Innovation strategies and productivity growth in developing countries: Firm-level evidence from Pakistani manufacturers

We examine the determinants of product, process, and organizational innovations, and their impact on firm labor productivity using data from a unique innovation survey of firms in Pakistan. We find significant heterogeneity in the impact of different innovations on labor productivity: Organizational innovation has the largest effect followed by process innovation. But unlike much of the literature, we found a negative impact of product innovation suggesting a disruption effect of new products. We find a strong impact of engaging in knowledge creation on product and process innovation. We also find that external knowledge networks and innovation cooperation play no significant role in firms’ decision to engage in innovation and its intensity, however, vertical linkages with suppliers (clients) promote product (process) innovations. Foreign competition has a negative effect on product innovation and a positive effect on organizational innovation. Exposure to foreign markets both in term of exporting and quality standard certification leads to better innovation performance.     

ISO认证与企业创新：地理位置与组织形式的调节效应

尽管已有研究在不同情境下广泛地检验了ISO认证所引致的绩效结果,但还未充分地关注中国企业ISO认证的相关议题。利用世界银行对中国企业的调查数据,实证检验ISO认证对企业创新的影响,以及地理位置和组织形式的调节效应。结果表明,ISO认证对产品创新与过程创新均产生显著的正向影响;相较于中西部地区的企业,东部地区企业的ISO认证对产品和过程创新的正向影响更加显著;相较于合伙制与公司制的企业,独资企业的ISO认证对产品和过程创新的正向影响更加显著。     

开征碳税对天然橡胶及其关联行业的影响分析

本文测算了"十一五"期间工业行业研发效率,单位产值的能耗、各种污染物排放量,在此基础上验证碳税对天然橡胶关联行业影响的Porter假说,分析天然橡胶种植和初加工行业的赋税,探讨"双重红利"的存在性。研究表明:天然橡胶关联行业科技创新能力较低,特别是原始性创新,开征碳税难以倒逼企业通过自身创新来形成新的优势;相比合成橡胶行业,橡胶制品业受到的冲击相对较小;天然橡胶种植和初加工行业受税收影响较小,影响正负取决于价格优势与成本劣势孰强。     

Going out to innovate more at home: Impacts of outward direct investments on Chinese firms' domestic innovation performance

This study explores the effects of cross-border mergers & acquisitions (CBMA) on domestic innovation of Chinese firms. We build a new panel dataset that matches information on CBMA and innovation activities for China's publicly listed firms. We rely on matching techniques combined with a difference-in-differences estimator to study the causal effects of CBMA respectively on firms' investments in innovation, innovation outputs, and financial performance. The main findings reveal that CBMA has both a positive impact on firms' R&D spending and number of patent applications, no statistically significant effect on the number of granted patents or on the quality of those patents, and a negative effect on firms' financial performance. These results depend, however, on the type of CBMA (horizontal or vertical), destination country (OECD or non-OECD), and the technological intensity (high-tech or not) of the acquirer and target firm. Overall, the findings bring into question whether CBMAs, and China's going-out strategy, will significantly boost its indigenous innovation capabilities.     

Bribery and firm performance in India: A political economy perspective

This study examines how corruption affects firm performance in India using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for 2013-14. A set of testable hypotheses is formulated with regard to the interaction between bribery and the political environment to capture the nuances of the effect of corruption on firm performance. To overcome endogeneity between bribery and firm performance, the study employs two-stage least squares instrumental variables estimation. The foremost finding is that bribery has significantly negative effects on firm profitability and labor productivity. This finding confirms the hypothesis that in India bribery “sands the wheels” of business. A further finding is that the negative effect of bribery on productivity is stronger in states run by right leaning parties, although there is no significant effect of party orientation on the relationship between bribery and profitability. This finding supports the hypothesis that tighter connections between business and government facilitate rent seeking that undermines productivity even as profitability is unencumbered. Finally, bribery is found to have more harmful effects on smaller and older firms than on larger and younger ones.     

Small firm internationalization,innovation, and growth

This paper studies the effect of internationalization on innovation and firm performance (employment growth and sales growth) taking the interdependencies among the variables into account. Given the potential endogeneity, this study uses theory-driven instrumental variables and structural equation modelling to estimate the direct and indirect effects of internationalization. Firm-level data is obtained from a survey of 150 Dutch small firms that took part in an export promotion program. The main results show that internationalization has a positive impact on innovation. Internationalization increases firm performance directly and indirectly through innovation, while the direct impact of innovation on firm performance is insignificant. We contribute to the literature of export promotion programs as our results suggest that they not only increase small firm internationalization but also affect innovation and firm growth.     

全球生产网络与集群产业升级研究——以广州电子信息产业集群为例

嵌入全球生产网络的产业集群升级表现为整个产业集群形成具有竞争力的核心企业和领导企业,并将非核心环节或业务转移或外包至群内或群外。通过对广州地区电子信息产业发展的实证研究,文章认为全球生产网络对实现地方电子信息产业的工艺和产品升级以及流程升级具有积极的推动作用;但对于更高层次的功能升级,其阻挡作用则超过了推动作用,从而抑制了地方电子信息产业的进一步升级发展。要突破领导企业在价值链关键环节设置的"壁垒",获取在全球生产网络价值链上的全面升级,必须通过构建企业主体创新能力和产业集聚创新来实现。     

出口行为与企业生存:内部资源、政府补贴重要吗

文章利用1998-2011年新成立的中国工业企业纵向数据,采用Cox比例风险模型估计方法,实证检验了出口行为对企业生存的影响效应及内部资源、政府补贴的调节效应。研究结果表明,出口倾向负向影响企业生存,而出口强度与企业生存之间存在非线性的“S型”关系。管理冗余和创新资源显著调节出口行为与企业生存之间的关系,有效缓冲了出口企业在国外市场面临的生存风险。然而,财务冗余和政府补贴对出口行为与企业生存关系的调节效应并不显著。采用加速失效时间模型进行稳健性检验,本项研究的结论依然成立。     

地方政府腐败会影响私人投资积极性吗？ ——基于动态面板模型的系统GMM分析

通过对中国省级层面数据建立的动态面板模型进行SYS-GMM估计发现,中国的地方政府腐败对私人投资积极性产生了显著的负面影响,尽管腐败并非影响私人投资的最重要因素,但其负面影响超过了政府公共投资带来的私人投资挤入效应。私人投资对直接影响其成本收益状况的因素最为敏感。多种稳健性检验表明腐败对私人投资的影响显著性和力度是非常稳定的。     

融资约束、产品质量与出口目的地选择

文章将融资约束、产品质量引入异质性企业贸易模型,研究企业融资约束对其出口目的地选择的影响,并从产品质量的视角进行机制分析。理论模型推导得出企业生产率与其在低收入国家出口占比呈负相关关系,而融资约束的存在则强化了这种负相关关系。通过理论分析发现,生产率、融资约束对于企业最优产品质量选择的决策会产生相反的影响,在不同收入水平的国家对产品质量偏好不同的情况下,这种机制恰恰可能解释了企业出口目的地选择的差异。文章使用中国微观企业贸易数据,进行实证研究发现：融资约束与企业出口低收入国家贸易占比成正向关系,此外融资约束与生产率之间存在着调节效应,生产率的提高可以缓解企业由于受到融资约束带来的影响。     

CORRUPTION AND THE COMPOSITION OF TAX REVENUE IN MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICAN ECONOMIES1

Regression results from a panel of 53 Middle East and African economies suggest that corruption has a quite large negative and statistically significant impact on tax revenues, mainly reflecting the impact of corruption on tax collections from social security, and taxes on domestic goods and services and international trade transactions. Policy changes to boost tax revenues might usefully focus on changes in direct taxes and efforts to combat corruption in tax collections should focus on indirect taxes.     

Robotics technology and firm-level employment adjustment in Japan

Unlike studies that analyze the impact of robotics technology on overall employment at the industry or firm level, this study investigated cross-division employment adjustment within a firm in an industry with greater diffusion and penetration of robotics technology. By examining changes in the composition of employment, we measured job creation and destruction at the division level and explored whether robotics technology, as a leading example of automation, not only displaces workers but also introduces new jobs in favor of labor. We made use of unique, division-level employment data for Japan’s manufacturing firms, together with industry-level data on the installation of industrial robots. We found that industry-level adoption of robots positively affects the firm-level job creation rate and the job destruction rate. Because the magnitude of the impact is larger for job destruction, robot adoption has an overall negative impact on firms’ net employment growth. Our findings suggest that the labor displacement effect of robotics technology and the emergence of new jobs due to technological change coexist even at the firm level.     

组织学习对技术创新绩效的调节效应——基于江苏民营制造企业的实证研究

文章以201家江苏民营制造企业为研究样本,探讨组织学习对技术创新与企业绩效关系的调节效应.研究发现:(1)工艺创新和产品创新对企业绩效均有显著正向影响,而且工艺创新对企业绩效的影响强度要高于产品创新,表明江苏民营制造企业技术创新是以工艺创新为主导;(2)组织学习对工艺创新与企业绩效关系有显著正向调节效应,对产品创新与企业绩效关系的调节效应不显著,表明江苏民营制造企业的组织学习是以工艺创新为主要目的.研究发现为推进江苏创新驱动战略提供了指导,要实现从“江苏制造”向“江苏创造”转变,关键在于营造以实现产品创新为主要目的的组织学习氛围,走以产品创新为主导的技术创新之路.     

研发国际化与企业创新绩效——吸收能力和地理多样性的调节作用

新兴经济体企业的国际化行为已经成为国际商务领域的研究热点之一,但如中国这样的新兴经济体的跨国企业是否能够通过研发国际化行为提升母公司的创新绩效,现有文献对该问题尚缺乏足够的研究。文章基于2011-2017年间沪深两市310家信息技术业上市跨国企业的年度观察数据,采用泊松面板固定效应模型考察了企业研发国际化与母公司创新绩效之间的关系,并首次从逆向知识转移的视角,探讨了吸收能力和地理多样性对研发国际化和创新绩效两者关系的调节作用。实证结果表明：中国企业的研发国际化显著促进母公司创新绩效的提升;以研发投入强度衡量的企业吸收能力显著正向调节研发国际化和创新绩效之间的关系,而以布劳异质性指数测量的地理多样性则显著负向调节研发国际化和创新绩效的关系。研究结果对中国企业国际化行为具有重要启示。该研究发现意味着中国企业在国际化过程中应该加大海外研发投资力度以提升母公司创新绩效,且为更好地实现外部知识的逆向转移,应同时提高企业总体研发投入强度。但作为新兴经济体企业,不宜在地理分布上实行快速扩张,否则较高的沟通和协调成本将弱化逆向知识转移的程度,而不利于母公司创新绩效的提升。     

Sociological challenges for Egypt’s development: 1981–2013

This paper examines the extent to which women’s education, fertility rate, corruption and urbanization affects long-term economic growth in Egypt. We are particularly interested in the impact of female education and fertility rate on economic growth, but we also examine the relationship between economic growth and corruption. The results suggest that investments in female education can reduce fertility rate with a small but significant immediate effect. As the fertility rate increases real GDP growth decreases with a lag of 2 years. The immediate effect of greater female education on real GDP is negative but overall it has a positive impact when lags are taken into account. Interestingly, the immediate effect of urbanization on real GDP growth was negative and turned to be positive on the long run. Finally, corruption was found to have a negative impact on GDP growth in Egypt over our studied time period.     

Firm-level innovation activity,employee turnover and HRM practices — Evidence from Chinese firms

This paper examines the relationship between employee turnover, HRM practices and innovation in Chinese firms in five high technology sectors. We estimate hurdle negative binomial models for count data on survey data allowing for analyses of the extensive as well as intensive margins of firms' innovation activities. Innovation is measured both by the number of ongoing projects and new commercialized products. The results show that higher R&D employee turnover is associated with a higher probability of being innovative, but decreases the intensity of innovation activities in innovating firms. Innovating firms are more likely to have adopted high performance HRM practices, and the impact of employee turnover varies with the number of HRM practices implemented by the firm.     

垄断影响了中国上市公司的绩效吗？

我们对两个竞争性的经济理论假说进行研究,即行业的垄断性究竟为其带来了超额的垄断收益还是由于缺乏竞争或创新激励而阻碍了行业的发展。针对我国上市公司研究发现,与西方国家不同,行业垄断度与公司收益之间存在线性正相关以及非线性的“倒U型”效应,即行业垄断在整体上为公司带来更多的垄断收益,但是这种收益在垄断程度增加到某一临界点之后开始下降,这说明垄断对于公司收益存在“双刃剑”效应。进一步控制企业规模、账面市值比和杠杆比率等行业特征后,结论依然稳健。此外,在考察这种绩效差异是否由市场结构所致时发现,垄断度与未预期收益负相关,这进一步验证了本文结论。     

How Does Corruption Influence the Effect of Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth?

Abstract

We investigate the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in 130 countries from 1995 to 2008, considering the role of corruption in each country as an absorptive factor. The estimation results indicate that although FDI alone does not promote economic growth, it has a significant effect on economic growth if the interaction term between FDI and corruption is considered. Specifically, FDI has a positive impact on economic growth when corruption is severe, but a negative impact if corruption is below a certain threshold.     

Does wage justice hamper creativity? Pay gap and firm innovation in China

Although the pay gap between executives and employees has received considerable attention, its economic consequences remain unclear due to the unavailability of data. In this study, we examine the effects of the pay gap on firm innovation by using data from Chinese listed firms. We show that: 1) the first-order effect of pay gap on firm innovation is significantly positive, supporting the tournament theory; 2) however, when pay gap is relatively high, the importance of comparison theories increases; 3) high management pay premiums provide incentives for management to devote to innovation activities, while pay premiums for ordinary employees impede firm innovation; and 4) both the employee's human capital and state ownership play significant roles in the negative effects of employee pay premiums on firm innovation. Overall, we provide critical insights and a serious challenge for regulators in China. The policy implications of this study could be of interest to regulators who intend to encourage firm innovation.     

社会化网络媒体关注与审计费用—基于微博媒体数据的分析

以2012-2014年创业板上市公司数据为研究对象,抓取新浪微博公众号上对被审计企业负面报道的关键词,研究了社会化网络媒体的负面报道对审计费用的影响。研究发现,媒体对上市公司的态度越负面其审计费用越高;但重复负面报道对审计费用的影响却是无效的。另外,相比“十大”会计师事务所,非“十大”会计师事务所对被审计单位负面消息更加敏感。在被审计单位被媒体负面报道后,新任会计师事务所会要求更高的审计费用。上期审计意见为非标意见对审计费用有正向影响,但其并没有增强媒体关注对于审计费用的影响效果。