Strategic profiles of Brazilian exporters and performance implications

This study presents a taxonomic classification of manufactured products exporters based on strategic orientation which is the result of an analysis of a sample of 414 Brazilian exporters of manufactured goods. The analyses used Cluster analysis, MANOVA, ANOVA, post-hoc tests and crosstabs. The study identified four patterns of strategic orientation of Brazilian exporters and provided indications of correlations with firm and manager characteristics. The article includes a discussion of implications for export performance. Findings suggest that joint attention to planning and differentiation seems to pay off, but planning alone is insufficient to ensure winning results. The study has contributed to the literature by identifying clearly discernible patterns of strategic orientation of Brazilian exporters and their association with firm and manager characteristics. The study also discusses how export performance correlates with strategic orientation.     

Do exporters really pay higher wages? First evidence from German linked employer-employee data

Many plant-level studies find that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. This paper uses a large set of linked employer-employee data from Germany to analyze this exporter wage premium. We show that the wage differential becomes smaller but does not completely vanish when observable and unobservable characteristics of the employees and of the workplace are controlled for. For example, blue-collar (white-collar) employees working in a plant with an export-sales ratio of 60% earn about 1.8 (0.9) % more than similar employees in otherwise identical non-exporting plants.     

城市房价与全要素生产率:“挤出效应”与“筛选效应”

本文主要关注城市房价对整体全要素生产率和企业个体全要素生产率影响的差异性,重点分析城市房价上涨对工业企业的"筛选效应"与"倒逼效应"。利用230个地级市数据和微观工业企业数据,采用工具变量法分别检验了房价对城市整体以及工业企业全要素生产率的差异性影响。实证结果表明,城市高房价显著抑制了城市全要素生产率水平的提升,这种抑制效应主要来自房地产投资对实体经济资金的"挤占效应"和"资源错配效应"。城市房价快速上涨对工业企业的"筛选效应",使房价快速增长城市工业企业的全要素生产率一般会较高。如果对留存企业的"倒逼效应"难以抵消房价上涨带来的效率损失时,房价快速上涨累积形成的高房价与工业企业生产率之间会存在一种"倒U型"曲线关系。城市房价快速上涨对服务业企业的"锁定效应"与生产率的"侵蚀效应",使房价快速上涨及高房价城市中工业企业全要素生产率较高,但城市整体生产率水平较低。稳健性分析也支持了以上研究结论。     

The Signaling Impact of Low Introductory Price on Perceived Quality and Trial

Economic signaling theory suggests that consumers interpret price withinthe context of market conditions. Under specific conditions it predicts thatlow price may signal high quality. Results from an experiment designed totest the behavioral assumptions underlying this prediction indicate thatconsumers intentions to purchase conform to the predictions of economicsignaling theory, but their judgments of product quality do not. The resultssuggest that consumers' response to signals may be more complex thanpreviously shown.     

Antidumping protection and markups of domestic firms

This paper tests whether Antidumping (AD) protection affects the market power of import-competing domestic firms. We use panel data of about 4000 EU producers that were involved in AD cases to estimate markups before and after the filing of a case. Our findings indicate that AD protection has positive and significant effects on domestic markups, except in cases where import diversion after protection is strong, like in ‘seamless steel tubes’. Our results control for potential endogeneity of AD filings. A randomly drawn control group of firms not subject to AD policy did not have rising markups during the same period.     

Higher quality or lower price? How value-increasing promotions affect retailer reputation via perceived value

Marketers often attempt to increase consumers' perceptions of value by raising the quality or reducing the price of products. Five studies demonstrate that consumers are generally more sensitive to lower-price promotions than to higher-quality promotions as they form their perceptions of retailer reputation (Study 1), that the perceived value mediates this effect (Study 2), that store image (prestigious vs. thrifty) moderates the effect (Study 3), and that perceived price level (Study 4) and quality level (Study 5) independently drive the moderating effect of store image.     

The death of firms: exploring the effects of environment and birth cohort on firm survival in Sweden

This paper investigates the death of firms and seizes a long-term perspective. It investigates the life spans of nearly 2,200 firms in seven birth cohorts of Swedish joint-stock companies, founded during seven separate years between 1899 and 1950. Research has traditionally emphasized individual- and micro-oriented factors in explaining post-entry performance, or has often focused on the influence of firm-specific structural factors (firm age and size). A less attended field recognizes environmental forces. This paper focuses on the interaction between the micro and macro levels, and combines structural and environmental factors. Employing a cohort approach, it relates firm survival to firm age and size, as well as to the effect of cohort affiliation and environmental change over time (period effects). During macroeconomic expansion, the risk of death decreases. Cohort effects are also evident. Firms founded during times of economic crisis exhibit lower survival rates. Consequently, cohort affiliation and environmental forces, i.e. period effects, can explain differences in death rates in different firm populations.

Defending Gibrat’s Law as a long-run regularity

According to Gibrat’s Law of Proportionate Effect, the growth rate of a given firm is independent of its size at the beginning of the period examined. While earlier studies tended to confirm the Law, more recent research generally rejects it. This article reconciles these two streams of literature, taking into account the role of market selection and learning in reshaping a given population of firms through time. Consistently with previous studies, we find that Gibrat’s Law has to be rejected ex ante, since smaller firms tend to grow faster than their larger counterparts. However, a significant convergence toward Gibrat-like behavior can be detected ex post. This finding is an indication that market selection “cleans” the original population of firms, so that the resulting industrial “core” does not depart from a Gibrat-like pattern of growth. From a theoretical point of view, this result is consistent with those models based on passive and active learning, and can be seen as a defense of the validity of the Law in the long-run.

我国证券承销商声誉与IPO企业质量关系的实证分析

本文利用中国证券发行市场上的数据资料检验了我国承销商声誉与IP0企业质量之间的关系，实证分析的结果显示“认证中介理论”和Chemmanur-Fulghieri模型所表明的承销商声誉与IPO企业质量之间正相关的关系在我国证券发行市场中被扭曲，因此投资者通过承销商的声誉等级来区分发行企业质量的信息甄别机制在我国证券发行市场基本上不存在。这种情形致使我国承销商的信息生产功能和“认证中介”职能严重缺位，这是导致我国证券发行市场信息不对称问题严重、投资者“逆向选择行为”普遍、低质量发行企业充斥市场的一个重要原因。本文认为，管理层改变这种状况的政策取向应包括IPO企业筛选机制的市场化、承销服务费用的市场化、推进和完善“保荐人制度”以及促进承销商股权结构多元化和分散化等几个方面的内容。     

The Exporter Wage Premium Hypothesis: An Unconditional Quantile Regression and Decomposition Approach

ABSTRACT

Relying on the World Bank Enterprise Survey dataset in 2012/13, this paper applies the unconditional quantile regression and decomposition estimation techniques to examine the hypothesis that workers in exporting firms receive higher wages than those in non-exporting firms. The results show that the relationship between export and firm’s wage bill is indirect and is transmitted through technology and firm size. Remarkably, these indirect relationships are much more pronounced at the more upper quantiles of the wage bill distribution. However, the net relationships of the interaction between export and technology are relatively larger and positive as compared to that of the interaction between export and firm size which are marginal and mixed. The decomposition analysis indicates that much of the present exporter wage premiums are largely due to the differences in the returns to the characteristics between exporting and non-exporting firms. The findings from this paper suggest directions for future work that can be directly useful for policy.     

The Accuracy of Scanned Prices

Nearly all retailers use price scanning systems to process transactions quickly, and presumably, accurately. Inaccuracies in scanned prices have important implications for retailers in that undercharges may impact retail profitability while overcharges could result in negative consumer perceptions of retailers and continued legal action. Here, we investigate the overall State of accuracy of scanned prices and develop certain empirical generalizations. To do so, we begin with a review of what is known regarding the accuracy of scanned prices and conduct a reanalysis of FTC data and compare the results with those from more recent cross-sectional data from the State of Washington. We then conduct a thorough analysis of a large longitudinal price scanner data set, with 231,760 products screened over a 15-year period. We investigate accuracy across different retailer characteristics, merchandise locations, and promotional activities. Implications of these results for retailers are discussed.