Tari–tax reforms and market access

Reducing tarismall ligature ff" title="latin small ligature ff" border="0">s and increasing consumption taxes is a standard IMF advice to countries that want to open up their economy without hurting government finances. Indeed, theoretical analysis of such a tarismall ligature ff" title="latin small ligature ff" border="0">–tax reform shows an unambiguous increase in welfare and government revenues. The present paper examines whether the country that implements such a reform ends up opening up its markets to international trade, i.e. whether its market access improves. It is shown that this is not necessarily so. We also show that, comparing to the reform of only tarismall ligature ff" title="latin small ligature ff" border="0">s, the tarismall ligature ff" title="latin small ligature ff" border="0">–tax reform is a less efficient proposal to follow both as far as it concerns market access and welfare.     

区域软环境对中小企业竞争优势的要素作用机制

本文认为,区域软环境由政府服务、社会文化、商业法制、市场环境、教育科技和金融服务6大要素构成,中小企业竞争优势源自人力资源、财务资源、关系资源、管理能力、生产能力、技术创新能力、营销能力和企业家能力8大资源和能力类要素。区域软环境各要素以不同的方式作用于中小企业竞争优势的资源和能力类要素,并表现为14条具体的要素作用路径。     

新型劳资关系对中小企业建立年金计划的影响分析

企业年金作为一项企业福利制度已经成为企业优化管理的重要手段,但我国中小企业年金计划却止步不前。本文在深入分析中小企业建立年金计划面临困难和问题的基础上,通过思考新型劳资关系对中小企业产生的影响,指出新型劳资关系可以解决中小企业建立年金面临的难题,并提出了具体的对策和建议,为进一步推动中小企业年金计划的发展提供借鉴。     

Firm credit in the euro area: a tale of three crises

Using survey data from 2009 to 2011, we analyse the effects of the recent euro area economic, financial and private debt crisis on the supply of and demand for bank finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). At the country level, we identify three distinct aspects of the recent crisis in the euro area affecting firm credit through different channels. Controlling for country fixed effects, the impact of a weak real economy on firm credit operates both by reducing firms’ demand for bank financing and by lenders increasing loan rejections and tightening terms and conditions on credit allocated. On the other hand, financial conditions have no significant effect on demand, but they do affect credit supply as we find that financial tensions worsen the chances of obtaining credit and its terms and conditions. We interpret this as evidence of a bank balance sheet channel negatively impacting credit provision. We find that private sector indebtedness has important effects on SMEs’ credit access and its terms and conditions.     

State antitrust enforcement in the US and implications for small business entry and relocation

This article examines the impact of the important, yet little studied, state-level antitrust enforcement activity on entry and relocation behaviour by small US firms. Feinberg and Husted (2011) have shown that this enforcement, especially nonhorizontal cases, may be viewed by potential entrants as a negative aspect of the state business climate. However, they did not pursue a more disaggregate analysis of small firm entry behaviour; nor did they investigate different responses between manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing firms. Another related issue is the extent to which state cases filed in tandem with federal investigations have the same impact on establishment entry as do purely ‘independent’ cases. These considerations are dealt with in this article. The author uses annual state-level data from the Statistics of US Business to examine entry and relocation reactions to state antitrust enforcement by firms within three small-business categories: 1–19 employees; 20–99 employees; 100–499 employees. Generally speaking, the smallest retail and wholesale firms seem to favour vigorous antitrust activity, especially enforcement targeted against cartel behaviour by suppliers. The largest small-firm retailers and wholesalers (those with 100–499 employees) seem somewhat threatened by such activity, especially the more controversial nonhorizontal enforcement. However, it must be acknowledged that the effects on entry or relocation of small firms – both positive and negative – are quite small.     

Innovation And Inter-Firm Co-Operation: The Case Of The West Midlands

Drawing upon the innovative milieux and industrial districts literature, the paper provides substantial empirical evidence that firms have a greater chance of being innovative if they co-operate with other firms over innovation, albeit undertaking no investment in RLD. This is an important result especially for small firms. In particular, the paper focuses on inter-firm cwperation along the supply chain, using a swey of firms in the West Midlands to investi-gate co-operation over innovation between suppliers and buyers. A probit model is used to test the link between innovation performance and four innovation inputs: R&D expenditure, R&D personnel, networking with suppliers and networking with client firms.     

Jointly issued notes: a financial instrument to improve SME credit worthiness in China

A financial instrument to improve the credit worthiness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), i.e. Jointly Issued Notes (JINs), improves the average credit rating of SMEs by eight notches, from BBB to AA+, thus reducing borrowing cost by 298 basis points. This research note describes the various kinds of JINs, and then analyzes their effect on the credit worthiness of SMEs. We conclude that the JINs successfully facilitate access to credit at lower rates in China.     

Analyzing the role of mutual guarantee societies on bank capital requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises

This paper analyzes the impact of the guarantee provided by mutual guarantee societies (MGSs) on the risk premium that banks should charge for small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) loans under the new Basel Capital Accords (Basel II and III). We also examine whether the foreseeable decrease in the theoretical credit risk premium would be compensated by the cost of the MGS guarantee. To do so, we develop a rating system for SMEs that uses a large sample of Spanish firms over the period from 2005 to 2009. We find that the final effect of the guarantee on the SME risk premium depends on the values taken by the credit variables of the MGS (essentially, the probability of default).     

Bringing science to market: commercializing from NIH SBIR awards

We offer empirical information on the correlates of commercialization activity for research projects funded through the US National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award program. Based on this analysis we suggest possible recommendations for improving this aspect of the performance of NIH's SBIR program. Specifically, we estimate a model of the probability of commercialization as a function of the project's ability to attract additional developmental funding, along with other control variables. We find that additional developmental funding from non-SBIR federal sources and from own internal sources are important predictors of commercialization success, relatively more so than additional developmental funding from venture capitalists. We also find, among other things, that university involvement in the underlying research increases the probability of commercialization. Thus, these factors should be considered by NIH when making awards, if increased commercialization is an objective.     

Pathways from discovery to commercialisation: using web sources to track small and medium-sized enterprise strategies in emerging nanotechnologies

This paper presents results from a pilot study of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on a web-scraping and content analysis of current and archived nanotechnology enterprise websites. We use this approach to explore nanotechnology SMEs transitions from discovery to commercialisation and understand how transitions vary by SME characteristics, technology and market sectors. Our findings suggest that although the idealised linear innovation model is present, important instances of divergence exist. Cluster analysis uncovered sectoral differences but even more distinctions based on the age, funding source, and research intensity.