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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2013‒02‒08
four papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Nishimura, Junichi; Okamuro, Hiroyuki |
| Abstract: | R&D consortia (collaborative R&D projects among private firms, universities, and public research institutes) have been attracting increasing attention as an effective means of promoting innovation. Especially for SMEs, such collaboration provides important opportunities to access and obtain advanced scientific knowledge generated by universities and public research institutes. It is expected that not only the participants in R&D consortia will enhance their performance, through direct knowledge spillovers, but also that the business partners of consortia members may enjoy indirect effects (rent spillovers), through their business transactions. This paper empirically examines the spillover effects through government-sponsored R&D consortia using firm-level data and the propensity score method. Focusing on a major support program for R&D consortia in Japan, the “Consortium R&D Project for Regional Revitalization” by METI, we confirm that there are both direct (knowledge) spillover effects from firms’ participation in this program and indirect (rent) spillover effects on the customer firms of the consortia members. Moreover, by comparing SMEs and large firms, we find that only SMEs obtain knowledge spillovers in R&D consortia, whereas, among their customers, only large firms enjoy rent spillovers. |
| Keywords: | R&D consortia, business transaction, knowledge spillover, rent spillover, SME, policy evaluation |
| JEL: | H25 L53 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:cinwps:24&r=sbm |
| By: | G. Bottazzi; M. Grazzi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of size on labor cost and productivity for Italian manufacturing firms. The distributions of both labor cost and productivity display a wide support, even when disaggregated by sector of industrial activity. Further, both labor cost and productivity, when considered alone, are growing with the size of the firm. We investigate this relationship on a new set of data and we are able to show that once accounted for productivity differences among firms, size still retains a positive effect on cost of labor in most of the sectors considered. |
| JEL: | D21 J31 L11 L60 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp865&r=sbm |
| By: | Carol Robbins; Olympia Belay; Matthew Donahoe; Jennifer Lee (Bureau of Economic Analysis) |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bea:wpaper:0090&r=sbm |
| By: | Noriaki Matsushima; Keizo Mizuno |
| Abstract: | We investigate the incentives for facility-based firms to invest in infrastructure upgrades and to foreclose service-based firms. We focus on asymmetric regulation regarding service-based firms' access to the infrastructure held by a facility-based firm. Spillovers from the infrastructure upgrades made by a regulated facility-based firm on service-based firms play a key role in the incentives for making these upgrades. The spillover effect can enhance the incentives for the regulated facility-based firm to make upgrades if access prices are not regulated. The existence of rival facility-based firms strengthens the incentives for a regulated facility-based firm to make infrastructure upgrades, especially when the spillover effect is significant. Furthermore, if access prices are not regulated, the existence of rival facility-based firms weakens the incentives for a regulated facility-based firm to foreclose service-based firms. |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0860&r=sbm |