Suchergebnisse

Le processus de réconciliation et de coopération régionale qui a été placé au centre du dispositif du Pacte de stabilité pour l'Europe du Sud-Est en 1999, aux lendemains de l'implosion violente de la Yougoslavie, vise à multiplier les accords bilatéraux de libre-échange entre les pays de cette région (Albanie, Serbie-et-Monténégro, Croatie, Bulgarie, Roumanie, Macédoine, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Slovénie, Moldavie). Si l'analyse détaillée de la structure des échanges entre ces économies révèle une importante fragmentation de la zone, elle permet également de constater la permanence de certaines complémentarités commerciales entre les anciennes républiques yougoslaves que l'entrée progressive de chacun de ces Etats dans l'ALECE (Accord de libreéchange centre européen) a pour objectif de renforcer. Quand on sait que la dislocation de la Yougoslavie a créé 5 000 kilomètres de frontières supplémentaires, on mesure alors tout l'enjeu consistant à faire de la perméabilité de celles-ci un facteur de développement et non pas seulement de recrudescence des trafics. Mais l'intégration à moyen ou long terme dans l'UE, à laquelle l'ensemble de ces pays aspire, posera avec une acuité croissante la question de la pertinence de cette zone de libreéchange, vecteur d'une intégration régionale aux avantages certains (économies d'échelle, amélioration du climat d'investissement, réduction des trafics et de la corruption) mais circonscrits. Quoi qu'il en soit, pardelà des gains économiques somme toute très relatifs, les efforts des autorités nationales de ces pays pour renforcer le commerce intra-régional se veulent avant tout un gage de bonne volonté politique à l'égard de l'Union européenne dont l'engagement dans la région, en tout état de cause, reste déterminant pour sa reconstruction et sa stabilisation.

Résumé Des études récentes indiquent que la désintégration politique est à l'origine d'une désintégration commerciale importante et rapide. Dans cet article, nous nuançons ce résultat et montrons que la structure des échanges évolue lentement. À partir du cas de l'ex-Yougoslavie, nous ne trouvons aucune forme de désintégration commerciale forte et continue. Au contraire, les États successeurs continuent de commercer intensément entre eux plusieurs années après la désintégration politique. En outre, nous montrons que la désintégration commerciale est affectée par le processus de transition. Ainsi, les réformes institutionnelles apparaissent être un facteur explicatif de l'« effet frontière » en favorisant l'intégration des économies en transition dans l'économie mondiale.

AbstractRecent studies have found that political disintegration is a cause of severe and rapid trade disintegration in former Eastern European countries. This finding somewhat conflicts with another strand of the literature highlighting the fact that trade patterns change relatively slowly. This article aims at reconciling the apparent inconsistency between these two results. Using a theoretically grounded gravity equation, we evaluate the intensity of trade between successor states of three former countries (Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) in the period 1993–2001. We find no clear evidence that political disintegration leads to systematic and severe trade disintegration. This result is consistent with the patterns displayed by using simple descriptive statistics, is robust to sensitivity checks, and supports the idea of hysteresis in trade.

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to investigate the internationalization of international new ventures (INVs). Specifically, this research explores the ways in which a formal cluster can facilitate the internationalization process of these firms.Design/methodology/approach– The authors studied how four INVs benefitted from the actions of two clusters in France – Systematic and Mov'eo – as they internationalized. They conducted semi-structured interviews with the CEOs and other representatives of the INVs and with the members of the cluster management teams.Findings– The findings indicate that clusters can facilitate the internationalization of INVs by providing resources, networking opportunities and legitimacy to help them reach global markets and by increasing the speed of internationalization.Originality/value– By analyzing the specific role that a formal cluster plays in the internationalization of INVs, this research contributes to the literature examining the link between location and INV internationalization. The authors argue that the cluster's role can be considered as that of an intermediary organization helping INVs to expand globally.

AbstractThis paper examines how international openness can change firm productivity in south‐eastern Europe (SEE), a crucial question for middle‐income countries. Using firm‐level data for six transition economies over the 1995–2002 period, we identify whether foreign ownership and propensity to trade with more advanced countries can bring about higher learning effects. We find that: (i) foreign ownership has helped restructure and enhance the productivity of local firms in four out of six countries; (ii) exporting to advanced markets has a larger impact on productivity growth in four countries, especially when the firm's absorptive capacity is taken into account; (iii) in contrast, exporting to the less competitive markets of the former Yugoslavia seems to negatively affect productivity growth in three countries; and (iv) learning effects from importing are similar to those from exporting. Our results suggest that trade liberalization is not uniformly beneficial. Regional composition of trade flows and absorptive capacity of local firms matter. Thus, trade liberalization within the SEE region may not provide a substitute for a general trade liberalization which includes access to the more competitive markets of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development.

South-Eastern European (SEE) countries have recently engaged in a regional integration process, through the establishment of free trade agreements between themselves and with the European Union (EU). This study evaluates the impact of this process on trade and firm performance. Three complementary approaches are used. The first consists in evaluating the degree of trade integration of SEE countries and determining their trade potential with their main partners, i.e. themselves and the EU. The second approach tries to evaluate the evolution of tariffs and nontariffs barriers, faced by SEE countries and estimate their effects on manufactured trade. The third part investigates the impact of trade liberalization on performance of firms in SEE. In particular, we are interested in what extent foreign trade and foreign direct investment contributed to improvements in firm performance. Several interesting results emerge from this study. Concerning our first approach, we find three results. First,Western Balkan countries have reached their trade potential for almost all sectors while Eastern Balkan countries have outreached them. One can therefore expect an increase of trade flows between the Western Balkans and the EU. Second, it seems that preferential trade agreements between SEE countries will have a limited impact on their mutual trade since their trade potentials are already reached. Third, all SEE countries' trade is below its potential with the rest of the world. Concerning our second approach, we find that exports are increasing in all sectors during the period 1996-2000, while bilateral tariffs are decreasing. However, this liberalization process exhibits small effects on trade. On the other hand, we find that nontariff barriers are increasing during the period. Trade liberalization should not be treated as exogenous (Trefler, 1993). Domestic firms, competiting with Balkan exporters, may have increased their lobbying activity for greater protection. As a result, NTBs increase and hurt exports of Balkan countries. In that respect, we find large estimates of NTBs on exports of manufactured goods. Concerning our third approach, we do not find a general pattern of uniformly significant impact of extensive trade flows on individual firm's TFP growth. Specifically, only in Romania and Slovenia, higher propensity to export to advanced markets (EU-15, rest of OECD countries) has a larger impact on TFP growth than exporting to less advanced markets such as new EU members and countries of former Yugoslavia. The role of imports follows a similar path as exporting. Importing from the advanced countries is important for firms in Romania. At the same time, for firms in Romania and Macedonia importing from countries of former Yugoslavia provides a dominating learning effect. For other countries in our sample no learning effects from exporting to and importing from individual geographic regions could be found. Thus, one cannot imply that liberalization of bilateral trade within the region of SEE or with the other regions will have uniformly significant impact on individual firm's performance, but in some of the countries analysed trade liberalization might be an important engine of firms' productivity growth. Our results also indicate some selection process in FDI decisions by parent foreign companies. Foreign parent companies seem to select smaller firms in SEE as well as least productive, less capital and skill intensive firms. However, we find contrasting results on the impact on foreign ownership on TFP growth. Three countries (Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia) experience faster TFP growth in foreign owned firms. In Romania, in contrast we find faster TFP growth in domestic owned firms, while in Bulgaria no significant differences have been found. However, one can expect that after restructuring these firms would improve their TFP at a much faster rate than purely domestic owned firms.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) are more or less likely than local firms to violate their employees' human rights in emerging economies, whether regional institutional pressures influence the likelihood of violating employee human rights and whether the density of MNEs in a region affects the likelihood of employees' human rights violation by local firms.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on neo-institutional theory, this paper hypothesizes that, in an emerging economy, MNEs violate their employees' human rights significantly less than local firms do. Moreover, it is hypothesized that the quality of regional institutions only influences the social behavior of local firms toward their employees. In addition, it is hypothesized that the density of MNEs in a region has a positive effect on local firms' attitudes toward employee human rights. These hypotheses are examined using a sample of 1,211,638 respondent–year observations in 32 Mexican regions between 2005 and 2014.FindingsThis paper shows that MNEs are less likely to violate their employees' human rights than local firms are. It also provides evidence that regional institutions do not influence MNE behavior toward employee human rights violation, but affect local firms. Furthermore, contrary to what was hypothesized, the density of MNEs in a region has a negative rather than positive influence on local firms' respect of employee human rights.Originality/valueThis paper advances understanding of the behavior of MNEs in an emerging economy setting and contributes to the ongoing debate in the literature on their social impact.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on industry-specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices.


Design/methodology/approach
Using a multiple-keyword search, the authors identified 302 articles reporting on such practices, published in 99 different academic journals between 1995 and 2014. These articles were analyzed to map the CSR literature, identify which industries have been under greater scrutiny and distinguish trends in the most researched industries.


Findings
The authors' findings indicate that the CSR studies are very unevenly distributed and that the issues studied and the methods used vary widely across industries. The authors also map this field of study and propose suggestions on where research on industry-specific CSR should go in the future.


Originality/value
The first extensive, systematic analysis of the industry-specific CSR literature is provided. The current research adds value to the literature by highlighting the key issues investigated, as well as those that require further inquiry.