Innovation and the Quality of Labour Factor: An empirical investigation in the French food industry

The aim of our paper is to analyse the determinants of the innovation propensity of the firm. Among the numerous works devoted to this subject, the interest of our research is, firstly, to use a direct measurement of innovation, instead of the usual proxies, as R&D expenditures and patents statistics, secondly, to emphasise the role of labour factor quality as a major determinant of innovation. We first build a definition of labour factor quality, based on a double dimension: individual skill level and functional distribution of jobs inside the firm. At the end we consider that each job category can be involved in the innovation process, at the different steps of it: conception, decision, implementation. To explain the innovation propensity at the firm level, our logit model takes into account four explanatory dimensions: the quality of labour factor employed inside the firm, the firm structural characteristics (as size, for instance), the sectoral market structures and, finally, the quality of labour factor employed inside the firm sector, as a proxy for the R&D spillover effect. We use some individual firms data, including a direct measurement of innovation, that distinguished between several types: radical vs. incremental and product vs. process vs. organisational innovation. The French food industries with its 500.000 employees and 42 sectors, mostly composed of small firms, are our empirical field. The results emphasise the influence of the usual firm structure variables. Firm size, particularly, is very clearly positively related to the innovation propensity. At the same time, some more original facts appears, such as the influence of firm status: after controlling the sectoral influence, co-operative firms seem to innovate less than private ones. Labour factor quality appears to play a very significant role by itself, but mostly, helps us to analyse and specify the influence of other variables on innovation. At the end, it shows that innovation is a multiphase process, and that the relative importance of each phase greatly depends on the kind of innovation that is considered. Conception is the most important phase in the radical innovation case, which greatly involves formally high-skilled job categories as R&D employees or engineers. At the same time, the implementation phase, which seems to be particularly important in the incremental innovation case, emphasises the role of the intermediate categories know-how.At the end we can say that small industrial firms appear to be less innovative for two reasons: the usual scale effect argument is correct only in the process innovation case in relation to the capital intensity level. In some other cases as radical innovation, small firms are less innovative because of their job structure and particularly because of the lack of formal scientific capabilities (as the R&D personnel's one).     

The impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility and oil exports on real GDP in Syria: Evidence from the ARDL approach

This paper investigates the impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility and trade on real GDP and real GDP growth in the Syrian economy over the period of 1990Q1–2010Q4. To this end, we first construct a parallel market exchange rate volatility indicator. Second, we estimate an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model where we include our indicator of volatility among the main determinants of real GDP. Our findings imply that real GDP can be explained by three main variables: parallel market exchange rate, money supply, and oil exports. The long-run equilibrium reveals that parallel market exchange rate volatility has a negative impact on real GDP compared to the positive impact of money supply and oil exports. In contrast, the short-run impact of parallel market exchange rate volatility on real GDP growth is positive and very small counter to the long-run impact. Furthermore, the coefficient of the error correction term of the estimated ARDL model indicates that real GDP deviation from the equilibrium level will be corrected by about 10% after each quarter.     

An iterative method for the computation of the correlation matrix implied by a recursive path model

Quality & Quantity - In Path Analysis, especially in social sciences studies, many researchers usually assume that errors in the model are uncorrelated with all exogenous variables as well as...     

Modelling the asymmetric responses of price level to oil price changes in Qatar

This paper inspects the asymmetric effect of oil price on prices level in Qatar. To achieve that, we proceed by employing a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach on data during the period 1990Q1–2014Q4. The estimation results show evidences of an incomplete and asymmetric influence of oil price on price level in the long term. Moreover, we find that price responses to negative changes in oil price is greater than its response to positive changes. Given Qatar’s economic features, a decrease in oil price could cause lower imports and production prices and consequently a substantial influence on domestic prices level. However, the lower effect of positive oil price changes on consumer prices can be explained by the subsidies system, the consumption patterns, and the exchange rate regime.     

Asymmetric responses of money demand to oil price shocks in Saudi Arabia: a non-linear ARDL approach

Saudi Arabia is an open oil-based economy with fixed exchange rates; therefore, it has limited monetary policy autonomy. Using non-linear autoregressive distributed lag approach, this article investigates the asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on the demand of money in Saudi Arabia over the period 1990:Q1–2014:Q4. The empirical results show evidence of positive long run but asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on the money demand. In particular, we find that the positive oil price shocks are more important than negative shocks. Therefore, two policy responses can be considered: either sustaining the fixed exchange rate regime and following an economic diversification policy or switching towards a flexible exchange rate regime to achieve price stability. In that case, the existence of a stable money demand function in Saudi Arabia is a necessary precondition for adopting a monetary policy strategy targeted to price stability using instruments like money targeting.