The Value of Relationship Lending: Small Banks in an Era of Consolidation

Consolidation in the banking industry has caused concern about the survival of small banks. Empirical evidence, however, shows that small banks are performing better than larger banks in terms of loan growth and profitability. This paper investigates the determinants of such unexpected superior performance; in particular we posit that peculiarities of small banks, like their ability to lever on relationship lending, are good explanatory variables of their recent loan growth .     

Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship: sectoral patterns in a sample of European high-tech firms

This paper studies the relative importance of prior knowledge and resources available to a startup at the time of its founding across technologies. Our analysis is based on a survey submitted to the founders of new innovative ventures patenting in the biotech, electronics and medical devices technologies. Our findings show that pre-entry knowledge about customers’ needs and characteristics, about the technology and about potential suppliers and competitors differentially affect the technological and market entrepreneurial choice of the surveyed firms. These results suggest the existence of patterns of entrepreneurial activities that are technology-specific.     

Disentangling the influence of internationalization on sustainability development: Evidence from the energy sector

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between firms' internationalization and their sustainability development. We expected firms with a higher level of internationalization to exhibit better environmental management and performance. A sample of 287 publicly traded firms in the energy and energy‐related utilities sector was used to test these relationships. We focused on the energy sector, as energy production and supply have historically accounted for the lion's share of global greenhouse gas emissions. We found that firms' level of internationalization had a positive effect on their environmental management, whereas its effect on environmental performance was not found to be significant. We also tested whether these relationships change when firms' internationalization is oriented towards developing countries. Upon a closer look, the relationship was found to be significant between internationalization towards developing countries and better environmental management, thus contributing to the line of literature that does not support the pollution haven hypothesis.     

Logistics performance and export competitiveness: European experience

Logistics performance has become a decisive factor in export competitiveness. At the same time, and as a result of the continuous enlargement processes it has undergone, the European Union (EU) is a very interesting case to study how the reforms that enhance logistics performance have affected exports. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the importance of logistics performance in regard to EU exports over the period 2005–2010 in an attempt to identify possible advances on behalf of Member States. Several gravity equations are estimated using the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and its components as characteristic proxy variables of trade facilitation. In order to avoid the possible heterogeneity caused by sample bias, the two-stage model proposed by Heckman is used. The estimations of the gravity models using the two-stage Heckman model for all 26 EU countries have led us to conclude that logistics was more important for exporting nations than importing nations in both 2005 and 2010, reinforcing the interest in the exporter side of the paper. In reference to the components of the LPI, Competence and Tracking has acquired greater importance in recent years, in keeping with the weak domestic demand in European countries and the search for new international markets.     

Household financial vulnerability: An empirical analysis

Using survey data, we investigate household financial distress. Specifically, we propose an indicator of financial vulnerability to jointly analyse different features of household financial distress, analysing its socio-demographic and economic determinants. A total number of 3102 Italian households make up the sample.The empirical analysis highlights that for the median level of the financial vulnerability index households already exhibit some important symptoms of financial vulnerability, such as problems in getting to the end of the month or an inability to face unexpected expenses. As regards the determinants of the financial vulnerability index, three findings need to be pointed out. First, the level of debt servicing is positively related to financial vulnerability and the effect is stronger for households holding unsecured debt, i.e. consumer credit. Second, financial vulnerability also increases for impulsive individuals, who may adopt impatient, short-sighted behaviour patterns which make it difficult for them to be fully aware of the consequences of their financial and spending decisions. Third, a higher level of education helps to reduce financial fragility.     

Raising the bar (10)

This editorial summarizes the papers published in issue 14(1) so as to raise the bar in applied spatial economic research and highlight new trends. The first paper applies the Shapley-based decomposition approach to determine the impact of firm-, linkage- and location-specific factors to the survival probability of enterprises. The second paper applies Bayesian comparison methods to identify simultaneously the most likely spatial econometric model and spatial weight matrix explaining new business creation. The third paper compares the performance of continuous and discrete approaches to explain subjective well-being across space. The fourth paper applies a multiple imputation approach to determine regional purchasing power parities at the NUTS-3 level using data available at the NUTS-2 level. Finally, the last paper constructs a regional input–output table for Japan from its national counterpart using and comparing the performance of four non-survey techniques.     

Sector fragmentation and aggregation of service provision in the water industry

This study analyzes the structure of the water industry in Peru. It investigates economies of scale and cost inefficiencies in 43 water providers during the years from 1996 to 2005. Different water sources in different geographical regions directly affect the production technology of the sector, making a regional cost frontier model appropriate. In 2005, 48.7% of the population of Peru lived in poverty, and 43.87% of the water produced was lost. These large proportions support the assumption that water producers allow water to be lost as a way to satisfy the water demands of the poorest segment of the population. Findings indicate a cost rise of 0.10% for each 1% increase of joint production of both outputs: water lost and produced. This result may be suggestive of a price the utility pays for allowing unauthorized connections in the network. From the perspective of the board of directors, this cost increase is the political cost of gaining municipal votes from the poorest segment of the population. Economies of scale are larger for utilities operating in the forest than in other regions. This has important implications for any future consolidation process that may be undertaken when the sector is opened to private participation.     

IS THERE BIAS IN COMPUTING HOUSEHOLD EQUIVALENCE SCALES?

Household equivalence scales are often used to help perform welfare comparisons across households with different demographic composition. Abstracting from the problems of value judgments and ethical standards, the use of equivalence scales to perform welfare comparisons still faces several measurement problems, namely the identification problem and the endogeneity problem. This paper introduces and estimates an unconditional demand system that simultaneously addresses these two problems. By explicitly considering the demand for leisure, and the fact the household can choose some of its demographic characteristics, we deal with the endogeneity problem and obtain consistent estimates. We identify unconditional equivalence scales by estimating the demand for endogenous demographic variables along with the demand for leisure and consumer goods. More general equivalence scales allowing for better comparability are estimated and used for welfare comparisons.     

Estimation of an Extended SAM with household production for Spain 1995

This paper implements the conceptual framework sketched by Pyatt (1990) to construct an extended Social Accounting Matrix for Spain in 1995 (ESAM-95) to consider, in addition to the market economy, the production of services provided by households through unpaid work. In doing so, the ESAM-95 integrates the accounts related to market activities (ESA accounts) with non-market activities (non-ESA accounts) in a consistent way. Additional classifications are introduced in both ESA and non-ESA accounts in order to disaggregate the institutional accounts by household type and those of production factors by educational level and gender. The extended SAM is useful to calibrate CGE models in which the distribution of time between paid and unpaid work is a relevant variable.     

R&D and foreign direct investment with asymmetric spillovers

This paper analyzes how firms’ R&D investment decisions are affected by asymmetries in knowledge transmission, considering different sources of asymmetry such as unequal know-how management capabilities and spillovers localization within an international oligopoly. We show that a better ability to manage knowledge flows incentivizes the firm to invest more in R&D. By introducing geographically bounded spillovers, we also find that one-way foreign direct investment (FDI) stimulates the multinational enterprise to raise its own R&D and that an FDI equilibrium is more likely to occur. Finally, spillovers localization leading to two-way FDI is welfare improving when compared with non-localized spillovers.