制度跃迁视角下知识产权审判专门化与企业创新

企业创新离不开制度支持,但现有关于制度影响企业创新的研究主要基于组织合法性理论,并以静态的制度框架为出发点。从诺思制度变迁理论视角,探讨动态的制度变迁环境如何影响企业创新,以2014年中国知识产权审判专门化改革为背景事件,构建准自然实验,研究发现：改革所建立的知识产权法院是制度变迁过程中一次典型的制度跃迁,对于企业创新绩效具有显著提升作用;在异质性检验中发现,知识产权法院的建立显著增加民营企业和高科技企业的实质性创新成果,北京知识产权法院的建立对于企业创新绩效的提升作用更显著;在机制检验中发现,知识产权法院的建立能够缓解企业融资约束,增强企业创新意愿,从而提升企业创新绩效。从诺思制度变迁理论视角解读中国从法制到法治建设的制度变迁过程及其影响,为推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化提供参考。     

Law and credit constraints in transition economies1

Using a survey of over 4,000 firms in 21 transition economies, this paper investigates how legal extensiveness (law on the books) and legal effectiveness (law in practice) affect availability of bank finance. Our findings suggest that both law on the books and law in practice are important, but that they impact firms of different sizes differently. Small firms appear to be the most credit constrained in countries with weak creditor rights and with weak contract enforcement, while large firms are the most credit constrained in countries with weak courts and unclear and inconsistent laws pertaining to firms’ business operations.     

Authoritarian transparency: China's missing cases in court disclosure

The question whether authoritarian regimes use transparency initiatives to improve public governance or only to perform window dressing remains open. To address it, we examine a recently promulgated transparency policy in China that mandates public access to all judicial opinions. We find that local courts fail to disclose more than 60% of their opinions in corporate litigation cases, measured against a baseline of publicly listed firms’ disclosure of their litigation, as required and enforced by the securities regulations. Instead of upholding judicial fairness, local courts disclose cases selectively, displaying favoritism and responding to private incentives. Courts are more likely to suppress the publication of their opinions when the firm involved in the litigation is state-owned or is the defendant in its home court, especially in the year before the promotion of the provincial party secretary. We also find that firms whose cases are disclosed by the courts undergo adverse economic consequences, signaling that they have fallen out of favor with the government.     

Antidumping protection and R&D competition

Abstract.  In recent years antidumping protection has spread throughout the world. Evidence shows that antidumping often targets R&D‐intensive sectors, raising a concern that it may adversely affect worldwide investments in R&D. We investigate this issue in a model of reciprocal dumping extended to a two‐stage game, in which two firms first choose R&D levels and then compete in prices. We find that, when a single government institutes antidumping law, the protected firm decreases investment in R&D, while the constrained firm invests more. When both governments engage in antidumping actions, both firms invest more in R&D than under free trade. JEL classification: F12, F13     

Dynamic R&D choice and the impact of the firm's financial strength

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how a firm's financial strength affects its dynamic decision to invest in R&D. We estimate a dynamic model of R&D choice using data for German firms in high-tech manufacturing industries. The model incorporates a measure of the firm's financial strength, derived from its credit rating, which is shown to lead to substantial differences in estimates of the costs and expected long-run benefits from R&D investment. Financially strong firms have a higher probability of generating innovations from their R&D investment, and the innovations have a larger impact on productivity and profits. Averaging across all firms, the long-run benefit of investing in R&D equals 6.6% of firm value. It ranges from 11.6% for firms in a strong financial position to 2.3% for firms in a weaker financial position.     

The dynamic impact of intellectual capital on firm value: evidence from China

We examine the dynamic relationship between intellectual capital (measured by human capital and organizational capital) and firm value of Chinese listed firms. We do causality identification using system GMM and IV estimation, and find no significant relation between human capital and firm value, but organizational capital positively affects firm value with a lag. Our findings are robust to firms with different property rights, of different sizes, or in different industries, with the only exception of capital-intensive firms, in which human capital has a significant influence on firm value. The results imply that the improvement of organizational system plays a more important role in raising the value of a firm in a typical developing country, like China.     

Innovation or imitation? The effect of spillovers and competitive pressure on firms’ R&D strategy choice

In this paper a firm’s R&D strategy is assumed to be endogenous and allowed to depend on both internal firm characteristics and external factors. Firms choose between two strategies, either they engage in R&D or abstain from own R&D and imitate the outcomes of innovators. This yields three types of equilibria, in which either all firms innovate, some firms innovate and others imitate, or no firm innovates. Firms’ equilibrium strategies crucially depend on external factors. We find that the efficiency of intellectual property rights protection positively affects firms’ incentives to engage in R&D, while excessive competitive pressure has a negative effect. In addition, smaller firms are found to be more likely to become imitators when the product is homogeneous and the level of spillovers is high. Regarding social welfare our results indicate that strengthening intellectual property protection can have an ambiguous effect. In markets characterized by a high rate of innovation a reduction of intellectual property rights protection can discourage innovative performance substantially. However, a reduction of patent protection can also increase social welfare because it may induce imitation. This indicates that policy issues such as the optimal length and breadth of patent protection cannot be resolved without taking into account specific market and firm characteristics.     

INTERNATIONALIZATION STRATEGIES IN OLIGOPOLY WITH HETEROGENEOUS FIRMS

This paper examines the foreign direct investment (FDI) versus exports decision of foreign oligopolistic firms under cost heterogeneity. An additional motivation for firms to invest abroad is the technological sourcing via spillovers, which flow from the host more efficient firm to foreign less advantaged firms. For intermediate values of the set‐up costs associated with FDI entry, it is shown that foreign firms choose opposite entry strategies. An equilibrium where the less efficient foreign firm exports whereas the more efficient invests is more likely to happen when foreign firms become more heterogeneous, the larger the trade costs and not too big oligopolistic profitability. Interestingly, the opposite may also be an equilibrium thus finding that the more efficient firm does not choose to invest, a result that emphasizes the relevance of the strategic setting under consideration. The latter result identifies a market failure since welfare in the host market is higher when both firms undertake FDI; a finding that calls attention to how appropriate are host government policies towards internationalization strategies.     

Does policy reform promote FDI in developing economies? a firm-level simulation approach

How do policy reforms for foreign investors in developing economies affect inward foreign direct investment? Using a firm heterogeneity model calibrated to match data on Japanese multinational firms, we simulate how multinationals respond to a decline in investment procedure days. We find that such policy reforms in investment procedures significantly increase the aggregate entries and sales of multinational firms in developing economies, with the more pronounced impact at the extensive margin than at the intensive margin. At the firm level, declining entry costs encourage more productive firms to invest in a wider range of markets although such impacts are modest for the most productive firms that already penetrate many markets. The impacts on foreign sales per multinational firm are less clear-cut in magnitude across productivity levels in part because falling entry costs directly increase multinational entry to developing economies, but only indirectly encourage their existing production in these markets.     

Does R&D spending boost tangible investment? An analysis on European firms

This article investigates the relationship between firm’s R&D intensity, expressed as R&D expenditure over sales, and investment intensity in tangible assets. It is commonly acknowledged that R&D requires additional physical investment to be implemented. R&D increases a firm’s productivity and return to tangible investments, thus, providing to the firm incentives to bear high tangible capital costs and to invest more. This represents a crucial issue for a firm’s growth, particularly considering the strong interaction between physical capital accumulation and technological progress. The analysis is based on a large sample of manufacturing firms across seven European countries in the period 2007–2009. Since the sub-sample of firms performing R&D might not be random, there may potentially be an endogeneity issue. The analysis also considers that firms may decide to spend on R&D and investment in physical capital simultaneously. The questions of both endogeneity and simultaneity are dealt with by employing an instrumental variable two-step procedure. We find a positive and significant impact of R&D intensity on firms’ tangible investment intensity. The econometric results highlight the importance of financial factors, particularly with respect to firms’ internal resources. Exposure to international trade has a negative impact on investment, possibly depending on the time-span of the sample used.

Abbreviations: Technological Innovation and R&D; Investment Capital; Industry Studies; Firm Behavior; Empirical Analysis     

Who gets caught for corruption when corruption is pervasive? Evidence from China’s anti-bribery blacklist

This article empirically investigates why in a corruption-pervasive country only a minority of the firms get caught for bribery while the majority get away with it. By matching manufacturing firms to a blacklist of bribers in the healthcare sector of a province in China, we show that the government-led blacklisting is selective: while economically more visible firms are slightly more likely to be blacklisted, state-controlled firms are the most protected compared to their private and foreign competitors. Our finding points to the fact that a government can use regulations to impose its preferences when the rule of law is weak and the rule of government is strong.     

Firm Image and Individual Investment Decisions

This paper documents the importance of firm image in individual investment behavior. We conduct three experiments designed to examine whether investment decisions are influenced by selective information disclosures that are intended to promote a positive or negative firm image. Importantly, the disclosures are not value-relevant. Participants actively make investment decisions that have real economic consequences. We find that participants invest more heavily in firms with a positive image than in firms with a negative image, controlling for industry membership and financial data. These results are consistent with economic models of choice that recognize that the financial outcome is not the only argument in a person's utility function.     

INTEL ECONOMICS*

This article presents an endogenous growth model that is designed to be roughly consistent with the experience of high‐tech firms like Intel. In the model, industry leaders invest in R&D to improve their products, small firms invest in R&D to become industry leaders, and innovating becomes progressively more difficult over time. Consistent with the empirical evidence, the model implies that economic growth is independent of economy size and R&D intensity is independent of firm size. For plausible parameter values, it is optimal to heavily subsidize R&D activities.     

Corporate financial soundness and its impact on firm performance: implications for corporate debt restructuring in Slovenia

This article studies the extent of corporate leverage and range of excessive debt of Slovenian firms during the recent financial crisis. Half of all firms (of those with some non-zero debt and at least one employee) are found to face an unsustainable debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio beyond 4, accounting for almost 80% of total outstanding debt. Moreover, a good quarter of all firms experience debt-to-EBITDA ratios exceeding 10 and hold almost half of total aggregate net debt. We then examine how this financial distress affects firm performance in terms of productivity, employment, exports, investment and survival. We find that, while less important during the good times (pre-recession period), lack of firms’ financial soundness during the period of financial distress becomes a critical factor constraining firm performance. The extent of financial leverage and ability to service the outstanding debt are shown to inhibit firms’ productivity growth as well as the dynamics of exports, employment and investment. Micro and small firms are found to suffer relatively more than larger firms from high leverage in terms of export and employment performance during the recession period.     

Home-country environment and firms’ outward foreign direct investment decision: Evidence from Chinese firms

This paper takes a holistic view and examines the environmental effect of the home country on firms’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) decisions. We construct an economic growth index to assess the overall economic environment of Chinese regions and find that the home country’s business environment is negatively associated with firms’ decisions to invest abroad, and that such a negative relationship can be intensified for firms with state ownership or without an export network. Moreover, unlike previous literature, we look at both the environmental effect on OFDI decisions and the consequential impact of OFDI on firm performance. We employ propensity score matching and difference-in-differences methods, as well as the Heckman two-step model, for our estimations. Our results show that OFDI does indeed improve Chinese firms’ productivity and sales. This paper, therefore, contributes to the literature by identifying a range of home country business environmental factors that have a combined effect on firms’ OFDI decisions, adding to a more comprehensive understanding of OFDI originating from emerging economies.     

Country governance,corruption, and the likelihood of firms’ innovation

Using a sample of firms from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for the period 2006–2016 in emerging and developing countries, we find that corruption has a negative impact on the likelihood of innovations, thus supporting the “sanding-the-wheels” hypothesis. Our empirical results also show that corruption at the firm level, in the manufacturing industry, and in regions with the worst governance or that are more corrupt has a significant negative effect on innovation. In addition, country governance plays a particularly important role in innovative activity for corrupt firms. The policy implication is that the government or authority should strengthen the positive role of government effectiveness, rule of law, regulatory quality, and control of corruption in order to improve firms’ innovation within an environment of corruption.     

Determinants of firms’ investment behaviour: a multilevel approach

This article investigates the determinants of firms’ investment behaviour using firm data from 101 developing and emerging economies. A substantial number of firms does not invest in fixed capital or invests little relative to sales revenue. Using a multilevel probit model we study what factors trigger investment, and using a multilevel Heckman selection model we study what factors influence a firm’s investment-to-sales ratio. We find that firms’ investment behaviour has relatively little dependency on a country’s macroeconomic setting. Additionally, we find that, on average, firms that are completely foreign-owned have a relatively lower investment-to-sales ratio. Finally, we find evidence which suggests that the probability of investing is higher for firms located in countries with more control of corruption and we find some evidence which suggests that partially foreign-owned firms located in countries with relatively less corruption have a relatively higher investment-to-sales ratio.     

Does it pay firms to register for taxes? The impact of formality on firm profitability

This paper estimates the impact of registering for taxes on firm profits in Bolivia, the country with the highest levels of informality in Latin America. A new survey of micro and small firms enables us to control for a rich set of measures of owner ability and business motivations that can affect both profits and the decision to formalize. We identify the impact of tax registration on business profitability using the distance of a firm from the tax office where registration occurs, conditional on the distance to the city center, as an instrument for registration. Proximity to the tax office provides firms with more information about registration, but is argued to not directly affect profits. We find tax registration leads to significantly higher profits for the firms that the instrument affects. However, we also find some evidence of heterogeneous effects of tax formality on profits. Tax registration appears to increase profits for the mid-sized firms in our sample, but to lower profits for both the marginal smaller and larger firms, in contrast to the standard view that formality increases profits. We show that owners of large firms who have managed to stay informal are of higher entrepreneurial ability than formal firm owners, in contrast to the standard view (correct among smaller firms) that informal firm owners are low ability.     

Political uncertainty and labour investment efficiency

ABSTRACT

We examine the impact of political uncertainty on the labour investment efficiency (LIE) of a firm. Using a sample of Chinese firms, we test the market discipline and managerial entrenchment hypotheses. Our findings suggest that political uncertainty adversely affects LIE. The results are consistent with the managerial entrenchment hypothesis. That is, firms hire more labour in a period of increased information asymmetry due to the political uncertainty, which deteriorates LIE. Our findings are robust to a battery of alternative measures of LIE and estimation methods. We conduct several additional analyses and document that the adverse impact of political uncertainty is stronger when the newly appointed government official is older, the firm is state-owned, the firm belongs to a politically sensitive industry or the firm operates in locations with stringent labour protection. By contrast, when the firm locates in a region with weak Chinese government intervention or after President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, the adverse impact of political uncertainty on LIE is less pronounced. Last, we document that after hiring more labour, firms receive tangible and intangible benefits in terms of receiving more loans, collect more government subsidies, and able to re-establish some political connection but at the cost of lower performance.     

BERTRAND Vs. COURNOT COMPETITION WITH UPSTREAM FIRM INVESTMENT

This paper compares Bertrand and Cournot competition in a vertical structure in which the upstream firm sets the input price and makes R&D investments. We show that from the downstream firms’ point of view, Cournot competition has the advantage of a more monopolistic effect, leading to the setting of a higher price, but has the disadvantage of inducing a lower incentive for the upstream firm to invest. On the other hand, Bertrand competition has the advantage of providing a greater incentive for the upstream firm to invest but has the disadvantage of a more competitive effect, leading to the setting of a lower price. Our main findings are as follows. First, R&D investment level is greater under Bertrand competition than under Cournot competition. Second, from the standpoint of the upstream firm and industry, Bertrand competition is more efficient than Cournot competition. Third, from the standpoint of the downstream firms, Bertrand competition is more efficient than Cournot when investment is sufficiently efficient and products are sufficiently differentiated.