The initial public offering (IPO) is an important stage in the life cycle of privately held and entrepreneurial firms. For innovative firms eager to capitalize on their technological advances, an IPO ...represents a springboard for a rapid international expansion of sales. However, there is little research on the longer-term, post-IPO strategic evolution of newly listed companies, including their internationalization. We build on international entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities perspectives and examine interrelationships between R&D, exporting and growth of newly listed firms in the UK, Germany, Italy and France. Using panel data for 1110 IPOs during the period 1985–2004, we found that R&D intensity is an important antecedent factor for internationalization of sales. Both R&D and export intensities have a positive effect on the sales growth of newly listed firms. However, R&D intensity is path dependent, and is determined by levels of accumulated intangible assets and debt. In terms of time dynamics, the growth of IPO firms is at its highest level just after the float, whereas export intensity increases as IPO firms mature. We conclude that managers and IPO investors need to take into account not only growth opportunities but also past innovation strategies and financial constraints on managers' strategic choices.
This paper is a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007–2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases, extracted from a report to the Chief Scientific Advisor to Her ...Majesty’s Government Thirtle, C., Piesse, J., 2008. An Explanatory Review of the World Food Commodity Price Events of 2007–2008. A Report to the Chief Scientific Advisor. Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, London. The historical background shows that the price spike was much less severe than in the 1970s. The conventional wisdom that prices of the main food commodities were falling prior to 2006 is questioned. Most ceased falling and were quite stable from the 1980s. The paper separates the causes of the spike from the underlying changes driving the long run trends. The literature on the causes of the spike is critically reviewed and summarised. There is a reasonably broad consensus on most of the causes, but much less on the impact of the depreciation of the US Dollar. There are also concluding speculations on the future.
Previous studies emphasise that the foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies of firms from newly industrialised economies (NIEs) are different from the FDI strategies of firms from developed ...economies. It has also been shown that NIE firms are often controlled by founding families who make key strategic decisions, and that they rely heavily on network linkages when developing their FDI strategies. What is less clear, however, is how the corporate governance factors in NIEs, the risk preferences of the main shareholder constituencies, and the network-based business culture affect the decision to undertake FDI in emerging markets. This paper explores the entry mode and location choices of firms from an Asian NIE (Taiwan) in an emerging market (the People's Republic of China). It shows that the choice of equity stake in an affiliate depends upon the extent of family and institutional share ownerships in the parent company. High-commitment entry is found to be positively associated with the affiliate being located in areas with strong economic, cultural and historic links with the parent company. Furthermore, the entry mode and location decisions appear to be interrelated, with the parent's equity stake in the affiliate depending inter alia upon the location within China, and the favoured location depending inter alia upon the equity stake.
We investigated the effect of heat and moisture stress on total factor productivity in crop farming under experimental farm conditions. Heat stress is the number of days during the growing season ...during which the maximum temperature exceeds 24.9 °C. Total rainfall is treated as a basic factor of production and periodic moisture stress, or lack thereof, is the number of rainfall days during the growing season. All models controlled for the cumulative soil benefits arising from minimum tillage, which is the main objective of the experiment. Model specification was evaluated using likelihood ratio tests and three are wor thy of note. The study site received 329 mm of rainfall on average on 22 rainy days per season during the period 2002-2015, while the maximum temperature typically rose above 24.9 °C on 33 days per growing season. The average efficiency of the plots in the long-term crop rotation experiment increased at 3.4% per year from a base of 60% to the most recent level of 78%. Neither heat nor moisture stress changed significantly over the study period. Heat stress was found to reduce efficiency by 1.75% per hot day and rainfall increased efficiency by 1.45% for each additional rainy day. However, the interaction of heat and moisture stress lowered productivity overall.Significance: • This study contributes a new approach to modelling the effect of climate on agricultural productivity using a new metric of heat and moisture stress. • We quantify the marginal effects of rising temperatures and rainfall events and evaluate several potential specifications of heat and moisture stress variables.
•The attractiveness of a particular location depends upon the proximity of alternative locations.•How does spatial dependence impact upon the FDI location choice within host countries?•Consider ...spatial dependence based upon geographic, administrative and economic distance.•Spatial dependence in China depends more on economic distance than geographic distance.•Policy measures to attract inward FDI should take account of spatial dependence.
We investigate how different conceptions of distance impact upon one of the fundamental decisions made by foreign investors, the choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) location within the selected host country. We argue that the attractiveness of host country locations to foreign investors depends not only upon location-specific attributes such as labor costs, but also upon the location's proximity to alternative locations. We provide theoretical rationales for how and why alternative concepts of distance might impact upon firms’ FDI location decisions, and explicitly model different measures of geographic, economic and administrative distance. Empirically we illustrate the use of a number of spatial regression models with a new dataset on FDI in Chinese prefecture-cities, and have shown, in this context, that geographic distance is not the ‘best’ measure of distance to use. We find clear evidence of spatial dependence between the cities based upon economic distance, with weaker evidence related to administrative distance. The distinctive contribution of this paper is to emphasize that city-level policy to attract FDI is more likely to succeed if the prefecture-city is economically (and administratively) close to alternative city locations, while any policy expenditure may fail to attract FDI inflows if the prefecture-city is distant from other city locations.
Twenty-percent of the world’s population, or 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day; 70% of these are rural and 90% are in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Research-led technological change in ...agriculture generates sufficient productivity growth to give high rates of return in Africa and Asia and has a substantial impact on poverty, currently reducing this number by 27 million per annum, whereas productivity growth in industry and services has no impact. The per capita “cost” of poverty reduction by means of agricultural research expenditures in Africa is $144 and in Asia $180, or 50 cents per day, but this is covered by output growth. By contrast, the per capita cost for the richer countries of Latin America is over $11,000.
Using a comprehensive sample of listed companies in Hong Kong this paper investigates how family control affects private information abuses and firm performance in emerging economies. We combine ...research on stock market microstructure with more recent studies of multiple agency perspectives and argue that family ownership and control over the board increases the risk of private information abuse. This, in turn, has a negative impact on stock market performance. Family control is associated with an incentive to distort information disclosure to minority shareholders and obtain private benefits of control. However, the multiple agency roles of controlling families may have different governance properties in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information abuse. These findings contribute to our understanding of the conflicting evidence on the governance role of family control within a multiple agency perspective.
This paper provides microfoundations for dual economy models. First, the patterns of production and population growth in the traditional agricultural sector are examined. This shows the connection ...between long‐run per capita income and subsistence wages. Second, it proves the existence of surplus labour and defines two types of surplus labour. Third, it considers two wage determination mechanisms in the modern sector and their relationships with the requirement for labour market restrictions. Fourth, the labour market is linked to food supply. Fifth, the dynamics of surplus labour and labour transfer are considered and two types of turning point are defined.
Using a multi-industry dataset of 228 firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) this paper analyses the effects of ownership structure and board characteristics on performance in large, ...publicly traded firms that are controlled by founding families. After taking account of possible endogeneity problems, we do not find that family control is associated with performance measured in terms of accounting ratios, sales per issued capital, earnings per share and market-to-book value. However, share ownership by institutional investors, and foreign financial institutions in particular, is associated with better performance. Our results indicate that board independence from founding family and board members’ financial interests have a positive impact on performance. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005
Given the nascent nature of banking sectors in transition countries and their unique institutional settings, this paper documents the effects of regulation on the efficiency of banks using system GMM ...and dynamic panel quantile regressions for 21 transition countries for the period 2002–2014. Within the system GMM estimation the paper finds bank activity restrictions to be the only regulation improving banking efficiency in these countries. However, the dynamic panel quantile results show that the regulation has different effects at different quantiles. This study provides important policy implications related to banking regulation in transition economies.
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