Causes and consequences of exports' channel integration

This paper investigates the decision to export with a proprietary exports channel by Spanish manufacturing firms. The research focuses on the effects of organizational capabilities versus scale economies on the vertical integration decision, and postulates a system of two simultaneous equations to properly evaluate the influence of a proprietary exports channel on the volume of exports. The results show that scale economies are more relevant than organizational capabilities in the decision to vertically integrate, and that, when properly evaluated, the exports mode does not influence the level of exports. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education (CICYT SEC97-1368) and Comunidad de Madrid (06/0067/98). Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the 24th EARIE Conference in Leuven (Belgium), XIII Jornadas de Economía Industrial in Madrid (Spain). The authors want to thank two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions, although any remaining mistake is our own responsibility.     

The moderating effect of the technological level of industry on the relationship between innovation and corporate reputation

Corporate reputation is one of the principal intangible assets a firm possesses. The entrepreneurial, innovative nature of the firm has been recognized as one of the antecedents of corporate reputation. However, specialist literature has paid scant attention to the relative importance of an entrepreneurial nature as an element that helps to improve corporate reputation in comparison with other antecedents such as product quality. Even less is known about exactly how this antecedent influences corporate reputation among different stakeholders. Little is also known about possible variations in how this antecedent is perceived by different industries. Thus, with a view to contributing to knowledge on how corporate reputation is formed, derived from the innovative nature of the firm, this article attempts to analyze how the environment affects the causal relation between the entrepreneurial, innovative nature of the firm and its corporate reputation. We particularly analyze the environment according to its technological level, distinguishing between three types of industry: high tech, medium tech, and low tech, using a sample of 308 US firms and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. The empirical test provided some unexpected and interesting results.     

Price convergence of peripheral European countries on the way to the EMU: A time series approach

This paper examines price and inflation convergence between three European countries (Italy, Spain and the U.K.) and a European average and, alternatively, between them and Germany from the beginning of the 80's.  For this purpose the long-run stochastic relationships on prices derived from the convergence criteria agreed in the Maastricht Treaty are analyzed. In order to do this, some recent unit root tests have been applied as well as time-varying parameters models.  The results reject the long-run convergence hypothesis in all the cases but allow us to accept the existence of catching-up with the European average and Germany in some cases depending on the nature of the prices and on the countries considered. First version received: March 1997/final version received: May 1999     

Insights into Innovation in European Museums

Abstract

Innovation has become a key tool enabling museums to adapt to the major changes that have taken place in recent decades in the milieu in which such organizations operate. However, countries' differing cultural policies, coupled with the particular nature of museums themselves (size, type of collection, organizational structure, system of funding, etc.), have a practical impact on the ability of such organizations to innovate and adapt to the new situation. In this context, our study posits three aspects through which innovation may appear in museums: technological innovation in management, technological innovation in visitor experience and organizational innovation. We also explore the extent to which the nature of cultural policies in different countries, how museums are managed and their size and funding impact each type of innovation. The empirical analysis was conducted for art and history museums in four European countries: France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. We felt that exploring these relations in cultural organizations would be of interest and would make an important contribution to the field.     

Equipment investment, output and productivity in China

At the beginning of the 1990s, J. Bradford De Long and Lawrence H. Summers highlighted in a series of influential articles that there were good reasons and quantitative evidence to support the point of view that machinery and equipment investment might be strongly associated with economic growth. China along with its enormous investment effort over recent decades constitutes an interesting case study with which to analyse the role played by equipment investment in its recent economic performance and its interaction with other sources of growth, i.e. openness, R&D, human capital and infrastructure. Our results provide evidence that equipment investment and exports are two of the most important determinants of both labour productivity and output in the long run even after controlling for other sources of growth in China. Furthermore, when human capital and infrastructure are included, the authors find that they have a positive effect on economic activity in the long run.     

Is the Export-led Growth Hypothesis Enough to Account for China＇s Growth？

One of the missing pieces preventing us from understanding recent Chinese economic development is the role played by openness and capital accumulation in this process. The question is whether the sharp economic＇ growth that the Chinese economy has experienced is another case of export-led growth due to the open-door policy or whether, on the contrary, this growth has been caused by high domestic savings and investment rates （and the consequent capital accumulation）. To answer this question, we employed an empirical framework of the cointegrated vector autoregressive model. The empirical results show that both investment （in physieal capital and R＆D） and exports, as well as the exchange rate policy, are relevant factors in explaining China＇s long-run economic growth over the past 4 decades.     

Cooperative R&D with Endogenous Technology Differentiation

We study a nontournament R&D duopoly. Before the standard R&D investment and quantity-setting stages, we consider a stage in which firms choose their R&D technologies. Spillovers negatively depend on R&D technology differentiation. We show that, in equilibrium, firms will choose identical or very similar R&D processes. Such equilibria may entail less differentiation than would be dictated by social welfare maximization.     

Ownership,organization, and private firms' efficient use of resources

The principal–agent theory asserts that public firms' performance is driven by efficient capital and labor markets but is silent about non‐listed private companies, which are less permeable to market forces (both capital and labor) than are public companies. We propose and test a 2 × 2 framework distinguishing owner‐controlled vs. agent‐led firms from firms with a flat vs. multilayer organization. Our findings provide highly contrasted results and raise important issues for further study of private firms. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.