On the Simultaneity Between Market Concentration and Profitability: the case of a Small-Open Developing Country

The objective of this paper is to examining the controversy in the literature, surrounding the simultaneity between concentration and price-cost margins. As earlier studies have tested this problem in the context of developed countries only, this paper examines the relationship between concentration and profitability using data from a developing country, Malaysia. Empirical results indicate that simultaneity between concentration and margins may be ruled out in the case of Malaysian manufacturing industries. [L19]     

Patents,profitability, liquidity and firm size

Much has been written on the need for a more rapid rate of technical progress in the British economy but there is little in the way of hard facts on the characteristics of firms that innovate and those that do not, on the factors determining a firm's rate of innovation, and on the relationship between innovation and profitability. The present paper attempts to give some quantitative content to the discussion by examining the relationship between a firm's size, its profitability, its liquidity and the number of patents obtained in three United Kingdom industries - Chemicals, an Electrical Engineering and Electronics grouping, and Machine Tools. These three industries were chosen because they are technologically based and so place heavy emphasis on research and development.

The plan of the paper is as follows. Section 1 discusses the patents data and the use of patents as an indicator of innovative activity. The size characteristics of patenting and non-patenting firms are considered in Section 2. Section 3 presents the model relating patenting to firm size, liquidity and profitability. Sections 4 to 6 report in turn the results for the Chemical industry, the Electrical Engineering and Electronics grouping, and the Machine Tools industry. Section 7 investigates whether any short-ran profitability may be found to result from inno-vative activity. Section 8 compares our results with those obtained for the United States. Section 3 is a summary of our results.     

Entry deterrence through credit denial

Firms in oligopoly can use debt to commit to a strategic position that negatively affects rival firms and improves profitability. In this paper, I show that an incumbent firm can deter entry by using debt to commit to such a low price that an entrant's lender will not finance entry, even if the entrant's expected profit from entry is positive. Empirical evidence shows that concentration and debt are positively related in several industries, indicating that debt may be used to reduce competition.     

Profitability and Concentration in Australian Manufacturing Industries 1970-71 to 1972-73:A Further Examination*

In a recent issue of the Economic Record, D. K. Round found that, using I.A.C. data for 32 industries for the period 1970-71 to 1972–1973, sales-based measures of profitability were linked positively and significantly with concentration, but that funds-based measures showed a negative relationship. In this paper, the I AC profitability ratios are adjusted from an historical cost to a current value basis. Regressions of the adjusted profitability ratios on concentration, over the period 1970-71 to 1972-73, conflict with Round's finding that the concentration coefficient using net profit/sales was significant, and a much weaker relationship is found with all of the regressions that used adjusted, as compared to unadjusted, I AC profitability ratios.     

The Determinants of Firm Profitability in Australian Manufacturing

This study provides new evidence on the determinants of the profitability of Australian manufacturing firms by analyzing a unique firm-level data set of firm performance over the period 1984-93. The panel nature of the data permits the estimation of dynamic profitability models over the business cycle, to test both the persistence and cyclicality of firm profitability. Econometric results suggest that lagged profitability is a significant determinant of current profit margins, and that industry concentration is positively related to firm profit margins. Also, profit margins are found to be procyciical in concentrated industries but counter-cyclical in less concentrated industries.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF THE INTER-INDUSTRY PATTERN OF DIVERSIFICATION BY U.K. MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES*

Evidence of the diversity of output of larger U.K. manufacturing enterprises’in 1958, 1963 and 1968 is provided in the Reports on the Census of Production. The Censuses show that between 1958 and 1968 diversification was a significant and general trend in manufacturing industries and an important element in the growth of firms during the period. Moreover diversification seems to be part of a longer term trend in U.K. industry and part of the typical development pattern of the large firm. A theory of the firm's diversification decision is proposed and from this theory predictions are made of the structural features both of a firm's primary industry and of outside industries which are likely to encourage diversification from the one industry to the other. The power of the model in explaining the pattern of diversification between SIC manufacturing orders in the period 1963–68 is weak, due in part to the wide variety of factors influencing diversification and to the aggregated form of the data. Nevertheless, the results show the importance of research and development effort in encouraging diversification and the stimulus to diversification given by profitability and risk in firms’primary industries and high rates of output growth in outside industries. While the findings offer no clear conclusions regarding the impact of diversification upon economic performance, the results are consistent with the propositions that (i) diversification encourages technical progress in industry and (ii) diversification increases the efficiency with which resources are allocated between industries.     

后危机时代加拿大制造业的发展及其启示

制造业是加拿大经济中最重要的财富创造部门,也是加拿大最大的私营经济部门。2010年至今的数据表明,加拿大制造业的产值、就业、产能利用率、投资和利润等核心指标均正在逐步恢复至全球金融危机前的2008年左右的水平。2011年,加拿大制造业资本性支出大幅回升,利润达到历史最好水平,制造业已成为加拿大通过扩大产能推动增长的重要力量。目前,加拿大制造业面临的挑战主要是:增值产品出口状况恶化,企业创新投入不足、创新能力匮乏,市场需求不足等。为应对挑战,加拿大政府采取了一系列推动制造业走向更加先进、知识技术更加密集以及创造更多的高水平就业的政策措施。加拿大制造业恢复发展的经验以及应对挑战的政策措施,值得我国制造业借鉴。     

Investor Expectations and the North American Free Trade Agreement

The paper uses a stock market event study to examine investors' expectations of NAFTA's effect on the profitability of manufacturing industries in the USA, Canada, and Mexico. The main finding is that factor intensity, specifically a measure of the industry–wide labor–capital ratio, is the most significant determinant of excess returns. The results suggest that investors believed the NAFTA would favor industries that used abundant factors intensively and reduce profitability in industries that relied heavily on scarce factors; and, more generally, that factor intensity is a primary source of comparative advantage. No significant relationship was found between the relative scale of industries among the three countries and the NAFTA's expected influence on profitability.     

Intangible capital,market share and corporate strategy

This paper theoretically and empirically identifies the determinants of firm profitability and market share for twelve broadly defined US manufacturing industry groups. The effects of advertising, research and development, and diversification on profitability and market share are econometrically tested for each industry group, and corporate strategy implications of the results are considered. One major result of the analysis is that research and development (R&D) tends to be much more effective as a means of enhancing firm profitability than advertising, and research and development spending decisions are more closely related to the profitability of R&D than advertising decisions are related to the profitability of advertising.     

中原城市群建设的国际视角

国外三个著名的都市圈都是各自国家内的经济社会极化地区,经济总量最大,单位面积产出多,产业、人口和从业人员高度集聚,中心城市能力强。与之相比,中原城市群有较大的差距,但是发展的潜力巨大。今后建设的对策是:强化郑州中心城市的功能,集聚人口和产业到中原城市群,提高城市土地利用效率和产业技术水平,促进地区间的积极竞争,把“流”变成“留”。     

R & D税收激励有效性与影响因素

基于生产函数理论抽象出盈利能力和研发程度是R&D税收激励效应的两个关键因素,进而采用2012-2015年全国高新技术企业调查数据,分别检验了15%税率式优惠与研发加计扣除政策的有效性及其影响因素。实证结果表明：15%税率式优惠与加计扣除政策均能激励企业创新,而加计扣除激励效果显著优于15%税率式优惠;15%税率式优惠政策效应受企业盈利能力影响较大,而加计扣除政策受企业研发投入的作用较大;15%税率式优惠政策对高新制造业、服务业和文化产业创新激励效果不显著,而加计扣除对高新制造业和文化产业研发密集型行业创新具有显著的激励作用;15%税率式激励对成熟度较高企业创新具有较好的激励效应,而研发费用加计扣除政策对成熟度较低企业创新具有较强的促进作用。     

产业地理集中度测度方法研究

产业空间集聚研究对于制定产业政策、促进区域经济发展具有重要意义。其研究依赖于对产业地理分布状况的准确测度。产业空间分布一直是经济地理学研究的热点,因此发展了多种产业地理集中测度方法。传统的Herfindahl指数、区位Gini系数是衡量产业地理集中程度最为常用的方法。近年来新发展的E—G指数、M—S指数、L函数、D函数、M函数是对传统方法的重要补充和提高,极大促进了产业地理集中研究的发展。上述方法可以分成两类:单一地理尺度方法和基于距离的多空间尺度方法。不同的方法各有成功和不足之处。文章对已有方法进行了全面分析,并对进一步发展的方向提出了一些见解,以促进对这些方法的正确理解和运用。     

The Effects of a Booming Export Industry on the Rest of the Economy*

It is argued that the roles of relative factor intensity and of the degree of factor mobility have been neglected in models of booming export industries. This paper shows that, contrary to popular beliefs. the mineral export boom may result in (a) an expansion of all industries, (b) an increase in the profitability of the traditional tradeables sector, and(c) a fall in the relative price of non-tradeables .     

Entrepreneurs with glamour? DEA performance characterization of high-tech and older-established industries

The development of high-tech industries for competitiveness is an important issue for government policy-makers. Prior work by scholars concentrates disproportionately on the modern economies conventionally classified as high technology, and underestimates the importance of the older-established sectors that comprise the bulk of economic activity. This study examines the managerial performance efficiency of 367 manufacture firms in Taiwan utilizing the two-stage data envelopment analysis technique. The empirical results indicate that the scale of the firms does play an important role in influencing the operating efficiency. One can increase the firm's performance by consolidating with other smaller units to achieve the optimal size. By employing a profitability/marketability matrix, this study better characterizes the operating performance of the firms. The result of this study has a broader implication in that prior studies neglect these older-established sectors in terms of their current performance and future development. This finding in turn reflects a major distortion in views about the roles of research and development and technological upgrading in modern regional economies as a whole.     

高技术产业发展的国际经验比较及其启示

知识经济时代，高技术产业发展风起云涌，发达国家和一些发展中国家都制定了一系列发展战略计划以及优惠政策和措施，大力推动高技术产业的发展，以占邻21世纪高技术的战略制高点，中国作为一个发展中大国，要想提高自己的综合国力和国际竞争力，必须在高技术领域占有一席之地。因此，借鉴国际经验，确定我国高技术产业发展重点，加大研发投入，提高自主创新能力，营造良好的高技术产业发展环境，扶持中小高技术产业的发展，培养和造就一大批高素质人才，以加快我国高技术产业的发展，带动经济的快速增长。     

Barriers to Entry and Industrial Performance in China

This paper estimates an index of barriers to entry for each of the 40 Chinese industries by modelling entry as a function of various incentives to enter, relative to the level of barriers to entry. The estimated index was employed to analyse the relationship between barriers to entry and profitability and total factor productivity. The major finding is that an appropriate degree of barriers to entry,¹but not free entry or high barriers to entry, is beneficial to Chinese industrial performance. This is in contrast to the conventional argument in mainstream industrial economics and the findings of most empirical research.     

Why are profits correlated with concentration?

In a free-entry non-cooperative oligopoly a correlation between profitability and concentration arises from the indivisibility of firms. Although a ‘perverse’ negative correlation is possible, most distributions of entry fees across industries yield a positive correlation.     

基于科学的产业发展影响因素组态与路径研究——对中国内地31省份医药制造业的QCA分析

基于科学的产业在经济发展中具有极强的活力,正成为21世纪国家经济发展的新引擎和新一轮产业革命的摇篮。选择医药制造业作为科学产业的典型案例,以我国内地31个省份数据为研究样本,运用模糊集定性比较分析(fsQCA)方法,探讨经济、科学、技术、政策条件对科学产业发展绩效的联动效应及路径选择。结果表明,单一条件并不构成制药业高绩效的必要条件,前因条件多重并发形成驱动制药业高绩效的多样化组态;存在驱动制药业高水平绩效的3条路径,分别是科学与技术双元主导驱动型、经济主导逻辑下的科学与政策驱动型以及经济主导逻辑下的技术与政策驱动型;存在导致制药业非高水平绩效的两条路径,且这两个组态的核心条件相同,即非经济水平和非科学研究。结论有助于深化对我国科学产业发展背后多重因素间复杂互动本质的理性认识,并为基于科学的产业成长带来有益的实践启示。     

通货膨胀对我国酿酒行业盈利能力影响的实证研究

2010年以来通货膨胀压力逐渐显现，作为传统意义上的抗通胀行业，研究酿酒行业的盈利变化及影响因素的研究显得较为重要。本文使用2009年一2012年的样本数据，采用聚类分析研究行业总体情况并且给出了相关的评价，同时，文章使用因子分析和多元回归分析相结合的方法来研究酿酒行业在通货膨胀背景下的盈利能力情况并找出主要的影响因素。实证结果表明酿酒行业的利润与通货膨胀成正相关，与居民消费能力情况也有着正相关性，并且发现其盈利能力主要受到了居民消费能力的影响。     

长江经济带高耗能产业集聚特征及影响因素研究

高耗能产业在长江经济带工业体系中占据较大比重,采用产业集聚指数评估长江经济带高耗能产业集聚水平,采用计量分析方法验证长江经济带高耗能产业集聚水平的主要影响因素。研究结果表明：长江经济带高耗能产业整体集聚趋势明显,各细分行业集聚趋势存在差异;高耗能产业动态集聚水平的省际差异变化趋势尚不明显;资源禀赋、基础设施、人力资源与高耗能产业动态集聚水平呈正向相关关系,环境规制、财政政策对高耗能产业动态集聚水平有负向抑制作用。促进长江经济带高耗能产业绿色转型发展,应重点优化产业空间布局、严控产业污染转移、加强绿色制造人才队伍建设。