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on Small Business Management |
| By: | Monteiro, José-Antonio |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the different types of provisions explicitly addressing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including micro firms (MSMEs), in regional trade agreements (RTAs). The analysis covers the 270 RTAs currently in force and notified to the WTO as of April 2016. The analysis shows that half of all the notified RTAs, namely 136 agreements, incorporate at least one provision mentioning explicitly SMEs. These SMEs-related provisions are highly heterogeneous and differ in terms of location in the RTA, language, scope and commitments. Many of the SMEsrelated provisions are only found in a single or couple of RTAs. A limited but increasing number of RTAs incorporate specific provisions in dedicated articles or even chapters on SMEs. Although the number of detailed SMEs-related provisions included in a given RTA has tended to increase in recent years, most SMEs-related provisions remain couched in best endeavour language. The two most common categories of SMEs-related provisions found in RTAs are provisions (1) promoting cooperation on SMEs and (2) specifying that SMEs and/or programs supporting SMEs are not covered by the RTAs' obligations provisions. Other types of SMEs-related provisions, incorporated in a limited number of RTAs, refer, inter alia, to government procurement, trade facilitation, electronic commerce, intellectual property, or transparency. |
| Keywords: | Regional Trade Agreements,Small and Medium-Sized Firms (SME) |
| JEL: | F13 F15 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201612&r=sbm |
| By: | Martin, Hanna (CIRCLE, Lund University); Martin, Roman (University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | Over the past few years, a growing body of work in economic geography and innovation studies has enhanced our understanding of forms and determinants of regional industrial path development. The importance of policy, however, has received limited attention and accordingly, the role of policy for the emergence and development of new regional industrial growth paths remains largely unexplored. This paper takes an institutional perspective and suggests that the regional innovation system (RIS) approach can contribute to conceptualizing and analysing the role of policy for new regional industrial path development. We argue that in order to turn regional preconditions into new growth paths, RIS require strong policy capacities, consisting of formal and governance capacities. In the empirical part, we analyse the emergence and further development of two new growth paths in the region of Scania in southern Sweden, namely biogas and new media. Based on personal interviews with policy makers, representatives from knowledge and supporting organizations and firms as well as a document analysis, we investigate how policy interventions have influenced the rise and evolution of these two industries. We show that in both cases policy-led initiatives have played an important role in enabling new path development. We find that policy can play multiple roles in nurturing and maintaining new growth paths and that these are closely interlinked with particular policy capacities of RIS. |
| Keywords: | new path development; regional policy; regional innovation system; capacity building |
| JEL: | O10 O30 O38 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2016–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2016_025&r=sbm |
| By: | Pedro Mendi (Navarra Center for International Development); Rodrigo Costamagna (INALDE Business School, Universidad de la Sabana) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact on innovation of competition against firms in the informal sector. Using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey data from a sample of African and Latin American countries, we find that the marginal impact of informality on innovation by formal firms decreases with the intensity of competitive pressure from informal firms, consistent with an inverted-U relationship between propensity to innovate and competitive pressure from firms in the informal sector. |
| Date: | 2015–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nva:unnvaa:wp10-2015&r=sbm |
| By: | Teresa C. Fort |
| Abstract: | This paper provides direct empirical evidence on the relationship between technology and firms’ global sourcing strategies. Using new data on U.S. firms’ decisions to contract for manufacturing services from domestic or foreign suppliers, I show that changes in firm use of communication technology between 2002 to 2007 can explain almost one quarter of the increase in fragmentation over the period. The effect of firm technology also differs significantly across industries; in 2007, it is 20 percent higher, relative to the mean, in industries with production specifications that are easier to codify in an electronic format. These patterns suggest that technology lowers coordination costs, though its effect is disproportionately higher for domestic rather than foreign sourcing. The larger impact on domestic fragmentation highlights its importance as an alternative to offshoring, and can be explained by complementarities between technology and worker skill. High technology firms and industries are more likely to source from high human capital countries, and the differential impact of technology across industries is strongly increasing in country human capital. |
| JEL: | F14 F23 L23 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22550&r=sbm |
| By: | Attar, M. Aykut |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a second-generation Schumpeterian model to understand the nature of technological progress and economic growth in Turkey. It identifies some structural parameters numerically and tests whether certain Schumpeterian mechanisms work. Results show that, while horizontal (product) innovation works as determined in theory, vertical (process) innovation does not operate in the long run. Since the paper directly estimates the structural forms originating from the general equilibrium of the model economy, results do not carry any endogeneity bias. The paper also explains, in a quite transparent way, why the Turkish economy did not converge to frontier economies. The most appropriate policy under resource constraints is to strengthen the incumbent firms and support their growth, and the formation of new enterprises is not a policy priority. |
| Keywords: | R & D, entry, process innovation, product innovation, productivity, policy. |
| JEL: | O32 O41 O50 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:73255&r=sbm |
| By: | Jarkko Harju; Tuomas Matikka; Timo Rauhanen |
| Abstract: | Various types of size-based regulations for firms are typical in most countries (tax schedules, accounting rules, health and safety standards etc.). However, there is only limited evidence of how owners of small firms respond to such rules, and what are the underlying mechanisms behind the observed behavior. We study these questions by examining the effects of the value-added tax (VAT) sales threshold using tax register data on the universe of Finnish firms and their owners. We find sizable bunching of firms in the sales distribution just below the VAT threshold. This implies that small firms actively avoid VAT liability. We utilize variation in both the VAT rate and reporting requirements to provide compelling evidence that the response is caused by the compliance costs of VAT reporting rather than the size of the tax rate. This shows that the costs related to reporting and understanding taxes induce greater distortions than pure tax incentives, especially among low-income entrepreneurs. In addition, we find no explicit evidence of avoidance or evasion, which suggests that firms respond by reducing their true output. Also, bunching behavior is very permanent, implying that the VAT threshold hinders the growth of small firms. |
| Keywords: | Value-added tax, compliance costs, small firms, entrepreneurs, bunching |
| JEL: | H32 L11 D22 H25 |
| Date: | 2016–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:75&r=sbm |