Input Hedging,Output Hedging,and Market Power

We argue that commodity input hedging is different from commodity output hedging. Output hedging can be detrimental to “sector play.” Furthermore, firms with market power that hedge outputs have incentives to over‐produce and distort market prices. In rational markets, such hedging will be expensive and we expect to see a negative relationship between hedging and market power in “output industries” but not in “input industries.” We test these predictions on a sample of S&P500 firms from 2001 to 2005. Our results support both hypotheses. Placebo tests show that the same empirical regularities do not apply to currency hedging. Finally, our empirical framework, which differentiates between hedging inputs and hedging outputs, can also help in reconciling conflicting results in prior studies.     

Positive Assortive Merging

This paper addresses the following two questions: (i) Is there any evidence that firms, like human beings, prefer to partner with alike? (ii) Is there any relationship between the ex ante technological and product relatedness of merging parties and the postmerger performances? Using data of patent holdings and product portfolios of big pharmaceutical companies, I find that (i) merger deals are more likely to be signed between firms with related technologies and drug portfolios, and (ii) product relatedness and technology relatedness are positively and negatively correlated with postmerger performances, respectively. The analysis suggests that the negative effect of technology relatedness might be driven by a large human capital depreciation following consolidations. The results have important implications for competition policy, which are discussed in the concluding section.     

Technological opportunity and the relationship between innovation output and market structure

This study examines influences of technological opportunity on the relationship between market structure and the innovation output of different‐size firms. A simultaneous‐equations model is specified and estimated separately for technologically progressive and technologically unprogressive industries. The study finds that innovation activities of small firms and large firms bear different relationships to market structure, in part resulting from interindustry differences in technological opportunity. In technologically progressive industries, innovation output (especially of small firms) is lower in the presence of high concentration and is increased substantially by high R&D intensity. Large‐firm innovation output has a positive effect on industry concentration, but only in technologically unprogressive industries. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovations and market structure in West German industries

The authors analyse the relationship between industry concentration and industry's R&D and innovative activities, for West German industries during the period 1965–1977. The most striking result produced by a single equation model and a simultaneous equations model is the adverse impact of size and industry concentration on productivity growth. On the other hand, however, both size and concentration give rise to faster growth of sales which in turn enhances productivity growth.     

In and Out of Balance: Industry Relatedness,Learning Capabilities and Post-Acquisition Innovative Performance

The existence of an inverted U-shaped effect of the relatedness between acquirer and acquired firm on the innovative performance subsequent to an acquisition is normally regarded as indicative of the existence of a trade-off between exploration and exploitation in external innovation search. We argue that acquirers endowed with heterogeneous learning capabilities can alter the shape of the trade-off to their favour. In particular, we focus on a notion of industry relatedness that captures the coherence between the domains of operation of the acquirer and the acquired firm. Using a longitudinal dataset of 1,736 domestic acquisitions in the Netherlands, we show that the heterogeneous learning capabilities of the acquirers alter the shape of the inverted-U relationship, according to first- and second-order moderating effects. Our results confirm that learning capabilities by internal R&D and by acquisition experience both improve what acquirers can achieve in innovative performance when industry relatedness is at the point of balance between exploration and exploitation. In contrast, they have opposite implications on the potential losses in innovative performance when industry relatedness is outside the point of balance: internal R&D increases the tolerance of the trade-off, smoothing out potential innovation losses, whereas acquisition experience reduces it.     

When Necessity Becomes a Virtue: The Effect of Product Market Competition on Corporate Social Responsibility

We test whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is driven by strategic considerations by empirically studying the link between competition and firms' social performance. We find that firms in more competitive industries have better social ratings. In particular, we show that (i) different market concentration proxies are negatively related to widely used CSR measures; (ii) that an increase in competition due to higher import penetration leads to superior CSR performance; (iii) that firms in more competitive environments have a superior environmental performance, measured by firm pollution levels; and (iv) that more product competition is associated to a larger within‐industry CSR variance. We interpret these results as evidence that CSR is strategically chosen.     

增值税“扩围”改革对行业税负变动的预期影响

增值税“扩围”改革将影响到各行业的流转税负担.利用投入产出表数据,测算增值税“扩围”改革对目前属于增值税征收范围的行业(即“增值税行业”)和目前属于营业税征收范围行业(即“营业税行业”)流转税税负变动的影响,结果显示:增值税行业的总体税负将有小幅下降,服务中间投入比率是影响各增值税行业减税效应大小的关键因素;各营业税行业的税负变化情况差异较大,商务服务业等大多数行业的税负将减轻,但租赁业等部分行业的税负可能会加重,税改后的增值税税率水平选择与中间投入比率是影响各营业税行业税负变动的主要因素.为了促进行业间税负公平,减少增值税“扩围”改革对行业发展的不利影响,有必要适当降低租赁业、交通运输业的税率水平.     

Assessing the technological innovation efficiency of China's high-tech industries with a two-stage network DEA approach

As significant strategic players in China's economy, high-tech industries need to evaluate and analyze the technological innovation activities from a system point of view to understand and improve their technological innovation efficiency and, thereby, promote their development. Different high-tech industries have different characteristics and thus benefit from different industrial development policies. However, few studies to date have discussed this issue from a systematic perspective. In this study, technological innovation activities are divided into a research and development (R&D) stage and a commercialization stage. A high-tech industrial evaluation framework of technological innovation efficiency based on two-stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) is constructed with shared inputs, additional intermediate inputs, and free intermediate outputs. Our empirical results indicate that the overall efficiency of most industries is relatively low and the differences between the five high-tech industries (i.e., sub-sectors) we examined are large. The Spearman correlation shows that overall efficiency and R&D efficiency are more correlated than overall efficiency and commercialization efficiency. Additionally, R&D has better average efficiency. The sub-sector with the highest average efficiency is computers and office equipment, and the one with the lowest average efficiency is medicines. These findings indicate the inadequacy but potential for breakthroughs in the evolution of high-tech industries in China. The analysis proves that it is necessary to create different industrial policies to encourage effective progress in certain high-tech industries, and some guidelines for doing so are provided.     

The Spatial Distribution of Japanese Manufacturing Industries in Indonesia

This paper presents an analysis of regional changes in the spatial pattern of Japanese manufacturing industries and the effect of deregulation of foreign investment in Indonesia during 1984–1994. Empirical analysis in this paper uses data of 560 Japanese manufacturing industries in Indonesia. The result of this study indicates their continuous regional concentration in the core region of Java. The regression analysis indicates that market, agglomeration and infrastructure continue to be the main reasons for the location of Japanese manufacturing industries. The current economic crisis has substantially reduced the level of new investment in the core region of Java.     

Do major customers encourage innovative sustainable development? Empirical evidence from corporate green innovation in China

This paper examines the impact of customer concentration on green innovation in Chinese listed firms between 2006 and 2018 through the dynamic panel generalized method of moments regressions. It is reported that major customers positively impact corporate green innovation, indicating that firms have more incentives to engage in innovative green practices to maintain stable relationships with major customers. In addition, the positive relationship between customer concentration and green innovation is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, firms located in the provinces with a high level of marketization, and after China's new Environmental Protection Law implementation. Moreover, we observe that the positive impact of customer concentration on corporate green innovation is more significant among industrial firms and firms operating in heavily polluting industries. Furthermore, industrial competition is an essential channel for major customers to affect corporate green innovation.     

Trade Affected Workers in the Service Sector

A bstract . Using input output data for 1987 and 1990, this study identified those groups of service sector workers most vulnerable to trade-related employment displacements. Relative to other industry groups, workers (both black and white) in service industries which experienced an increase in (positive) net trade-related employment, were more likely to be male, elderly (over 65 years of age), less educated (high school graduates) and unskilled (laborers). In contrast, service industries which suffered a decline in (positive) net trade-related employment between 1987 and 1990, were relatively more skill-intensive (as measured by the share of college educated workers, scientists, engineers and managers in the labor force) , and more likely to employ women, married couples and individuals in the 25 to 35 age bracket. Union members on the other hand, were overrepresented in service industries which suffered net trade–related employment losses in 1987 and 1990. The latter industries, however, experienced an improvement over the period.     

Innovation, Product Durability, and Market Structure

Because many durable goods industries are also industries with significant innovative activity, we analyze the relationship between an oligopolistic firm's choice of product durability and cost-reducing innovation in rental and sales markets. We demonstrate the firm's durability may be greater than, equal to, or less than a social planner's, depending upon innovation's impact on the marginal cost of durability. We also show that the firm's innovation level can be maximized for moderate levels of concentration if the output is durable. This provides theoretical support for the empirical observation that innovation is often maximized in markets of moderate concentration.     

Value Relevance of Accounting Information for Intangible-Intensive Industries and the Impact of Scale: The US Evidence

Abstract

The structural shift in the USA from a tangible- to an intangible-intensive economy raises a concern that reporting based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) might have lost its usefulness to investors. Amir and Lev [(1996) Value relevance of nonfinancial information: the wireless communications industry, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 22(1–3), pp. 3–30] argue that accounting information is not useful for intangible-intensive firms. In contrast, Collins et al. [(1997) Changes in the value relevance of earnings and book values over the past forty years, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24(1), pp. 39–67] find that the value relevance (measured by R-squared) of accounting information has increased over time and that value relevance for intangible-intensive industries is as high as that for tangible-intensive industries. In this article, we attempt to resolve the above discrepancy by examining the impact of scale on R-squared (Brown, S., Lo, K. and Lys, T. (1999) Use of R² in accounting research: measuring changes in value relevance over the last four decades, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 28(2), pp. 83–115). We find that, after controlling for scale, R-squared is lower for intangible-intensive industries than for non-intangible-intensive industries and has declined over time for intangible-intensive industries but remained stable for non-intangible-intensive industries. Interestingly, the declining trend ended with the demise of the ‘New Economy’ period (NEP) (Core, J. E., Guay, W. R. and Van Buskirk, A. (2003) Market valuations in the New Economy: an investigation of what has changed, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 34(2–3), pp. 43–67), and value relevance for both industry groups appears to be restored in the post-NEP to the pre-NEP level. We also find that R&D capitalisation increases value relevance for intangible-intensive industries, but does not completely eliminate the gap between the two groups.     

AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES IN JAPAN: TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY, GROWTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper examines if the effects of agglomeration economies are manifested in technical efficiency and generate faster economic growth and higher (lower) levels of employment (unemployment). Using the prefecture level data for each of the two-digit groups of industries in Japan, it estimates a region-specific technical efficiency index based on the stochastic frontier production function framework. The factor analysis shows that in most of the industry-groups, efficiency has a positive association with external scale variable(s). Though the relationship is not very strong, it would be erroneous to ignore the effect of agglomeration economies on efficiency. For some light goods industries, the agglomeration effect is relatively stronger. Economic growth varies positively with external scale variable(s) and the unemployment rate tends to fall with respect to growth and concentration. This suggests that measures against industrial concentration may be counter-productive, particularly in the context of globalization when countries greatly need to raise productivity.     

The effect of labor supply changes on output: empirical evidence from US industries

In this paper we examine the relationship between labor supply and industry-level output in the context of the specific factors model. Jones (Trade, balance of payment and growth: essays in honor of Charles P. Kindleberger, Amsterdam, pp 3–21, 1971) shows that a rise in the amount of labor in the economy will increase the output in all industries. We empirically show which industry output is predicted to expand more when the size of labor force grows. Unlike the commonly used Rybczynski Theorem (Economica 22:336–341, 1955) of the Heckscher-Ohlin model, the specific factors model shows that a comparison both of labor intensities and labor demand elasticities plays an important role in determining which output expands relatively more when the size of labor force grows. For this purpose, we illustrate the importance of the parameters of the model in determining how changes in the labor supply affect the output change, with special reference to elasticities of substitution in production. We estimate the elasticity of substitution by using CES production function and show how these estimates describe the general equilibrium of production with one mobile factor (labor) and 25 industries of the US economy using data for 1979–2001. We show that the increase in the supply of labor raise output in all industries, but the magnitudes of the increases in some industries are more than others depending on the value of the elasticity of substitution along with factor intensities between industries. The largest output effect occurs for educational, health care and social service, where a 1 % supply of labor increase would raise output 10.5 %. However, the growth in the labor supply has a small impact on output growth in the range of 0.1–0.6 % in agriculture, petroleum, coal product and finance and insurance industries.     

An analysis of process industry production and inventory management systems

The process industries — those firms that add value by mixing, separating, forming and/or chemical reactions by either batch or continuous mode — continue to lag behind the discrete industries in the identification and implementation of effective production and inventory management (P&IM) techniques. A contributing factor is that the process industries have traditionally been lumped together and contrasted from the discrete industries as a whole, thus leading to misunderstandings regarding individual process industries. From site interviews and the literature, we identified four critical dimensions — planning resource requirements (for materials and capacity), tracking resource consumption, control of work-in-process (WIP), and degree of computerization — represented by seven variables by which to contrast and analyze process industries. Based on in-depth field studies of 19 diverse process plants, we find that there exist at least four distinct types of process industry P&IM systems: (1) simple, (2) common, (3) WIP-controlled, and (4) computerized.     

Scale Externalities in Korea

This paper estimates the nature and magnitude of scale externalities in a developing country, Korea, in the period 1983–1993. This is a period of rapid industry deconcentration from Seoul to other metro areas, providing a context where externalities are measured when local scale magnitudes are changing dramatically. The data allow us to examine the emerging degree of national industrial concentration in different industries, as related to their scale externality magnitudes. We also examine whether individual industries agglomerate in cities which have a comparative advantage for that industry.     

The impact of technological relatedness, prior ties, and geographical distance on university-industry collaborations: A joint-patent analysis

Empirical studies on R&D collaborations between universities and firms have mainly centered their attention on universities and firms' characteristics that favor the establishment of collaborative agreements. In this paper, I extend the current research framework investigating the role that specific technological and relational attributes may play on the relevance of such collaborations. Specifically, I focus on the effects exerted by three relevant factors, namely technological relatedness, prior collaboration ties, and geographical distance, on university-industry joint innovation value. I develop testable hypotheses about their impact on the innovative performance of R&D university-industry collaborations, and test them on a sample of 796 university-industry joint patents, developed by 33 universities located in 12 different European countries. Our results suggest that partners' technological relatedness has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation value. In addition, prior ties and geographical distance between universities and firms are both positively related to the achievement of higher innovative outcomes.     

Price and Nonprice Competition with Endogenous Market Structure

This paper examines the effect of the intensity of short-run price competition and other exogenous variables that affect gross profit margins—such as the degree of product differentiation and the consumers' responsiveness to quality—on market structure and on advertising and R&D expenditure. A key result is that more intense short-run competition can lead to lower concentration in industries with high advertising or R&D intensity, unlike exogenous-sunk-cost industries. Also, price competition has a negative effect on advertising or R&D expenditure. A case study is also presented, which is consistent with the theoretical results of the paper.     

The regional economic impacts of voluntary pollution prevention in New Jersey

Recent experience with voluntary pollution prevention (P2) for five industries in the state of New Jersey is examined. Using a regional econometric model, it is estimated that P2 will increase regional value added between $3 million and $5 million per year between 1994 and 2005 (1994 US dollars). Most of this gain is in the chemical sector. While small, given the size of the industries studied, the level of P2 in these industries is also small. Furthermore, these estimates exclude environmental benefits and returns from recycling. One significant contribution of the research is to examine the economic impact on the chemical industry of P2-related reductions in sales. Surprisingly, it is found that P2 may well increase the demand for chemicals locally, because increased efficiency will allow local firms to expand exports. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.