount of intellectual property is created by the publicly subsidized R&D. In addition to outside investors, other firms that make commercial agreements with the subsidized firm appear important for the employment growth of the subsidized firm. Cooperation between the small business doing the R&D and other firms is an important determinant of the commercial success of the technologies created with the support of public funds.     

我国中小企业集群发展中的问题研究

中小企业一直是我国经济发展的重要力量,中小企业集群作为中小企业提升竞争力的重要形式,其发展也受到了越来越多的关注。本文从梳理中小企业集群的涵义入手,详细分析了当前我国中小企业集群发展中存在的问题。     

国库集中收付体系下推行公务卡制度存在的问题及对策研究

随着公共财政预算制度的不断改革,国库集中收付制度的不断完善,公务卡制度作为一种制度创新,虽然具有携带方便、使用便捷、透明度高的特点,得到了广泛认可,但在使用过程中也暴露出一些问题导致推行困难。为了更好地发挥公务卡的作用,应加强宣传、完善相应的配套设施建设,以保证公务卡制度得到顺利推行,发挥其应有的作用。     

平台-社群商业模式构建及其动态演变路径——基于海尔、小米和猪八戒网平台组织的案例研究

伴随着海尔、小米通过向大众赋能促使大众与企业进行价值共创的平台组织模式,以及猪八戒网等向大众赋能的众包模式在全球范围内逐渐兴起,诸如管理权矛盾、创新不足、利润下滑等企业自身束手无策的问题频频出现,这是否意味着可以从企业的合作方,即大众的角度分析和解决这类困境?本文通过海尔、小米和猪八戒网的多案例研究,从社群价值出发,构建了基于个体需求价值和隐性冗余价值的平台-社群商业模式。首先,基于隐性冗余价值的碎片化、内隐性和差异化特征,推导出大众社群化、价值共创化的必然趋势。其次,总结出由社群价值密度、社区专业化、社群迭代率和社群聚合度四个维度构成的社群组态,并由此归纳出社群生态。最后,通过对海尔、小米和猪八戒网三个企业商业模式面临问题的分析,建立了以社群价值的最优区分转变为“导火索”,继而引发社群生态特点的变化,从而最终引发平台-社群商业模式动态变化的商业模式演变路径。基于此路径,揭示了类似平台化企业商业模式出现问题的原因。     

Determinants of card payments

Although the development of the card payment system allows for lowering the costs of money circulation and thereby leads to significant economic gains, relatively small amount of research has been dedicated to the analysis of the determinants of this development. Therefore, the aim of the article is to seek cross-country determinants of retail card payments focusing on trust in the system. The article concentrates on two econometric models. One is constructed with the use of representative population survey data for Poland, the other is based on panel data from the EU countries in the years 2000–2012.     

Financial Globalization,International Business Cycles and Consumption Risk Sharing*

In spite of two decades of financial globalization, consumption‐based indicators do not seem to signal more international risk sharing. We argue that the fraction of idiosyncratic consumption risk that gets shared among industrialized countries has actually increased considerably over the period 1980–2000 and, in particular, during the 1990s—from around 30 to more than 60 percent. However, standard consumption‐based measures of risk sharing—such as the volatility of consumption conditional on output or international consumption correlations—have been unable to detect this increase because consumption has also been affected by the concurrent decline in the volatility of output growth in most industrialized countries since the 1980s. First, the volatility of output at business‐cycle frequencies has declined by more than has the volatility of permanent fluctuations. Since consumption reacts mainly to permanent shocks, it appears more volatile in relation to current changes in output. This effect seems to have offset the tendency of financial globalization to lower the volatility of consumption conditional on output. Second, because the variability of permanent global shocks has also fallen, international consumption correlations have also generally not increased as financial markets have become more integrated.     

中国社会企业战略发展的思考——以深圳残友模式为例

社会企业家把社会公益作为一项风险事业来经营管理,通过商业管理的途径来推动社会事业的发展。本研究选择中国知名社会企业,深圳残友软件股份有限公司为研究主体,通过对社会企业定义与功能的界定,对残友软件在信息技术行业快速发展的历程与特征进行了总结。基于残友软件在过去十几年中招聘人才、提高产品及服务水平、扩大公司规模和得到社会广泛等重要事件以及相关数据,着重分析类似残友这样的中国社会企业在发展过程中可能遇到的诸如企业人力资源、财务以及战略管理等问题,并对残友的战略发展提出建议。     

Technology business incubators and regional economic convergence in China

Previous researches often claim the benefits of technology business incubators (TBIs). There is, however, little systematic evidence of TBIs’ role in promoting local economic growth in China where regions are in different development stages. Furthermore, no study has examined TBIs’ contribution to economic convergence. This paper aims to answer this question, based on panel data of Chinese national technology business incubators and the host cities from 2008 to 2012. The results indicate that there exists economic convergence both nationwide and in the western regions of China and no evidence has been found in the eastern and midland regions. Initial analysis without considering the incubator’s characteristics showed that TBIs do not accelerate economic convergence nationwide. We further take the incubator’s characteristics into consideration. We find that non-state-owned TBIs and specialised TBIs can speed the converging process while state-owned TBIs and diversified TBIs have no influence on the process of regional economic convergence.     

The cyclicality of consumption,wages and employment of the public sector in the euro area

This study empirically examines the business cycle behaviour of public consumption and its main components, the public wage bill (including its breakdown into compensation per employee and public employment) and intermediate consumption, in the euro area aggregate, euro area countries and a group of selected non-euro area Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Japan and the US). It looks across a large number of variables and methods, using annual data from 1960 to 2005. It finds robust evidence supporting that public consumption, wages and employment co-move with the business cycle in a pro-cyclical manner with 1–2 year lags, notably for the euro area aggregate and euro area countries. The findings reflect mainly the correlation between cyclical developments, but also point to an important role of pro-cyclical discretionary fiscal policies.