Environmental Innovations and Internationalization: Theory and Practices

Based on original data on Italian firms specializing in medium‐ and low‐tech industries, we study the relationship between firms’ upstream and downstream internationalization and their propensity to introduce products or processes that reduce environmental impact. Preliminary evidence suggests that geography plays an important role in green firms’ activities and supply chains. More precisely, results suggest that firms that outsource to and rely on non‐local suppliers are less likely to engage in environmental innovations. Moreover, we verify that firms engaged in export activities play a similar and negative role, regardless of the export intensity and typology of foreign markets (i.e. developed versus emerging). Tapping global flows of knowledge by being a part of a multinational group positively spurs the development of green innovations, as for FDIs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Trade shocks,product mix adjustment and productivity growth in Italian manufacturing

In this paper, we use firm-level data on the universe of Italian manufacturing multi-product exporters to test whether demand shocks in export markets lead multi-product exporters to increase their productivity. The main mechanism behind the documented productivity gains is the reallocation of resources across products within firms (American Economic Review, 104, 2014 and 495; National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series No. 22433, 2016). Intuitively, the increased demand stemming from foreign markets will induce firms to adjust their product mix by moving inputs from low to high productive/profitable uses. We find that these productivity gains are significant and can explain between 1/10 and 1/2 of aggregate productivity growth in the manufacturing sector.     

Does foreign investment benefit the exporting activities of Vietnamese firms?

Using firm-level data, this paper examines the effects of foreign investment on the exporting behaviour of domestic firms in the Vietnamese manufacturing and service sectors. Applying the Heckman selection model on panel data and following the Wooldridge approach, we find that investment by foreign firms has a significant positive effect on the decision of domestic firms in the same and upstream sectors to export. The proportion of exports of domestic firms declines through horizontal and forward linkages, but increases through backward linkages in the manufacturing sector. However, there is only weak evidence in support of export spillovers on domestic firms in the service sector. We also find that the presence of foreign firms has differing effects on the exporting activities of low- versus high-tech firms in the manufacturing sector.     

Participation in export and Chinese firms’ capacity utilization

This paper first sets up a firm heterogeneity trade model and shows that given capital stock and productivity, export firms will have higher rates of capacity utilization. In addition, given capital stock and fixed export costs, firms with higher productivity are more likely to export. I then use the 2012 Chinese enterprise survey from the World Bank to empirically investigate the impact of participation in export on Chinese firms’ capacity utilization rate. The results show that on average, export firms have capacity utilization rate 1.55–2.01 percent higher than non-export firms, which amounts to 14.6–18.9 percent of the standard deviation of capacity utilization rate in the sample. I also find that firms with a larger part of shares owned by the government have lower capacity utilization. Stronger market competition leads to over-investment and therefore lower capacity utilization rate. Faced with more rigorous labor market regulation, firms will substitute capital for the use of labor, resulting in higher capacity utilization rate.     

Entry,trade costs,and international business cycles

Are firm entry and fixed exporting costs relevant for understanding the international transmission of business cycles? We revisit this question using a model that includes entry, selection to exporting activity, physical capital accumulation and endogenous labor supply. We determine that once the stochastic process for exogenous productivity is calibrated to consider the endogenous dynamics in TFP created by the number of firms and the time series volatility of entry is calibrated to the data, our model yields minimal departures from the Backus et al. (1992) benchmark. The richer model shares all of the successes of the previous model in terms of the volatilities of aggregate quantities, as well as its failures, in terms of replicating patterns of international co-movement and the volatility of international relative prices.     

An economic evaluation of market development programmes for US dairy products

‘This study measured the effectiveness of US dairy export promotion programmes on increasing foreign demand and enhancing producers’ revenues. An import demand equation based on panel data was used to test whether export promotion has a positive and significant impact on US dairy exports. The effects of various promotion scenarios on the dairy market were then simulated, and benefit–cost ratios (BCRs) for these programmes were estimated. There were three key findings. First, the combined effort of public and private dairy export promotion expenditures had a positive and statistically significant impact on demand for US dairy products in the world market. The findings indicated that export promotion stimulated total dairy exports by 4.14 billion pounds, on average, per year, which represented 55.8% of total exports. Second, US dairy export promotion has been highly profitable for the nation’s dairy farmers. The calculated BCRs, based on assumed elasticity of supply, ranged from a low of 8.54 for the most elastic assumption to a high of 30.12. Third, from an optimality standpoint, dairy farmers are underinvesting in export promotion. The marginal BCRs ranged from a low of 3.79 to a high of 15.22, which means that, at the margin, increasing export promotion expenditures would be profitable for dairy farmers.     

The Significance of CSF Among Enterprises in Latvia： An In-depth Analysis

The present research paper is dedicated to the in-depth analysis of the significance of critical-to-success factors （CSF） among enterprises in Latvia. The goal is to distinguish and find key success factors of Latvian companies who survived the economic crisis, which started in 2008, and executed the enabling objectives of the paper. Research methodology involves the analysis of the existing theoretical literature, in-depth interviews with the top management representatives of large Latvian business entities were interviewed by GFK （Custom Research Baltic agency） on behalf of the authors of the paper. It is found out that 10 largest industries for the big companies are： fuel retail and wholesale, energetics, food retail and wholesale, chemical products, logistics, metal processing, financial services, information technologies service and production, passenger transportation, and telecommunication services. For medium companies such industries are： food retail and wholesale, logistics, fuel retail and wholesale, wood processing, automotive industry, construction, financial services, pharmaceutical products, metal processing, and beverage wholesale and production. The authors also scrutinised 72 articles of 38 Forbes magazine archiving from the years 2010-2014. Thirty CSF were defmed. The most significant CSF according to the Forbes interviews are specific market niche, export, technological innovations, and high quality of products and services. The in-depth interviews with the top management representatives prove the importance of the above mentioned factors. Relevant recommendations are provided in the end of the paper.     

基于SWOT的广东家具出口现状与对策分析

广东省家具出口占全国出口的1/3强,已成为中国家具制造业最发达的地区、亚太地区最大的家具出口基地,但也存在附加值低,设计水平不高等劣势。本文在分析广东省家具出口现状的基础上,利用SWOT分析,分析了广东省家具出口的优势、劣势、机遇和威胁,进而提出扩大广东省家具出口的战略选择。     

中国对RCEP国家的直接投资与出口技术复杂度

RCEP的签订为中国对外开放带来新契机。双循环新发展格局背景下,如何调整中国对RCEP国家的贸易和投资策略成为值得研究的议题。使用2004—2018年中国对RCEP国家的直接投资和出口数据,构建出口技术复杂度指标,实证分析直接投资和出口技术复杂度的关系。结果发现:中国对RCEP国家的直接投资能够提升中国对东道国的出口产品技术水平,当东道国为中低收入国家时,这一作用更为显著。基于此,中国应优化对RCEP国家直接投资的布局和结构,完善中资企业海外投资和经营规制,扩大与RCEP国家在新基建领域的合作,实现对外直接投资与出口高质量发展。     

外部经济冲击对我国进出口贸易的影响——基于新兴市场经济体的研究

本文从贸易和金融渠道对我国受到其他新兴经济体的外部冲击的可能性进行了评估,并借助GVAR(Global Vector Auto-Regressive)模型方法,考虑了世界各国的交互影响来分析新兴市场国家的宏观经济波动对中国进出口产生的影响。研究发现,区域内的新兴经济市场对我国影响更为显著,韩国、印度、中国香港发生宏观经济波动时对我国进出口贸易可能造成较大的影响。基本上,中国对外贸易对韩国遭受冲击后的反应快且大,但受影响时间较短,人民币汇率波动在应对外部冲击时发挥了一定作用。中国和印度贸易合作关系大于竞争关系。