1,721,035 research outputs found
Relationship lending and firm innovativeness
No full text"This study investigates the effects of close ties between
firms and banks -- as measured by the share and length of the relationship
with the main bank, and by the number of lenders -- on a firm's
ability to develop innovation and introduce new products. As these
effects may vary depending on both the type of firm and innovation,
this study provides results for small and high-tech firms and distinguishes
between process and product innovation. The results suggest that for
small firms banks do not intervene at the development stage of an
innovation but rather play their traditional role of financing investments
for constrained firms. In contrast, relationship banks do play an
important role for high-tech firms in the development of a process
innovation and in the introduction of new products. In addition, for
both types of firms, the financing decision of the main bank seems
to be correlated with the lending behaviour of other banks, with multiple
borrowing exerting a positive effect on firm innovative capability
Unit roots and the dynamics of market shares: an analysis using an Italian banking micro-panel
No full textThe paper proposes the use of panel data unit-root tests to assess market-share instability in order to obtain indications of industry dynamics. The idea is to consider movements in market shares as much more than mere elements of the market structure. In fact, these movements reflect conduct that arises from that market. If shares are mean-reverting, then firm actions have only a temporary effect on shares. On the other hand, if shares are evolving, as signaled by the presence of unit roots, then any gain in shares with respect to the competitors is long term. To illustrate the potential of unit-roots tests, the paper considers an application to the Italian retail banking industry
Credit Reporting, Financial Intermediation and Identification Systems: International Evidence
No full textCredit reporting systems are an important ingredient for financial markets. These systems are based upon the unique identification of borrowers, which is enabled if a compulsory national identification system exists in a country. We present evidence derived from difference-in-difference analyses on the impact of credit reporting and identification systems on financial intermediation in 172 countries between 2000 and 2008. Our results suggest that the introduction of a mandatory identification system has a positive effect on financial intermediation (bank credit to deposits, net interest margins) and financial access (private credit to GDP), especially in countries where there is also a credit reporting system
The role of reciprocation in social network formation, with an application to Live-Journal
No full textThis paper deals with the role of reciprocation in the formation of individuals’ social networks. We follow the activity of a panel of bloggers over more than a year and investigate the extent to which initiating a relation brings about its reciprocation. We adapt a standard capital investment model to study how reciprocation affects the build-up of the individual social capital of bloggers, as measured by their links and interactions with others. This allows us to measure the role of content production and relationship building in the dynamics of online social networks and to distinguish between the social networking and media aspects of blogging
Work arrangements and Firm Innovation
No full texthis study investigates the relationship between labour market flexibility—proxied by the proportion of workers with different contractual arrangements and other indicators of flexible work relations—and firms' innovative ability, as measured by the percentage of new products in total sales. On the one hand, 'more flexibility' (e.g. a higher labour turnover) might be favourable to a firm's innovation potential. Aside from having (potential) wage savings, a larger inflow of new personnel may enrich the pool of firm innovative ideas. On the other hand, higher work flexibility may also have some drawbacks: a permanently high turnover rate may diminish social cohesion and trust and increase the probability of opportunistic behaviour. Results suggest that internal flexibility is positively associated with innovation for both high-tech and low-tech firms. Especially for high-tech firms, however, greater external flexibility might hinder innovation
Flexicurity pathway for Italy: learning from Denmark?
No full textThe aim of this work is to identify the advantages and risks of adopting flexicurity policies in Italy. In the first part, this paper analyzes flexicurity in Denmark, one of the leading countries in this field. Even though it is not possible to directly transpose policies from Denmark onto Italy, important insights are provided by such an analysis. In the second part, we focus on the possibility of countries with segmented labour markets, like Italy, adopting the first European flexicurity pathway, which suggests relying on contractual arrangements that gradually result in better working conditions to address labour market segmentations. To investigate such an issue, we additionally provide some evidence from an experimental analysis in which the level of unemployment level is determined endogenously and the level of effort made is observable by firms with a certain degree of uncertainty. Overall, the analysis suggests that, especially in countries where there is limited scope for increasing spending, these contractual arrangements can improve labour market efficiency by reducing the unemployment level and increasing workers' performance
Disclosure of personal information under the risk of privacy shocks
Full text linkBreaches of the security of personal data collected by firms are reported almost daily. Companies are under an increasing political pressure to notify individuals whose privacy as been breached. At the moment, we know virtually nothing about the behavioral impact of data breach notifications. We present the results of an experimental study designed to investigate how breach notifications change the individual's propensity to provide sensitive personal information to firms. In contrast to the theory (where breach notifications have no behavioral effect), our main result shows that notifications induce a sub-group of individuals to disclose less information to a firm, i.e. those with personally sensitive information
Bank credit loss and ESG performance
No full textWe study the impact of ESG scores on Non-performing loans (NPLs) for a sample of European listed banks over the period 2002–2020. Relying on two different types of instrumental variables and fractional logit estimations, we find that banks with greater levels of the ESG score have higher levels of NPLs. The main effect goes through the Governance pillar and Controversies components. Our findings suggest that even if ESG practices may enhance bank value and stability, a negative effect may directly emerge from the loan loss channel
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