nep-bec New Economics Papers
on Business Economics
Issue of 2023‒02‒06
eleven papers chosen by
Vasileios Bougioukos
London South Bank University

  1. Distant but close in sight. Firm-level evidence on French-German productivity gaps in manufacturing By Thomas Grebel; Mauro Napoletano; Lionel Nesta
  2. Job Ladders by Firm Wage and Productivity By Bertheau, Antoine; Vejlin, Rune Majlund
  3. The Role of Firm Dynamics in the Green Transition: Carbon Productivity Decomposition in Finnish Manufacturing By Kuosmanen, Natalia; Maczulskij, Terhi
  4. Pay, productivity and management By Bloom, Nicholas; Ohlmacher, Scott W.; Tello-Trillo, Cristina J.; Wallskog, Melanie
  5. Opposing Firm Level Responses to the China Shock: Output Competition versus Input Supply By Philippe Aghion; Antonin Bergeaud; Matthieu Lequien; Marc Melitz; Thomas Zuber
  6. Proprietorship Structure and Firm Performance in the Context of Tunneling: An Empirical Analysis of Non-Financial Firms in Pakistan By Sulehri, Fiaz Ahmad; Ali, Amjad
  7. Immigrant workers and firm resilience on the export market By Léa Marchal; Giulia Sabbadini
  8. Gender Diversity in Ownership and Firm Innovativeness in Emerging Markets. The Mediating Roles of R&D Investments and External Capital By Vartuhi Tonoyan; Christopher Boudreaux
  9. When Immigrants Meet Exporters: A Reassessment of the Immigrant Wage Gap By Léa Marchal; Guzman Ourens; Giulia Sabbadini
  10. From Macro to Micro: Large Exporters Coping with Common Shocks By Jean-Charles Bricongne; Juan Carluccio; Lionel Fontagné; Guillaume Gaulier; Sebastian Stumpner
  11. Repeated Transition Method and the Nonlinear Business Cycle with the Corporate Saving Glut By Lee, Hanbaek

  1. By: Thomas Grebel; Mauro Napoletano (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Lionel Nesta (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po)
    Abstract: We study the productivity level distributions of manufacturing firms in France and Germany, and how these distributions evolved across the Great Recession. We show the presence of a systematic productivity advantage of German firms over French ones in the decade 2003-2013, but the gap has narrowed down after the Great Recession. Convergence is explained by the better growth performance of French firms in the post-recession period, especially of those located in the top percentiles of the productivity distribution. We also highlight the role of sectoral growth, firm size and export intensity in explaining the above convergence. In contrast, the contribution of allocative efficiency was small.
    Keywords: international productivity gaps, productivity distributions, firm level comparisons
    Date: 2021–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03374310&r=bec
  2. By: Bertheau, Antoine (University of Copenhagen); Vejlin, Rune Majlund (Aarhus University)
    Abstract: We investigate whether workers reallocate up firm productivity and wage job ladders, and the cyclicality of this process. We document that productivity is a better measure of the job ladder than the average wage, since high productivity firms relative to low poach more workers than high wage firms relative to low. Employment cyclicality over the business cycle differs between the firm wage and productivity ladders. In recessions, employment decreases more in low than in high productivity firms. Low productivity firms fire more workers in recessions and stop hiring unemployed workers. Thus, there is a cleansing effect of recessions from the point of view of productivity reallocation. Oppositely, employment decreases more in high than in low wage firms, and the poaching channel of employment growth explains the difference. In recessions separations to other firms slow down more in low wage firms relative high wage firms and thus reallocation up the wage job ladder breaks down - a sullying effect of recessions. Thus recessions speed up productivity-enhancing reallocation but impede progression on the wage ladder.
    Keywords: job creation rate, firm heterogeneity, employment fluctuations
    JEL: E24 E32
    Date: 2023–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15872&r=bec
  3. By: Kuosmanen, Natalia (ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); Maczulskij, Terhi (ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy)
    Abstract: This paper explores the importance of firm dynamics, including entry and exit and the allocation of carbon emissions across firms, on the green transition. Using the 2000–2019 firm-level register data on greenhouse gas emissions matched with the Financial Statement data in the Finnish manufacturing sector, we examine the sources of carbon-productivity growth and assess the relative contributions of structural change and firm dynamics. We find that continuing firms were the main drivers of carbon productivity growth whereas the contribution of entering and exiting firms was negative. In addition, the allocation of emissions across firms appeared to be inefficient, with a negative impact on carbon productivity growth over the study period. Our analysis also revealed a positive relationship between labor-intensive firms and carbon productivity, but firms with a larger market share tended to be less productive in terms of carbon use.
    Keywords: carbon productivity, decomposition analysis, firm dynamics, firm-level data, manufacturing sector
    JEL: D24 L60 Q54
    Date: 2023–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15865&r=bec
  4. By: Bloom, Nicholas; Ohlmacher, Scott W.; Tello-Trillo, Cristina J.; Wallskog, Melanie
    Abstract: Using confidential Census matched employer-employee earnings data we find that employees at more productive firms, and firms with more structured management practices, have substantially higher pay, both on average and across every percentile of the pay distribution. This pay-performance relationship is particularly strong amongst higher paid employees, with a doubling of firm productivity associated with 11% more pay for the highest-paid employee (likely the CEO) compared to 4.7% for the median worker. This pay-performance link holds in public and private firms, although it is almost twice as strong in public firms for the highest-paid employees. Top pay volatility is also strongly related to productivity and structured management, suggesting this performance-pay relationship arises from more aggressive monitoring and incentive practices for top earners.
    Keywords: management
    JEL: J00 L00
    Date: 2022–04–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:117854&r=bec
  5. By: Philippe Aghion; Antonin Bergeaud; Matthieu Lequien; Marc Melitz; Thomas Zuber
    Abstract: We decompose the “China shock” into two components that induce different adjustments for firms exposed to Chinese exports: an output shock affecting firms selling goods that compete with similar imported Chinese goods, and an input supply shock affecting firms using inputs similar to the imported Chinese goods. Combining French accounting, customs, and patent information at the firm-level, we show that the output shock is detrimental to firms' sales, employment, and innovation. Moreover, this negative impact is concentrated on low-productivity firms. By contrast, we find a positive effect - although often not significant - of the input supply shock on firms' sales, employment and innovation.
    Keywords: Competition Shock, Patent, Firms, Import
    JEL: F14 O19 O31 O33 O34
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:899&r=bec
  6. By: Sulehri, Fiaz Ahmad; Ali, Amjad
    Abstract: This study has investigated the majority shareholder's practice to use minority shareholders’ wealth without their consent which influence the performance of firms in Pakistan from 2009 to 2020. The firm performance has been taken as an explained variable, whereas ownership concentration, inside ownership, firm size, leverage, and investment growth are considered explanatory variables. Descriptive statistics, correlation matrix, Hausman test, and random effect model have been used for empirical analysis. The study used a sample of 24 firms with a total of 288 observations to look at how ownership concentration, inside ownership, leverage, and sales growth affect firm performance. The ownership concentration, firm size, and investment growth have a positive and significant impact on firm performance, whereas inside ownership and leverage have a negative and significant influence on the performance of selected non-financial firms. The larger the gap between ownership and control, the more likely it is that company resources will be tunneled. So, it has been suggested to the securities and exchange commission of Pakistan to frame strict rules and regulations to stop the role of inside ownership because it influences firm performance adversely.
    Keywords: firm performance, insider ownership, tunneling
    JEL: D73 L25
    Date: 2022–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115899&r=bec
  7. By: Léa Marchal (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IC Migrations - Institut Convergences Migrations [Aubervilliers], UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Giulia Sabbadini (DICE - Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics - Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf = Heinrich Heine University [Düsseldorf])
    Abstract: This paper studies whether firms employing immigrant workers are more resilient to an increase in competition in their export markets. Exploiting the surge of Chinese imports following its accession to the World Trade Organization and using a sample of French manufacturing exporters from 2002 to 2015, we find that an increase in the growth rate of Chinese competition in a foreign market has a negative effect on both the two-year survival and growth rate of sales of French exporters on that foreign market. This negative effect on firm performance is mitigated by the employment of immigrant workers.
    Keywords: Firm Heterogeneity Immigrant workers Import competition Productivity JEL Codes: F14 F22 F16, Firm, Heterogeneity, Immigrant workers, Import competition, Productivity JEL Codes: F14 F22 F16
    Date: 2022–11–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-03905523&r=bec
  8. By: Vartuhi Tonoyan; Christopher Boudreaux
    Abstract: Despite recent evidence linking gender diversity in the firm with firm innovativeness, we know little about the underlying mechanisms. Building on and extending the Upper Echelon and entrepreneurship literature, we address two lingering questions: why and how does gender diversity in firm ownership affect firm innovativeness? We use survey data collected from 7, 848 owner-managers of SMEs across 29 emerging markets to test our hypotheses. Our findings demonstrate that firms with higher gender diversity in ownership are more likely to invest in R&D and rely upon a breadth of external capital, with such differentials explaining sizeable proportions of the higher likelihood of overall firm innovativeness, product and process, as well as organizational and marketing innovations exhibited by their firms. Our findings are robust to corrections for alternative measurement of focal variables, sensitivity to outliers and subsamples, and endogenous self-selection concerns.
    Date: 2023–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2301.01127&r=bec
  9. By: Léa Marchal (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IC Migrations - Institut Convergences Migrations [Aubervilliers], UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Guzman Ourens (Tilburg University [Tilburg] - Netspar); Giulia Sabbadini (Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement - Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies [Geneva, Switzerland])
    Abstract: We use French employer-employee data to reassess the wage gap between native and foreign workers. We find that the wage gap varies with the export intensity of the firm and the occupation of the worker. A model with heterogeneous firms and workers shows that our findings are consistent with white-collar immigrants capturing an informational rent. The evidence supports this mechanism. First, we show that the wage gap is positively correlated with the complexity of the firm export activity. Second, we show that wages react to changes in export intensity when the export destination coincides with the origin of foreign workers.
    Keywords: export, firm, immigrants, wage inequality
    Date: 2022–12–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03905529&r=bec
  10. By: Jean-Charles Bricongne; Juan Carluccio; Lionel Fontagné; Guillaume Gaulier; Sebastian Stumpner
    Abstract: Since Gabaix (2011), the role of changes in the performance of some very large firms in shaping aggregate outcomes has been intensively studied in the economic literature. Changes in the performance of a few large firms can arise due to idiosyncratic shocks or idiosyncratic reactions to common shocks. This paper provides direct evidence for the second channel using data on the universe of French firm-level exports and imports over 1993-2020. Granularity matters for the micro-dynamics of aggregate French exports over the long run: the granular residual explains 42% of the variance in aggregate export growth during the period. Moreover, it co-moves with the macro shocks: the largest firms do better than average in good times and worse in bad times. Studying firm-level performance during the Great Financial Crisis and the Pandemic reveals that top exporters contributed to the export collapses disproportionably more than their pre-crisis share of exports, even within finely defined markets. We investigate the reasons for such over-reaction of the top exporters using the Pandemic as a natural experiment. We find that a higher elasticity to demand shocks explains the larger reaction of top exporters to the Pandemic, with GVC exposure having weak explanatory power. Our findings have macro implications, as they help understand the macro reaction to foreign shocks, and micro implications, since they can inform micro models of exports.
    Keywords: Granularity; Exports; COVID crisis
    JEL: F14
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:881&r=bec
  11. By: Lee, Hanbaek
    Abstract: This paper develops a novel methodology to globally solve nonlinear dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with high accuracy. The algorithm is based on the ergodic theorem: if a simulated path of the aggregate shock is long enough, all the possible equilibrium allocations are realized, enabling a complete characterization of the rationally expected future outcomes at each point on the path. The algorithm is applied to a heterogeneous-firm business cycle model where firms hoard cash as a buffer stock. Using the model, I analyze the state-dependent shock sensitivity of consumption over corporate cash stocks and provide empirical evidence.
    Keywords: Nonlinear business cycle, heterogeneous agents, stochastic dynamic programming, monotone function, state dependence.
    JEL: C63 D21 E32
    Date: 2022–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115887&r=bec

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