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on Business Economics |
| By: | Caldarola, Bernardo (Mt Economic Research Inst on Innov/Techn, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research); Fontanelli, Luca |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical evidence finds positive associations between digitalisation and industry concentration. However, ICT may not be all alike. We investigate the effect of the purchase of cloud services on the long run size growth rate of French firms. Our findings suggest that cloud services positively impact firm growth rates, with smaller firms experiencing more significant benefits compared to larger firms. This evidence suggests that the diffusion of cloud technologies may help mitigate concentration in the era of the digital transition by favouring the digitalisation and growth of smaller firms, especially when the cloud services provided are more advanced. |
| JEL: | L20 L25 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–09–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2024026 |
| By: | Lasse F. Henriksen; Jacob Lunding; Christoph H. Ellersgaard; Anton G. Larsen |
| Abstract: | Who represents the corporate elite in democratic governance? Prior studies find a tightly integrated "inner circle" network representing the corporate elite politically across varieties of capitalism, yet they all rely on data from a highly select sample of leaders from only the largest corporations. We cast a wider net. Analyzing new data on all members of corporate boards in the Danish economy (200k directors in 120k boards), we locate 1500 directors that operate as brokers between local corporate networks. We measure their network coreness using k-core detection and find a highly connected core of 275 directors, half of which are affiliated with smaller firms or subsidiaries. Analyses show a strong positive association between director coreness and the likelihood of joining one of the 650 government committees epitomizing Denmark's social-corporatist model of governance (net of firm and director characteristics). The political network premium is largest for directors of smaller firms or subsidiaries, indicating that network coreness is a key driver of business political representation, especially for directors without claims to market power or weight in formal interest organizations. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2501.17209 |
| By: | Park , Donghyun (Asian Development Bank); Shin, Kwanho (Korea University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the implications of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) for employment and productivity, using a rich firm-level database from the Survey of Business Activities provided by Statistics Korea. While previous studies have explored the effects of robots and AI separately, we investigate their effects jointly within a unified framework. We deploy propensity score matching to control for firm characteristics, enabling a potential causal interpretation of the differential impacts of robots and AI. We find that the patterns of adopting robots and AI differ significantly across industries. Additionally, although the overall share of firms adopting robots is larger, AI adoption is more concentrated among bigger firms. Our main finding is that, while adopting robots and adopting AI both increase employment, only adopting AI improves labor productivity. However, such productivity gains are accompanied by a decrease in the labor share of income, suggesting a potential shift in value distribution favoring capital income. Furthermore, we find that the immediate impact of adopting both robots and AI is an increase in temporary but not permanent employment. Finally, there is no evidence that firms adopting both robots and AI improve their labor productivity, potentially reflecting a lack of synergy. |
| Keywords: | artificial intelligence; robots; employment; productivity |
| JEL: | D22 J21 J24 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2025–02–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0769 |
| By: | Clochard Gwen-Jiro; Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez; Marco Henriques Pereira |
| Abstract: | Acquiring skilled workers can be a key comparative advantage for firms. However, this process involves much uncertainty that firms need to navigate. Leveraging managers' social networks can help reduce search frictions, improve match quality, and boost firm performance. In this paper, we investigate the role of managers’ networks on three dimensions of individual and organizational outcomes: hiring, responsibilities, and performance. We do so by leveraging the availability of rich transactional data in professional football (soccer) in Europe. Our data covers both men's and women's football, comprising over 6k coaches, 80k players, and 100k movements between teams. First, we find that managers rely heavily on their networks for hiring decisions, particularly for non-star workers, and network-based recruiting can be done more cheaply than external hiring. Second, managers give their network-hired workers more responsibilities by allowing them more game time, particularly in the first season. Third, we find that increasing the number of network-recruited workers is associated with significantly higher team performance. These patterns hold consistently across both men's and women's football. We discuss the generalizability of our results and implications for managers in other industries. |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1275 |
| By: | Melissa Chow; Martha Stinson |
| Abstract: | The Business Dynamics Statistics of Coastal Counties (BDS-CC) is a new experimental data product extending the set of statistics published by the Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) program to provide more detail on businesses operating in coastal regions of the United States. The BDS-CC provides annual measures of employment, the number of establishments and firms, job creation, job destruction, openings, and closings for businesses in Coastal Shoreline (CS), Coastal Non-Shoreline (CNS), and Non-Coastal (NC) counties. Counties are grouped into these categories based on definitions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This product allows for comparisons across industries and coastal regions of the impact of natural disasters and other events that affect coastal areas. The BDS-CC series provides annual statistics for 1978 to 2022 for each of the coastal categories by firm size and firm age, initial firm size, establishment size and establishment age, initial establishment size, sector, 3-digit NAICS code, 4-digit NAICS code, urban/rural categories, and various coastal regions. Following a description of the data and methodology, we highlight some historical trends and analyses conducted using these data. |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-08 |
| By: | Gabor Katay (European Commission, Directorate†General for Economic and Financial Affairs); Palma Filep-Mosberger (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary)); Francesco Tucci (Sapienza Università di Roma) |
| Abstract: | The paper evaluates the impact of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) grants on profit†oriented firms’ post†treatment performance. Using a quasi†experimental design and a dataset covering applicants from 46 countries, we find that FP7 grants increase firms’ sales and labour productivity by about 18%. However, there is no significant impact on employment levels, pointing to potential growth barriers that prevent firms from scaling production despite improved productivity. The effectiveness of these grants varies significantly based on factors such as financial constraints, project risk profiles, market structure, and the innovation environment. Smaller, less productive firms with tighter financial constraints in technologyintensive sectors operating in concentrated markets and favourable innovation environments, particularly those undertaking longer and riskier projects, tend to benefit more. |
| Keywords: | EU funds for research and innovation; firm productivity; regression†discontinuity design. |
| JEL: | C31 G28 H57 O31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnb:wpaper:2025/1 |
| By: | Kaushik, Rituparna; Paul, Sourabh Bikas; Sartorello Spinola, Danilo (RS: UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This article studies the innovation effort in India through the education of corporate board members obtained from prestigious STEM higher education institutes known as the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs). Our primary aim is to enquire whether firms with director/s having an IIT-Bachelors’ degree in their corporate boards positively impact the firm’s innovation effort. To answer this question, we build a novel dataset merging two micro-level databases: CMIE-Prowess (firm innovation) and NSE-Infobase (board of directors' characteristics). Based on the sample of 6151 Indian firms for 2006-2015, we find that overall, having board members with IIT-Bachelor’s qualifications do enhance innovation efforts to some extent. However, the positive effect on innovation effort becomes more robust when the director has a research degree over their IIT- Bachelors’ degree. The paper highlights that when it comes to innovation efforts, the dominant narrative of relying solely on IIT-STE M elite undergraduate education (IIT-Bachelor’s) is insufficient and should also focus on and prioritize research education. |
| JEL: | O31 G30 I23 |
| Date: | 2023–04–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2023014 |
| By: | Eliav Danziger; Leif Danziger |
| Abstract: | We study how demand uncertainty affects risk-neutral firms. number of export destinations when uncertainty is resolved after firms choose their export destinations and output. We show that firms’ ability to allocate their output across destinations in response to destination-specific shock realizations provides even risk-neutral firms an incentive to export. Without appealing to firm-country heterogeneity or increasing marginal cost, our framework can explain why firms export to some but not all ex-ante indistinguishable destinations. We also show how, for a given firm productivity, the optimal number of export destinations depends on the correlation of shocks across the home and foreign countries. |
| Keywords: | international trade, demand uncertainty, risk-neutral firms, optimal number of export destinations |
| JEL: | F12 F61 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11633 |
| By: | Sergey Kokovin; Alina Ozhegova; Shamil Sharapudinov; Alexander Tarasov; Filipp Ushchev |
| Abstract: | Our novel approach to modeling monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms and consumers involves spatial product differentiation, in either a geographical space or a space of characteristics. In addition to price, each firm chooses location in space. We formulate conditions for positive sorting—more-productive firms serve larger market segments and face tougher competition—and for existence and uniqueness of equilibrium. To quantify the role of sorting, we calibrate the model using haircut market data and perform counterfactual analysis. Inequality in gains among consumers caused by positive market shocks can be substantial: gains for consumers at more-populated locations are three to four times higher. (JEL D11, D24, D43, L13, L84) |
| Date: | 2024–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/387736 |