Firm Shutdown During the Financial and the Sovereign Debt Crises: Empirical Evidence from Portugal

This paper examines Portuguese firms’ survival over the business cycle and investigates whether the effect of firm size varies across the phases of the cycle and with the type of shock associated with periods of economic contraction. Our results show that smaller firms are more likely to shut down than larger firms. Within each size band, however, we found that during the two crises examined, micro firms experienced hazards of closing (relative to large firms) at least similar to those observed in the pre-crisis period, while medium-sized firms were found to have been more vulnerable during the financial crisis period but showed more resilience during the sovereign debt crisis. The results suggest that during the sovereign debt crisis, firms faced a higher probability of closing than they did during the financial crisis.     

Firms' imports and quality upgrading: Evidence from Chinese firms

Using transaction-level data for the Chinese manufacturing sector, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the causal effect that firms' imports have on quality upgrading. We implement an empirical strategy that delivers quality estimates at the firm-product-destination level. Exploiting this measure and accounting for the endogeneity of imported inputs, this paper shows that sourcing from abroad boosts export quality. Moreover, the analysis indicates that quality improvements are particularly strong when firms purchase inputs from high-income countries. Taken together, these results provide direct evidence that quality upgrading is an important mechanism through which imports favour firms' export performance.     

Economic Crises and Migration: Learning from the Past and the Present

This article considers the effects of past economic crises and cycles on migration with a view predicting the effects of the crisis of 2008–10. It then uses very recent data to test these as hypotheses. It examines the great migration to the New World in the nineteenth century (including in response to the Irish potato blight) in some detail because this was largely unhampered by changes in migration policy. It then more briefly looks at twentieth‐century experience – the 1930s, the 1970s and Asia in 1997–98. The hypotheses tested are that migration is reduced by downturns in destination countries but hardly affected by the cycle in home countries; that such downturns also lead to some return migration; that existing migrants suffer the effects of downturns more severely than natives and that although downturns may affect the timing of migration policy changes, the latter owe more to underlying secular forces than to short‐term shocks. Data from 2008–09 suggest support for each of these hypotheses.     

制造业智能化与企业出口产品质量：来自中国的微观证据

随着第四次工业革命的到来,工业机器人的使用成为制造业智能化的重要表征,并对出口贸易产生了愈发深远的影响。研究使用中国2000—2014年行业层面的机器人应用数据、企业层面的机器人进口数据以及中国企业和产品层面的两类微观数据,检验工业机器人对出口产品质量的影响。企业和产品层面的实证结果均表明,工业机器人的使用能够显著促进中国出口产品质量升级。且在考虑工具变量的因果识别、样本选择偏误及多重稳健性检验后依然成立。基于进口工业机器人的准自然实验同样稳健,且促进效应随引进时间递增。机制分析表明,工业机器人主要通过全要素生产率提振、企业创新能力增强和劳动要素升级三个渠道提高企业出口产品质量。     

Entry, Competitiveness and Exports: Evidence from the Indian Firm Data

This paper attempts to evaluate the effects of industrial de-licensing of 1991 and WTO-induced tariff-reforms of 1995 on domestic competitiveness and export performances of the Indian manufacturing during the post-1991. Unlike existing empirical studies not backed by theoretical underpinnings, the paper has been founded on an open-economy-oligopoly-model framework. The paper develops an econometric method of estimating the output from data on sales of the firms, thereby estimating the firms?? marginal cost, which is conducive for the entire empirical analysis with a unified set of firm data. Using firm level data for 14 sectors for the period 1990?C2008, it is observed that there has been an increase in the number of firms resulting in a fall in the concentration ratio and elasticity of demand at the point of equilibrium is generally less than unity and is declining over-time. The panel regression results of increasing exports by bigger firms also conforms the theoretical predictions.     

Imports and Exports at the Level of the Firm: Evidence from Belgium

This paper explores a newly available panel dataset merging balance sheet and international trade transaction data for Belgium. Both imports and exports appear to be highly concentrated among few firms and seem to have become more so over time. Focusing on manufacturing, we find that facts previously reported in the literature as applying only to exports actually apply to imports too. We note that the number of trading firms diminishes as the number of export destinations or import origins increases. The same is true if we consider the number of products traded. Our results generally point to a process of self‐selection in both export and import markets. Also, the productivity advantage of exporters reported in the literature may be overstated because imports were not considered. We find that firms that both import and export are the most productive, followed, in descending order, by importers only, exporters only and non‐traders. Our results also show the existence of fixed costs of imports, which appear to be of similar magnitude as those of exports.     

FDI versus Exports: Multiple Host Countries and Empirical Evidence

There are two main options for companies to serve foreign markets: exports and foreign direct investment (FDI). Based on the Helpman et al. (2004) model for multiple host countries, this paper derives a clear theoretical prediction for the decision between both strategies. A bivariate probit model is estimated using a large data set of European companies to analyse the probability of using one or the other strategy. The empirical evidence indicates that more productive firms less (more) probably use the export (FDI) strategy to serve foreign markets. Moreover, a considerable number of companies use a combination of both the strategies to serve foreign markets, which is in line with a multiple‐country model.     

Networks and the Dynamics of Firms' Export Portfolio: Evidence for Mexico

We use network analysis tools to identify communities in the web of exporters' destinations. Our network‐based community measure is purely outcome based, it captures multilateral rather than bilateral dependence across countries, and it can be calculated at the industry level. Next, we use our network‐based community measure as predictor of additional countries chosen by firms expanding their export destination portfolio. Using data on Mexican new exporters, the probability of choosing a new export destination doubles if it belongs to the same community of any of the firm's previous destinations. The introduction of the network‐based community variable improves the accuracy of the model up to 19 per cent relative to a model that only includes gravity variables. Industry‐specific communities and general communities play similar roles in determining the dynamics of Mexican exporters' country portfolio.     

Exchange Rate Volatility and Exports: New Empirical Evidence from the Emerging East Asian Economies

This paper examines the impact of bilateral real exchange rate volatility on real exports of five emerging East Asian countries among themselves as well as to 13 industrialised countries. We recognise the specificity of the exports between the emerging East Asian and industrialised countries and employ a generalised gravity model. In the empirical analysis we use a panel comprising 25 years of quarterly data and perform unit‐root and cointegration tests to verify the long‐run relationship among the variables. The results provide strong evidence that exchange rate volatility has a negative impact on the exports of emerging East Asian countries. In addition, the results suggest that the pattern of bilateral exports is influenced by third‐country variables. An increase in the price competitiveness of other emerging East Asian countries has a negative impact on a country’s exports to a destination market, but the magnitude of the impact is relatively small. These results are robust across different estimation techniques and do not depend on the variable chosen to proxy exchange rate uncertainty. The results of the GMM‐IV estimation also confirm the negative impact of exchange rate volatility on exports and suggest that this negative relationship is not driven by simultaneous causality bias.     

Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm‐level Data

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This paper surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 54 microeconometric studies with data from 34 countries that were published between 1995 and 2006. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non‐exporters, and the more productive firms self‐select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.     

A Note on Firm Age and the Margins of Exports: First Evidence from Germany

This article uses a new tailor-made data set to empirically investigate the link between firm age and the extensive and intensive margins of exports for the first time for Germany. Results turn out to be fully in line with theoretical considerations. Older firms are more often exporters, export more and more different goods to more different destination countries, and export to more distant destination markets.     

环境管制与我国的出口产品质量升级——基于两控区政策的考察

关于环境管制与出口贸易的现有研究更多地关注于环境管制对出口量的影响,鲜有文献从出口产品质量的角度进行考察.本文运用1997-2002年中国出口海关统计数据,对我国出口产品质量进行了测算,并将两控区政策(TCZ)作为外生冲击,采用倍差法和三重倍差法,考察了环境管制对中国出口产品质量的影响.研究发现:首先,总体而言,两控区政策对我国出口产品质量的提高产生了显著的正向作用,说明环境管制有利于提高我国出口产品的国际竞争力;其次,两控区的政策效应具有明显的行业、地区和产品差异,对污染和研发密集度高、国企比重高的行业产生了负向作用,对东部地区和差异化产品部门产品质量升级产生正向影响.此外,我们还进行了更换产品品质指标、考虑外生政策冲击、更换对照组等一系列稳健性检验,结果依然稳健.     

贸易便利化对企业出口国内附加值率的影响——来自中国制造业企业的证据

在构建贸易便利化影响企业附加值贸易的理论框架基础上,文章采用中国制造业企业微观数据,实证检验了贸易便利化对企业出口国内附加值率（DVAR）的影响及其作用机制。研究发现：无论是采用贸易便利化综合指数,还是贸易便利化分领域指标,推进贸易便利化会显著提高企业出口DVAR。同时,相对于中西部企业、中低技术行业企业和本土企业而言,贸易便利化对东部企业、高技术行业企业和外资企业出口DVAR的促进作用更大。进一步机制检验发现,贸易便利化的相对价格渠道降低了企业出口DVAR,但通过成本加成渠道提高了企业出口DVAR,贸易便利化总体上对企业出口DVAR的净效应为正。上述结论意味着,推进贸易便利化改革对于提高企业出口DVAR和出口竞争力具有重要的现实意义。     

Modelling Small Firms' Decisions to Export – Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in Finland, 1995

In this paper, I model small firms' decisions to export by applying an existing model of the theory of diffusion of innovations and test the predictions of the model with data on Finnish SMEs. The model, incorporating so-called epidemic learning and rank effects, describes nicely the different phases of this decision-making process. The data used in the empirical analysis has been collected by interviewing directors of small industrial firms especially for this study. The results suggest, among other things, that the development of exporting in a small firm is particularly influenced by the language skills of the entrepreneurs, and that the smaller the firm, the faster is the adoption of the export strategy. In addition, the development of exporting has been faster in firms that have started exporting in the 1990s than in firms that began exporting before the '90s.     

Imports,Exports and the Firm Product Scope: Evidence From Turkey

By exploiting an original firm‐product level dataset for Turkish manufacturing, ‐way trading on firm product scope and innovation in a multiple treatment setting. Our evidence points at the prominent role of exporting, while no effect is found for importing only. Nonetheless, we corroborate existing evidence on the virtuous nexus between the two international activities and add to the literature by showing that joint firm involvement in exporting and importing fosters product innovation and quality upgrading.     

Outward FDI and Home Country Exports: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Evidence

This article reviews the growing body of literature that empirically analyzes the impact of outward FDI on home country exports. Focusing the analysis on the various types of studies and identifying the methods used and the countries analyzed, this study allows us to identify gaps in the literature and make suggestions for future research. Future research efforts should focus on more disaggregated data, particularly at the firm and product levels, and adopt a multilateral approach, which is essential for a complete analysis of the relationship between FDI and exports.     

Trust Erosion During Industry-Wide Crises: The Central Role of Consumer Legitimacy Judgement

Journal of Business Ethics - Widespread unethical corporate misconduct in an industry triggers industry-wide crises. This research investigates how industry misconduct affects consumers’...     

The Choice of Exclusive Dealing: Economic Rationales and Evidence from French Retail Chains

As one of the most common business practices in retailing, exclusive dealing (ED) restrictions are of great importance for business participants, academics and policy makers. Despite the rich theoretical analysis of this type of vertical restraint, evidence on the rationales of ED remains scarce. This paper uses a simple model to survey the vast theoretical literature on ED, and identifies two opposing motivations for ED contracts: anti-competitive versus efficiency-enhancing motivations. The theoretical predictions are subject to empirical investigation using unique French cross-sectional data encompassing diverse retail sectors. Our estimations provide evidence for both types of motivations for ED contracts, manifesting in different contexts. In particular, we find that the efficiency-enhancing motivation is more likely to explain the choice of ED when suppliers are less concentrated, whereas the anti-competitive motivation is present in highly standardized product markets. Moreover, our results reveal a positive linkage of ED and different types of investments, as part of branding strategy, with important retailing and marketing-related implications. In particular, we show that retailers have to be meticulous regarding the conditions of the retail contract before accepting the ED restriction, which may dampen their business efficiency in the long run.     

基于空间计量模型的市域出口对企业TFP影响的实证分析——以泛长三角53个市为例

本文基于企业微观层面数据,测度了2000-2007年泛长三角53市的工业企业TFP,统计分析了这些企业TFP的空间自相关性;运用空间面板计量模型,实证分析了TFP空间自相关条件下出口对TFP的作用。结果表明:各地市工业企业TFP形成了以沪浙苏为核心、以赣皖为外围的空间分布格局和显著的空间自相关性,不仅本市域出口而且邻近市域出口对本市域企业TFP有显著促进作用,沪浙苏各市之间的TFP空间自相关程度是赣皖各市TFP空间自相关程度的二倍。因此,为提高TFP和缩小区域间TFP的差距,不仅要增加出口,而且要加快赣皖地区内部一体化建设,还要加快赣皖与沪浙苏地区的对接与合作。     

E-Commerce and Encroachment: Evidence From French Franchise Networks

Encroachment is a critical issue affecting relations among franchisees and between franchisees and franchisors. The Internet increases this risk when a franchisor adopts a transactional website, becoming a “ubiquitous outlet.” Using logistic regression we give evidence of the significant impact of the proportion of franchised outlets in the network on transactional website adoption by French franchisors. The analysis is carried out to facilitate comparison with the United States market. A web-to-store strategy and the click-and-collect system implemented by most French supermarket chains are presented as potential solutions to circumventing e-encroachment.