International knowledge interactions and catch-up. Evidence from European patent data for Chinese latecomer firms

International knowledge interactions constitute channels of knowledge transfer that finally promote technological catch-up. Accounting for the differences in knowledge dimensions and knowledge interactions, catching-up firms are provided with different types of learning opportunities. In the context of catch-up of emerging economy firms, the empirical evidence considering these differences is rather scarce. Using a cross-section of European patent data, we investigate the effects of different types of international knowledge interactions on the quality of knowledge captured by Chinese firms’ patent applications. We differentiate between lower vs. higher levels of learning and explore the technological learning process of Chinese firms over a period of 15 years. We find that international knowledge interactions are associated positively with knowledge quality. In the earlier phases of the catch-up process, knowledge interactions providing lower levels of learning are associated with a higher quality of the knowledge generated. Whereas knowledge interactions with the opportunity for higher levels of learning are correlated with a higher quality of the generated knowledge in later phases of the catch-up process.     

Jump variance risk: Evidence from option valuation and stock returns

We study jump variance risk by jointly examining both stock and option markets. We develop a GARCH option pricing model with jump variance dynamics and a nonmonotonic pricing kernel featuring jump variance risk premium. The model yields a closed-form option pricing formula and improves in fitting index options from 1996 to 2015. The model-implied jump variance risk premium has predictive power for future market returns. In the cross-section, heterogeneity in exposures to jump variance risk leads to a 6% difference in risk-adjusted returns annually.     

Sectoral exports dynamics of Turkey: Evidence from panel data estimators

This study aims to determine the most important factors affecting sectoral exports dynamics of Turkey and to estimate sectoral exports elasticities. It then relates sectoral elasticities to factor and technology intensities. The study uses three recent panel data estimators, Mean Group, Augmented Mean Group and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimators, all of which take into consideration slope heterogeneity and the last two also taking into consideration cross-sectional dependency. The results obtained show that foreign demand and productivity are important determinants of Turkish exports. In addition, sectoral elasticities vary across sectors, tending to be greater in some sectors where factor and technology intensities are the main distinctive features.     

Corporate financial policies and the exchange rate regime: Evidence from Brazil

This paper analyzes the relationship between companies' financial policies and the exchange rate regime for a sample of non-financial Brazilian companies from 1996 to 2006. The adoption of a floating exchange rate regime is shown to improve the match between the currency composition of companies' assets and liabilities. The paper also shows that this reduction in companies' currency mismatches is more pronounced for companies in the highest quantile of foreign exposure; therefore the results confirm that the exchange rate regime plays an important role in the determination of companies' foreign vulnerability.     

对外开放与能源利用效率:基于35个工业行业的实证研究

中国对外开放和能源利用效率都不断提高。本文先从理论层面探讨对外开放影响能源利用效率的一般机制,然后利用1999-2005年中国35个工业行业的面板数据进行经验研究。回归结果表明,对外开放对能源利用效率的提高具有积极影响。能源强度结构分解结果表明,对能源利用效率提高起主要决定作用的7个高耗能行业,除化学行业外,对外开放度都远低于全部工业的平均水平。因此,在保证国家经济安全的前提下,中国可适度加大高耗能行业的对外开放。     

经济全球化对我国环境污染影响的实证研究——基于行业面板数据

我国经济的高速发展和伴生的环境污染问题,是在我国经济加速融入全球经济的背景下发生的。本文在阐述经济全球化的含义和构建经济全球化指数的基础上,基于我国33个工业行业1997-2005年的面板数据,采用PCSE稳健估计,发现经济全球化显著降低了我国的环境污染水平,同时得出了我国规模效应、技术效应、结构效应以及要素禀赋等的结果。     

Competitive pressure,innovation and trade protection: Evidence from US patent data

Recent theoretical models have suggested that the relationship between competition and innovation may best be characterised as an inverted‐U shape: firms in industries with low levels of competition are more likely to innovate in the wake of increased competition as they attempt to escape competition, while those in highly competitive industries will decrease innovation in the wake of increased competition as the profit incentive to innovate dissipates. Results from other studies have found positive as well as negative relationships between innovation and competition. In a parallel literature, trade economists have produced conflicting results regarding the impact of trade liberalisation on innovation. One stream of research has shown that increased access to imported intermediate goods increases productivity, suggesting a positive relationship between imports and innovation. Others have hypothesised that firms may use the technology embodied in intermediate inputs as a substitute for domestic innovation. In this paper, we merge these divergent literatures and investigate whether innovation, as measured by the production of patents by US manufacturers, has been impacted by market competition and tariff reductions. Our empirical findings indicate that insulation from imports in the form of higher tariffs on final goods was associated with innovation until the late 1980s, while falling tariffs on intermediate goods appear to have facilitated innovation during the 1990s. We also find evidence of the inverted U‐shaped relationship between market competition and innovation.     

外包对中国能源利用效率影响的实证研究

本文基于我国33个工业行业1992-2006年的面板数据,采用PCSE稳健估计方法发现外包显著提高了我国的能源利用效率,同时技术进步、产权结构、要素禀赋结构和产业结构等也对能源利用效率产生不同的影响。本文的分析对于理解我国的经济发展、能源安全和产业升级具有启发意义。     

Foreign Direct Investment and mark-up dynamics: Evidence from Spanish firms

A review of the literature indicates that Foreign Direct Investment has the potential to increase the intensity of competition and to act as a channel for technology transfers. Using a Spanish firm level data set, we disentangle these effects by estimating a dynamic model of firm level performance, which we proxy by mark-ups. We find that FDI has a positive long-run effect on the mark-ups of targets, but this is limited to firms in R&D intensive sectors. In addition, we find weak evidence that foreign presence dampens margins. However, this effect appears to be more than compensated by positive spillovers in the case of knowledge intensive industries.     

Access to finance,working capital management and company value: Evidences from Brazilian companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA

In this research, we have analyzed the impact of financial leverage on the relationship between working capital and company value and how financial constraints on access to financing affect this relationship. In addition, we have analyzed the relationship between working capital and company value. Using a sample of Brazilian public companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA from 1995 through 2009, we found evidence for the following conclusions: an extra Real (R$) of investment in working capital is significantly less worth, on average, than an extra Real (R$) of investment in cash; and, on average, increasing the level of working capital at the beginning of a fiscal year reduces company value.     

人民币汇率波动的福利效应——基于我国制造业面板数据的实证分析

本文运用1996-2007年我国制造业27个细分行业的贸易和产业数据,根据人民币实际有效汇率(总体汇率)的计算方法构造了制造业分行业的进、出口汇率指标,分别考察了总体汇率、出口汇率、进口汇率对制造业分行业、分部门(劳动密集型、资本密集型和技术密集型三个部门)工人福利的影响及其传导途径。实证研究结果表明:在分行业分析中,三种汇率升值均降低了制造业工人的福利水平;在分部门分析中,由于区分了各部门贸易程度和产业性质存在的差异,汇率升值主要通过出口途径降低了劳动密集型部门工人的福利,主要通过投入品进口途径和制成品进口途径分别提高了资本密集型部门和技术密集型部门工人的福利。最后,本文就长短期内如何调整人民币汇率以促进制造业工人福利改善提出了一些政策建议。     

The regional trade dynamics of Turkey: a panel data gravity model

This paper analyzes the Turkish export and import flows with regard to regional clusters (RCs) and bilateral trade costs (BTCs) by using a panel data gravity model. We study the role of RCs and BTCs in two complementary parts: in the first part, we use an unbalanced panel data for 180 countries over the period 1960–2012, compiled from the DOTS database. We extend these estimations by running the data at four different time intervals, each representing different economic or political regimes in Turkey. In the second part, we repeat the same exercise at sectoral level for 176 countries over the period 1994–2010, using the BACI database. Aggregate estimates show that the gravity model is very effective in explaining the export and import flows of Turkey and that all close-by regions, including EU27, have a significant impact on trade flows of Turkey. We also find that the EU Customs Union has a negative effect on Turkish exports and a positive effect on imports. Estimates at selected time intervals reinforce aggregate estimates and sectoral level analyses indicate that while some regions contribute positively in all or the majority of sectors, others contribute negatively or produce mixed results.     

混业经营下金融发展与经济增长——基于亚洲地区的非稳定面板数据分析

文章使用面板单位根与面板协整方法，实证研究混业经营条件下金融发展与经济增长的关系。研究表明：混业经营条件下金融发展与经济增长存在面板协整关系。即金融发展与经济增长有长期均衡关系；银行发展水平质量的提高与经济增长有显著正相关关系．然而银行发展水平数量的提高，阻碍经济增长；股票市场与经济增长有显著正相关关系，而且这种关系比较稳定。     

The effect of advertising on brand awareness and perceived quality: An empirical investigation using panel data

We use a panel data set that combines annual brand-level advertising expenditures for over three hundred brands with measures of brand awareness and perceived quality from a large-scale consumer survey to study the effect of advertising. Advertising is modeled as a dynamic investment in a brand’s stocks of awareness and perceived quality and we ask how such an investment changes brand awareness and quality perceptions. Our panel data allow us to control for unobserved heterogeneity across brands and to identify the effect of advertising from the time-series variation within brands. They also allow us to account for the endogeneity of advertising through recently developed dynamic panel data estimation techniques. We find that advertising has consistently a significant positive effect on brand awareness but no significant effect on perceived quality.

Intertemporal substitution in the Spanish economy: Evidence from regional data

This paper studies the intertemporal substitution in consumption and leisure for the Spanish economy by estimating the first‐order conditions of an individual optimization model with regional and aggregate data. While first‐order conditions determining intertemporal substitution in consumption show a good econometric fit, and the value we obtain for the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is similar to previously available results, the econometric fit of the intertemporal condition in leisure indicates that the behaviour of the Spanish labour supply over the cycle is more complex than can be explained by the canonical intertemporal choice model.     

The impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility and oil exports on real GDP in Syria: Evidence from the ARDL approach

This paper investigates the impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility and trade on real GDP and real GDP growth in the Syrian economy over the period of 1990Q1–2010Q4. To this end, we first construct a parallel market exchange rate volatility indicator. Second, we estimate an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model where we include our indicator of volatility among the main determinants of real GDP. Our findings imply that real GDP can be explained by three main variables: parallel market exchange rate, money supply, and oil exports. The long-run equilibrium reveals that parallel market exchange rate volatility has a negative impact on real GDP compared to the positive impact of money supply and oil exports. In contrast, the short-run impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility on real GDP growth is positive and very small counter to the long-run impact. Furthermore, the coefficient of the error correction term of the estimated ARDL model indicates that real GDP deviation from the equilibrium level will be corrected by about 10% after each quarter.     

Forecasting artificial intelligence on online customer assistance: Evidence from chatbot patents analysis

The main goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the actual progresses in artificial intelligence, with emphasis on chatbots as emerging forms of customer assistance in online retailing. Drawing upon an analysis of the chatbot patents in the past 20 years, our findings show the increasing technology push towards the adoption of new conversational agents based on natural language. Findings also highlight the extent to which the research and development efforts are attempting to improve artificial intelligence systems that characterize chatbots. To this end, technology advancements are mainly focusing on: (i) improving chatbot ability to automatically draw inferences on users starting from multiple data sources, and (ii) using consumers’ knowledge adaptively to provide more customized solutions. Finally, results show the tight relationship between the digital assistants’ analytical skills and their ability to automatically interact with the users.     

Firm size and productivity in Spain: a stochastic frontier analysis

This paper analyses the performance of the small and medium-sized manufacturing firms during the period 1995–2001, focusing on the degree of technical inefficiency and its determinants. We use a micro panel data set to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier production function and the inefficiency determinants using an unbalanced panel of manufacturing firms. Our empirical results suggest that small and medium-sized firms tend to be less inefficient than the large firms are. Also, we centre our analysis in the effect on efficiency of some organisational factors related to the managerial ability to use and adjust capital and labour properly.

Price transmission and volatility spillovers in Asian rice markets: Evidence from MGARCH and panel GARCH models

ABSTRACT

This article examines world rice price transmission and volatility spillovers across six major Asian rice markets over the period 2005-13. In addition to the conventional GARCH models, we use a panel GARCH framework to estimate the spillover effects along with the consideration of heterogeneity and interdependence among countries. Empirical results suggest that changes in the world rice price affected not only the price levels of domestic rice markets but also their conditional variances. Moreover, interdependence across rice markets contributed to a strong spillover of a price shock in one country to another within the region.     

Mapping the trading behavior of the middle class in emerging markets: Evidence from the Istanbul Stock Exchange

Predicted to grow above 4.9 billion by 2030, with an overall spending capacity of $56 trillion, the rise of the middle class in emerging markets has attracted global practitioner and academic attention. How this new wealth will be invested is a central question; yet our understanding still remains fragmented. Drawing on the literatures of international business, behavioral economics and finance and using high-frequency stock market data, we examine and map the trading behavior of the middle class in Turkey, one of the fastest rising economic powers of the East. We find that middle class traders exhibit discernible differences to professionals, with respect to risk attitudes and stock preferences (e.g. prefer lower-risk, smaller-size and ‘value’ stocks). In addition, while they typically hold small portfolios and tend to realize lower gains than professionals, their role has become considerably influential to the direction of the entire market.