1,721,029 research outputs found
A new perspective on mergers and acquisitions: Evidence explained, policies prescribed
Get PDFÜbernahme, International, Takeover
Impact of Uncertainty and Sunk Costs on Firm Survival and Industry Dynamics
Get PDFIn theory, uncertainty and sunk costs can influence industry dynamics through the option value and financing constraints channels. Empirical evaluation of these models in the context of industry dynamics are, however, at a nascent stage. Our empirical analysis, covering 267 U.S. manufacturing industries over a 30-year period, reveals that greater uncertainty (i) decreases the number of small firms and establishments in high sunk cost industries, (ii) has virtually no impact on larger establishments, (iii) results in a less skewed size distribution of firms and establishments in high sunk cost industries and (iv) marginally increases industry output concentration. Addressing the recent literature, we also control for technological change and our estimates show that technical progress decreases the number of small firms and establishments in an industry. While past studies have emphasized technological change as a key driver of industry dynamics, our results indicate that uncertainty and sunk costs play a crucial role. Our findings could be useful for the study of firm survival, models of creative destruction, evolution of firm size distribution, mergers and acquisitions and competition policy.
Global Initiatives in Reforming Rules and Regulations
No full textThis chapter first considers empirical evidence on the benefits of reforms and then addresses reform issues in particular markets. It examines patent mechanisms and R&D policies in innovation markets; optimal environmental regulations and their impact on innovation, investments, and prices; barriers to trade and competition, and the structure of regulatory agencies in telecommunications markets; and some key issues related to financial markets. The concluding section discusses alternative frameworks for assessing the functioning of markets and for evaluating rules and regulations
Small is Beautiful but Size Matters: The Asymmetric Impact of Uncertainty and Sunk Costs on Small and Large Businesses
Get PDFAgainst the backdrop of the theories developed in the real options and financing constraints literatures, this paper examines the impact of profit uncertainty and sunk costs on firms’ entry and exit decisions. For our empirical analysis, we compile an extensive dataset containing information on 267 U.S. manufacturing industries over a 30-year period containing industry-specific information on the number of firms and establishments, the size distribution of establishments, measures of sunk capital costs and profit uncertainty, among others. Our dynamic panel data estimates show that greater uncertainty about profits, especially in conjunction with higher sunk costs, results in (1) a marked decrease in the number of small firms and establishments; (2) a less skewed size distribution of firms and establishments; and (3) a marginal increase in industry output concentration. In sharp contrast, large establishments seem virtually unaffected. The results point to uncertainty in conjunction with sunk costs fundamentally affecting firms’ decision-making and altering the structure of industries by putting smaller businesses at a disadvantage.Uncertainty; sunk costs; real options; financing constraints; decision-making; small businesses
Investments in Modernization, Innovation and Gains in Productivity: Evidence from Firms in the Global Paper Industry
Get PDFThis paper examines the impact of investments in modernization and innovation on productivity in a sample of firms in the global pulp and paper industry. This industry is important because it has traditionally accounted for significant amounts of employment and capital investment in North America and Europe. In contrast to much of the existing literature which focuses on the impact of R&D and patents on firms’ performance and productivity, we examine data on actual investment transactions in four main areas of operations: (i) mechanical, (ii) chemicals, (iii) monitoring devices and (iv) information technology. We find that firms which made decisions to implement a greater number of investment transactions in modernization achieved higher productivity, and these estimated quantitative effects are greater than the impact of standard innovation variables such as patents and R&D. Investment transactions in the information technology and digital monitoring devices imparted a particularly noticeable boost to productivity. These results are obtained after controlling for other firm-specific variables such as capital-intensity and mergers and acquisitions. Two broad messages emerge from our study. First, firms’ decisions to undertake investments in modernization and various forms of incremental innovations appear to be critical for achieving gains in productivity. While these may typically generate small gains on a year-to-year basis, they can compound to form meaningful differences in performance, productivity and competitive position across firms in the longer-run. Second, for some of the traditional industries like pulp and paper, R&D and patents seem to be particularly poor indicators of innovation and, more generally, how firms go about achieving gains in productivity. While this paper focuses on the pulp and paper industry, our broad framework and methodology is general and can be applied to understanding firms’ strategies related to enhancing performance and productivity in a variety of industries.Pulp and paper industry; investment; modernization; innovation; productivity; organizational behavior
Demand Uncertainty and the Capital-Labor Ratio: Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Sector.
No full textRichard Hartman (1976) and Duncan M. Holthausen (1976) showed that firms' input choices may be affected by demand uncertainty. Specifically, uncertain demand conditions may lead to firms operating with a lower capital-ratio. This result has potentially important implications for the analysis of factor demand and factor productivity. The author constructs measures of demand uncertainty and examines the above relationship for a sample of 125 U.S. manufacturing industries. Results show that there exists a significant negative relationship between demand uncertainty and the capital-labor ratio. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The Significant Impediment of Effective Competition Test in the New European Merger Regulation: In Theory and Practice
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