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on Business Economics |
| By: | Branco, Catarina; Dohse, Dirk C.; Pereira dos Santos, João; Tavares, José |
| Abstract: | We study the firm-level responses to a substantial increase in transportation costs in the wake of a quasi-experiment that introduced tolls in a subset of Portuguese highways. Exploiting a unique dataset encompassing the universe of Portuguese private firms, we find that the introduction of tolls caused a substantial decrease in turnover (−10.2%) and productivity (−4.3%) in treated firms vis-à-vis firms in the comparison group. In response to the tolls, firms substantially cut employment-related expenses and purchases of other inputs. Labor costs were reduced by both employment cuts and a decrease in average wages. While firms did not increase inventory, there is some evidence for increased firm exit, in particular by firms in tradables sectors. |
| Keywords: | Road tolls, Infrastructure, Firm performance, Firm behavior, Location, Portugal |
| JEL: | R48 L25 R12 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:273314&r=bec |
| By: | Born, Benjamin; Enders, Zeno; Menkhoff, Manuel; Müller, Gernot J.; Niemann, Knut |
| Abstract: | Using firm-level data, we study how firm expectations adjust to news while accounting for a) the heterogeneity of news and b) the heterogeneity of firms. We classify news as either micro or macro, that is, information about firm-specific developments or information about the aggregate economy. Survey data for German and Italian firms allows us to reject rational expectations: Both types of news predict forecast errors at the firm level. Yet while firm expectations overreact to micro news, they underreact to macro news. We propose a general-equilibrium model where firms suffer from 'island illusion' to explain these patterns in the data. |
| Keywords: | Survey data, salience, overreaction, underreaction, micro news, macro news, island illusion, business cycle |
| JEL: | D84 C53 E71 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:pp1859:43&r=bec |
| By: | Christos, Genakos; Kaplanis, Ioannis; Tagaraki, Maria Theano; Tsakanikas, Aggelos |
| Abstract: | The global financial crisis that burst in 2008 adversely affected business performance in many countries, especially in Europe. However, the impact of the crisis on entrepreneurship and business dynamics differed amongst countries, depending on their businesses resilience, the policies implemented, but also their predominant productive structure. The magnitude and length of the Greek depression have no precedent among modern middle and high-income economies. Still, to date, there is no systematic analysis of the impact of the crisis on entrepreneurship and business dynamism. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining individual firm, sectoral and regional level characteristics that might affect existing firm resilience and new firm survival rate. We use two sources of data with the most extensive coverage of small (sole proprietorship) and large (other legal status firms) firms containing information on entry and exit in Greece. Matching data from patents and trademarks allow us to examine the interplay between entrepreneurship and innovation. Our analysis focuses on the factors that help or hinder firm survival and growth. We find that the crisis increased the exit likelihood for a firm by 5% to 16%. Larger firms, with significant fixed assets, lower financial leverage, operating in concentrated industries, but also those that are innovation and export oriented tend to have better chances of survival compared to their counterparts. These results are important for designing business policies not only in Greece but also other countries facing similar crises. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; business dynamism; innovation; crisis policy; resilience |
| JEL: | D20 L20 L25 O30 R11 |
| Date: | 2023–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:119705&r=bec |
| By: | Matthias Fauth; Benjamin Jung; Wilhelm Kohler |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we zoom in on the firm level of German merchandise foreign trade, using a novel data base with information on the export and import value by firm, country, product and year for the period 2011-2019. Problems arising from the consolidated reporting of taxable entities and the reporting thresholds present in intra-EU trade have been largely eliminated through redistributions conducted by DESTATIS. Using the data, we examine how global German firms are by looking at the joint distribution of the number of products they trade and the number of countries they trade with. Moreover, we examine the importance of firms mainly engaged in trade intermediation, as opposed to production. Most importantly, we provide a rich description of heterogeneity among German firms by decomposing their trade relationships into intensive margins (value of trade) and extensive margins (number of firms, products and countries). We describe the distributions for each margin, distinguishing intra-EU and extra-EU trade as well as different firm types (producers, wholesalers, retailers). Finally, we reveal strong positive correlations between and within importing and exporting margins, supporting the presence of firm-level complementarities implied by recent theory. |
| Keywords: | trade statistics, firm-level data, trade intermediation, Germany |
| JEL: | F14 F23 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10523&r=bec |
| By: | Tomenendal, Matthias; Raffer, Christian |
| Abstract: | There is still a rather small number of studies on gazelles in Germany, home to Europe's largest economy and its capital Berlin, one of Europe's main startup hubs. In particular, a recent overview on the occurrence of gazelles in Germany, which differentiates gazelles (up to five years old) from other high-growth firms (no age restriction) is missing. Applying descriptive statistics to a data set of 5, 328 high-growth firms we provide such an overview in terms of regional and sectoral distribution of German gazelles as well as their spatial link to regional business clusters. We find that most German high-growth firms (and equally gazelles) exist in the most populated German states. They mostly exist in traditional business sectors like construction and manufacturing. Relatively more gazelles than older high-growth firms exist in the sector of further business-related services. In the sectors construction, information and communication, further business-related services, and art, entertainment and recreation, we identify weak but significant positive spatial associations between the number of cluster initiatives and the number of gazelles. No such association exists for the entirety of high-growth firms in Germany. |
| Keywords: | gazelles, German gazelles, high-growth firms, distribution of gazelles, occurrence of gazelles, clusters, cluster embeddedness |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bpswps:2&r=bec |
| By: | Kozo Ueda (Waseda University); Kota Watanabe (Canon Institute for Global Studies and University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how strategic and heterogeneous price setting influences the real effect of monetary policy. Japanese data show that firms with larger market shares exhibit more frequent and larger price changes than those with smaller market shares. We then construct an oligopolistic competition model with sticky prices and asymmetry in terms of competitiveness and price stickiness, which shows that a positive cross superelasticity of demand generates dynamic strategic complementarity, resulting in decreased price adjustments and an amplified real effect of monetary policy. Whether a highly competitive firm sets its price more sluggishly and strategically than a less competitive firm depends on the shape of the demand system, and the empirical results derived from the Japanese data support Hotelling's model rather than the constant elasticity of substitution preferences model. Dynamic strategic complementarity and asymmetry in price stickiness can substantially enhance the real effect of monetary policy. |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf565&r=bec |