502 research outputs found
Competitiveness and Its Socio-Economic Foundations: Empirical Evidence on the Italian Industrial Districts
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The Effects of fair trade on marginalised producers: an impact analysis on Kenyan farmers
No full textWe analyse the impact of affiliation to Fair Trade (FT) on monetary and non monetary measures of well-being in a sample of Kenyan farmers. Our econometric findings document significant differences in terms of price satisfaction, monthly household food consumption, (self declared) income satisfaction, dietary quality and child mortality for Fair Trade and Meru Herbs (first level local producers organisation) affiliated with respect to a control sample. Methodological problems such as the FT vis à vis Meru Herbs relative contribution, control sample bias and local cooperative and fair trade selection biases are carefully discussed and addressed. After reconstructing the dynamics of human capital investment in the observed households we show that affiliation to the younger vintage FT project is associated with a significantly higher schooling investment
Social Distance, Cooperation and Other Regarding Preferences: A New Approach Based on the Theory of Relational Goods
No full textThe paper is divided in six sections. In the second section we provide a short survey of the literature on relational goods. In the third section we describe the experimental design of the two experiments presented in Becchetti et al. (2007) and Becchetti, Degli Antoni and Faillo (2009) (hereafter also B2007 and B2009). In the fourth section we discuss the hypotheses on the effect of relational goods on players’ behaviour in the two experiments. In the fifth section we discuss the main findings. The sixth section concludes.
The determinants of small-medium firm internationalisation and its effects on productive efficiency
No full textThe creation of sale structures abroad (CSSA) is an important intermediate stage in the process of internationalisation when firms are small and foreign direct investments entail high sunk costs. This paper investigates the determinants of this form of internationalisation and its correlation with firm productive efficiency on a large sample of small and medium sized firms for which it represents the most advanced form of access to foreign markets. It finds that ownership concentration (technological innovation, size and age) negatively (positively) affect the CSSA decision and that, after controlling for the effect of access to foreign markets under the form of exports, CSSA firms are significantly more efficient than the control sample when efficiency is measured with a stochastic frontier approach. The result on ownership structure is consistent with the following theoretical interpretations: i) ownership concentration reduces wealth diversification of the control group and leads to underinvestment in risky activities (Saint Paul, 1992; Zhang, 1998) and ii) ownership concentration increases the exercise price of the CSSA when this is viewed as a real option with the effect of raising the threshold over which closely held firms opt for this form of internationalisation. Ownership concentration seems therefore to have two offsetting effects on efficiency, on one side, it increases participation to profits and therefore incentives to perform well, while, on the other side, it leads controlling shareholders to underinvest in risky ventures (such as internationalisation) reducing opportunities for further efficiency gains
When fair trade generates social capital by creating room for manoeuvre for pro-poor policies
No full textWe evaluate the impact of Fair Trade (FT) affiliation on child schooling within a sample
of Chilean honey producers with a retrospective panel data approach. From a theoretical
point of view, we argue that FT should have a positive effect on child schooling since it
generates a short-run pure income effect together with a medium-run productivity effect
on both adult and child wages. On the other hand, because of the higher productivity
generated by the medium-run effect, the opportunity cost of child education increases if
they work with their parents. The direction of the impact of FT affiliation on child
schooling is therefore uncertain and requires empirical testing. Our econometric findings
document a positive and significant impact of affiliation years on child schooling after
controlling for endogeneity and heterogeneity between the treatment and control sample
The heterogeneity of wellbeing “expenditure” preferences: evidence from a simulated allocation choice on the BES indicators
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In quest for equity partners: the determinants of the willingness to go public or to find a venture capital partner
No full textThe paper presents a theoretical analysis of the determinants affecting the controlling shareholders choice between going public and looking for a venture capital partner when they are in need of external equity financiers. In the model the two choices are strictly connected as controlling shareholders profits under the going public choice represent their outside options in case of failure of reaching an agreement in the bargaining process with the venture capital partner. We show that the relative profitability of the going public choice is inversely related to monitoring costs of new stock exchange shareholders, investment size and directly related to the presence of informational asymmetries between manager and controlling shareholders. In addition, we find that for high values of their ex ante property right share, controlling shareholders prefer the venture capital to the going public financing solution even if the first is socially inefficient. The paper also shows how stock market volatility, competition in the real and financial sector and a more efficient market for corporate control affect the going-public-venture capital choice. Our results are consistent with empirical findings on firm revealed preferences between the two financing choices
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