Payment Defaults and Interfirm Liquidity Provision
F. Boissay, Reint E. Gropp
Review of Finance,
No. 6,
2013
Abstract
Using a unique data set on French firms, we show that credit constrained firms that face liquidity shocks are more likely to default on their payments to suppliers. Credit constrained firms pass on a sizeable fraction of such shocks to their suppliers. This is consistent with the idea that firms provide liquidity insurance to each other and that this mechanism is able to alleviate credit constraints. We show that the chain of defaults stops when it reaches unconstrained firms. Liquidity appears to be allocated from firms with access to outside finance to credit constrained firms along supply chains.
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Wissenstransfer in der Region Jena: Die Bedeutung von Innovationskooperationen
S. Pfeil, Michael Schwartz, K. Kaps, M.-W. Stoetzer
Beitrag in IWH-Sammelwerk,
aus: Vernetzung, Kooperationen, Metropolregionen – Effekte für die wirtschaftliche Zukunft der Städte. Dokumentationen des „3rd Halle Forum on Urban Economic Growth“
2012
Abstract
Beitrag aus: Vernetzung, Kooperationen, Metropolregionen – Effekte für die wirtschaftliche Zukunft der Städte. Dokumentationen des „3rd Halle Forum on Urban Economic Growth“.
Jena als Mitgliedsstadt des Kooperationsverbundes „Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland“ vereint eine stark ausgeprägte und vernetzte Wissenschafts- und Wirtschaftslandschaft, die bereits Gegenstand vielfältiger Analysen war. Neben der 450-jährigen Friedrich-Schiller-Universität und der Fachhochschule Jena, die dieses Jahr ihr 20-jähriges Jubiläum feiert, sind international renommierte Forschungseinrichtungen u. a. der Max-Planck- und Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft sowie der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft ansässig. Zudem finden sich eine Vielzahl junger innovationsorientierter Unternehmen, z. B. in der optischen Industrie, der Mikrosystemtechnik und der Biotechnologie auf der einen Seite sowie die Traditionsunternehmen Jenoptik, Zeiss und Schott auf der anderen Seite. Die Zusammenarbeit von Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft ist in Jena historisch verwurzelt – so arbeiteten bereits der Chemiker und Glastechniker Otto Schott, der Physiker und Professor Ernst Abbe und Universitätsmechaniker Carl Zeiss in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts gemeinsam an der Entwicklung optischer Geräte.
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Effects of Entrepreneurship Education at Universities
S. Laspita, H. Patzelt, Viktor Slavtchev
Jena Economic Research Papers,
No. 25,
2012
Abstract
This study analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship education at universities on the intentions of students to become entrepreneurs or self-employed in the short-term (immediately after graduation) and in the long-term (five years after graduation). A difference-in-differences approach is applied that relates changes in entrepreneurial intentions to changes in the attendance of entrepreneurship classes in the same period. To account for a potential bias due to self-selection into entrepreneurship classes, only individuals having no prior entrepreneurial intentions are analyzed. Our results indicate a stimulating effect of entrepreneurship education on students’ intentions to become entrepreneurs or self-employed in the long-term but a discouraging effect on their intentions in the short-term. These results support the conjecture that entrepreneurship education provides more realistic perspectives on what it takes to be an entrepreneur, resulting in ‘sorting’. Overall, the results indicate that entrepreneurship education may improve the quality of labor market matches, the allocation of resources and talent, and increase social welfare. Not distinguishing between short- and long-term intentions may lead to misleading conclusions regarding the economic and social impact of entrepreneurship education.
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Incubator Organizations as Entrepreneurship and SME Policy Instrument in Transition Economies: A Survey among six Countries
Michael Schwartz, Sebastian Blesse
Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship,
No. 3,
2011
Abstract
Within incubator-incubation research, there is a predominant focus on incubator organizations located in industrialized or developed economies. Knowledge regarding the evolution of incubators located in transition economies is almost non-existent. However, meanwhile a significant number of incubators have been established since the fall of the iron curtain in many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as well. Here, the present paper sets in through providing evidence on the development, distribution and structural characteristics of incubators in six selected CEE countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia). We show that incubator organizations have become a central element of support infrastructure for SME and entrepreneurship in CEE countries during the past 20 years. We further argue that by drawing upon the accumulated experience with incubators in developed Western (European) economies, there are important lessons to be learned for incubator stakeholders in transition economies. We, therefore, outline particular suggestions considered to be vital for long-term successful incubation processes in transition economies.
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Towards Unrestricted Public Use Business Microdata: The Synthetic Longitudinal Business Database
John M. Abowd, Ron S. Jarmin, Satkartar K. Kinney, Javier Miranda, Jerome P. Reiter, Arnold P. Reznek
International Statistical Review,
No. 3,
2011
Abstract
In most countries, national statistical agencies do not release establishment-level business microdata, because doing so represents too large a risk to establishments’ confidentiality. One approach with the potential for overcoming these risks is to release synthetic data; that is, the released establishment data are simulated from statistical models designed to mimic the distributions of the underlying real microdata. In this article, we describe an application of this strategy to create a public use file for the Longitudinal Business Database, an annual economic census of establishments in the United States comprising more than 20 million records dating back to 1976. The U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Internal Revenue Service recently approved the release of these synthetic microdata for public use, making the synthetic Longitudinal Business Database the first-ever business microdata set publicly released in the United States. We describe how we created the synthetic data, evaluated analytical validity, and assessed disclosure risk.
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What Drives FDI in Central-eastern Europe? Evidence from the IWH-FDI-Micro Database
Andrea Gauselmann, Mark Knell, Johannes Stephan
Post-Communist Economies,
No. 3,
2011
Abstract
The focus of this paper is on the match between strategic motives of foreign investments into Central-Eastern Europe and locational advantages offered by these countries. Our analysis makes use of the IWH-FDI-Micro Database, a unique dataset that contains information from 2009 about the determinants of locational factors, technological activity of the subsidiaries, and the potentials for knowledge spillovers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The analysis suggests that investors in these countries are mainly interested in low (unit) labour costs coupled with a well-trained and educated workforce and an expanding market with the high growth rates in the purchasing power of potential buyers. It also suggests that the financial crisis reduced the attractiveness of the region as a source for localised knowledge and technology. There appears to be a match between investors’ expectations and the quantitative supply of unqualified labour, not however for the supply of medium qualified workers. But the analysis suggests that it is not technology-seeking investments that are particularly content with the capabilities of their host economies in terms of technological cooperation. Finally, technological cooperation within the local host economy is assessed more favourably with domestic firms than with local scientific institutions – an important message for domestic economic policy.
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Can Korea Learn from German Unification?
Ulrich Blum
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 3,
2011
Abstract
We first analyze pre-unification similarities and differences between the two Germanys and the two Koreas in terms of demographic, social, political and economic status. An important issue is the degree of international openness. “Stone-age” type communism of North Korea and the seclusion of the population prevented inner-Korean contacts and contacts with rest of the world. This may create enormous adjustment costs if institutions, especially informal institutions, change. We go on by showing how transition and integration interact in a potential unification process based on the World Bank Revised Minimum Standard Model (RMSM) and on the Salter-Swan-Meade model. In doing so, we relate the macro and external impacts on an open economy to its macro-sectoral structural dynamics. The findings suggest that it is of utmost importance to relate microeconomic policies to the macroeconomic ties and side conditions for both parts of the country. Evidence from Germany suggests that the biggest general error in unification was neglecting these limits, especially limitations to policy instruments. Econometric analysis supports these findings. In the empirical part, we consider unification as an “investment” and track down the (by-and-large immediate to medium-term) costs and the (by-and-large long-term) benefits of retooling a retarded communist economy. We conclude that, from a South-Korean
perspective, the Korean unification will become relatively much more expensive than the German unification and, thus, not only economic, but to a much larger degree political considerations must include the tying of neighboring countries into the convergence process. We finally provide, 62 years after Germany’s division and 20 years after unification, an outlook on the strength of economic inertia in order to show that it may take much more than a generation to compensate the damage inflicted by the communist system.
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State Aid in the Enlarged European Union. An Overview
Jens Hölscher, Nicole Nulsch, Johannes Stephan
Abstract
In the early phase of transition that started with the 1990s, Central and Eastern European Countries pursued economic restructuring of the enterprise sector that involved massive injections of state support. Also foreign investment from the West and facilitation of the development of a market economy involved massive injections of state support. With their accession to the European Union (EU), levels and forms of state aid came under critical review by the European Commission. This inquiry investigates whether the integration of the new member states operates on a level playing field with respect to state aid. Quantitative and qualitative analysis is relied upon to answer this key, as well as other, related questions. Findings suggest that in recent years a level playing field across the EU has indeed emerged. State aid in the new EU member countries is rather handled more strictly than laxer compared to the ‘old’ EU countries.
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Challenges for Future Regional Policy in East Germany. Does East Germany really show Characteristics of Mezzogiorno?
Mirko Titze
A. Kuklinski; E. Malak-Petlicka; P. Zuber (eds), Souther Italy – Eastern Germany – Eastern Poland. The Triple Mezzogiorno? Ministry of Regional Development,
2010
Abstract
Despite extensive government support the gap between East and West Germany has still not been successfully closed nearly 20 years post German unification. Hence, some economists tend to compare East Germany with Mezzogiorno – underdeveloped Southern Italy. East Germany is still subject to sever structural problems in comparison to West Germany: lower per capita income, lower productivity, higher unemployment rates, fewer firm headquarters and fewer innovation activities. There are East German regions with less than desirable rates of development. Nevertheless, the new federal states have shown some evidence of a convergence process. Some regions have developed very positively – they have improved their competitiveness and employment levels. As such, the comparison of East Germany with Mezzogiorno does not seem applicable today.
According to Neoclassical Growth Theory, regional policy is targeted enhancing investment (hereafter the notion ‘investment policy’ is used). has been the most important instrument in forcing the ‘reconstruction of the East’. Overall, the investment policy is seen as having been successful. It is not, however, the only factor influencing regional development – political policy makers noted in the mid 1990s that research and development (R&D) activities and regional concentrated production networks, amongst other factors, may also play a part. The investment policy instrument has therefore been adjusted. Nevertheless, it cannot be excluded that investment policy may fail in particular cases because it contains potentially conflicting targets. A ‘better road’ for future regional policy may lie in the support of regional production and innovation networks – the so-called industrial clusters. These clusters would need to be exactingly identified however to ensure effective and efficient cluster policies.
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