Suchergebnisse

Il presente lavoro analizza la complessa relazione tra innovazione ed internazionalizzazione per un vasto campione di micro e piccole imprese, appartenenti a 34 paesi europei che includono gli stati membri dell'Unione Europea (EU) e alcuni paesi non-EU. A questo scopo sono stati impiegati dati semestrali per il periodo 2014-2018 provenienti dall'indagine Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) della Banca Centrale Europea. SAFE contiene, oltre alle informazioni qualitative e quantitative a livello di singola impresa sull'accesso al credito, anche dati sulle esportazioni e sulla tipologia di innovazione introdotta. L'analisi econometrica svolta mostra che l'innovazione, soprattutto quella di prodotto, risulta cruciale sia per i margini estensivi delle esportazioni sia per quelli intensivi. Questo risultato, che tiene conto dell'eterogeneità delle imprese e dei paesi, è robusto rispetto alle diverse specificazioni proposte e anche corretto per l'endogeneità. L'evidenza empirica prodotta in questo lavoro, confermando i risultati ottenuti in letteratura sulle piccole e medie imprese, suggerisce che le politiche a supporto delle attività innovative, sono cruciali per migliorare la competitività internazionale delle imprese e per promuovere l'espansione verso i mercati esteri ed i processi di crescita delle imprese. ; This chapter analyzes the link between innovation and internationalization for a large sample of micro and small firms, belonging to 34 European countries, including the EU members, and some non-EU countries. The analysis is based on the six-monthly data of the Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) of the European Central Bank. The survey offers not only qualitative and quantitative firm-level data on the access to finance, but also information on export, innovation and the types of innovation introduced by firms. The econometric analysis carried out in this work shows that innovation, especially product innovation, exerts a relevant impact on the extensive and intensive margins of export. This evidence takes into account the firm and country heterogeneity and turns to be robust to several specifications corrected for potential endogenity issue. Our results are in line with the evidence provided in literature on the small and medium firms, and suggest that policy actions that support innovation activities are crucial for improving the international competitiveness of firms, for enhancing their expansion towards foreign markets and therefore their economic developments.

Le imprese familiari sono state a lungo oggetto di attenzione sia della letteratura economica che di quella aziendale. Ciò è motivato dal fatto che esse sono centrali nella struttura produttiva europea ed italiana. Poiché l'internazionalizzazione è considerata cruciale ai fini dello sviluppo delle imprese, uno dei punti centrali del dibattito in corso ruota intorno alla capacità di penetrazione dei mercati esteri delle imprese familiari rispetto alle altre forme proprietarie. Sul punto la letteratura non è concorde: da un lato ha evidenziato la maggiore propensione all'export delle imprese familiari, dall'altro la maggiore riluttanza di tali imprese verso strategie di internazionalizzazione. Partendo da questi contributi, il nostro lavoro intende fornire ulteriore evidenza empirica utilizzando un ampio campione di piccole e medie imprese (PMI) appartenenti ad undici paesi dell'Unione Europea. Lo studio si basa sui dati provenienti dall'indagine SAFE della Banca centrale europea. Utilizzando stime panel probit, i risultano mostrano – tenendo conto dell'eterogeneità delle imprese – che nel nostro campione quelle familiari hanno una minore probabilità di esportare rispetto alle altre tipologie. Il nostro studio fornisce, inoltre, alcuni spunti di riflessione sui punti ancora aperti nel dibattito in corso. ; Family firms have been long studied in both economics and entrepreneurship literature. This is due to their pivotal role in the Italian and European economic systems. Internationalization is considered a key process in the development of firms, and one of the main issues in the literature is about the differential attitude of family firms – compared to other kinds of small medium enterprises (SMEs) – entering foreign markets. On this point the literature is not unanimous: on one side, it highlights the greater propensity for exports of family firms, and on the other, the greater reluctance of these companies towards internationalization strategies. Starting from these contributions, our work aims at providing further empirical evidence using a large sample of SMEs belonging to 11 countries of the European Union. Our chapter is based on panel data from the SAFE survey of the European Central Bank. Using probit estimates, we show that – taking into account the heterogeneity of the companies – family firms have a lower probability of exporting than other types of SMEs. Our study also provides some food for thought on the issues still controversial in the economic literature.

This paper focuses on the issue of the electoral & ideological cycles in state government budget for the 11 Western German Lander. We verify this hypothesis over the period 1974-1994 for the following budgetary variables: total expenditures, surplus/deficit, administration, health care, education, roads, & social security benefits. While overall our results seem to show that generally the party variable does not play a systematic role in spending decisions, they provide some support to the opportunistic cycle theory showing that the only relevant phenomenon is the effect of the upcoming election on government spending inclinations. 5 Tables, 1 Appendix, 22 References. Adapted from the source document.

Questo capitolo si propone di analizzare gli effetti della corruzione percepita sulla probabilità che le piccole e medie imprese (PMI) hanno di domandare e usare sussidi pubblici, nella forma di finanziamenti diretti o prestiti agevolati (quali ad esempio prestiti con garanzia pubblica o prestiti a tasso di interesse ridotto). L'analisi utilizza 114.443 osservazioni relative ad un campione di PMI di 31 Paesi, distribuite nel periodo 2009-2018, estratto dai dati semestrali dell'indagine Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) della Banca Centrale Europea. I dati relativi alla corruzione sono misurati attraverso i principali indicatori internazionali disponibili a livello paese. I risultati evidenziano che la percezione della corruzione, sia corrente sia passata, ha un impatto negativo sull'uso dei sussidi. Questo impatto tuttavia è minore nei paesi in cui il grado di corruzione percepito è meno elevato. ; This chapter aims at analyzing the effects of perceived corruption on the probability of demanding public subsidies in the form of support from public sources, such as guarantees or reduced interest rate loans, by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 114,443 observations related to SMEs located in 31 countries, over the period 2009-2018. The firm level data come from the Survey Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) run by the European Central Bank, while the country level data on corruption are retrieved from the leading international indicators. Our results show that both, current and past corruption have a negative impact on the use of public subsidies. However, this impact is lower in countries where the perceived corruption is lower.

Do economic variables operate through the channel of public governance to impact technical (or productive) efficiency in sub saharan Africa? We present different stochastic frontier models where technical efficiency is a relation between three economic variables, education, government spending, and trade openness, and three public governance variables, government effectiveness, political stability, and regulatory quality. in all cases, education operates through public governance to improve efficiency while government spending does not.

PurposeThe article investigates whether variety of democracy affects the probability to employ public subsidies for credit support by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by female entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on the literature on democracy and on gender differences, it leverages a large firm- and country-level dataset (SAFE) of 31 democracies in Europe (EU and non-EU) over the 2009–2014 period by using probit models and instrumental variable approaches.FindingsResults from the different econometric techniques and samples suggest that variety of democracy affects female-led SMEs in using public subsidies for credit support. The evidence is robust to endogeneity concerns.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical evidence presents a time frame limitation. At the same time, SAFE is the only database that supplies information about the gender of firms and public subsidies for credit support, rendering it the only resource that allows the test of the hypothesis proposed. The article therefore offers insights for scholars to revisit our results in future studies that make use of datasets with a longer time span – when they will become available.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, the article is the first to study the effect of democracy on female entrepreneurial behavior in the use of public subsidies for credit support.

Does a corrupt politico-institutional environment affect the demand of public subsidies for credit access – so-called public guarantee schemes – by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) helmed by female entrepreneurs? The paper tackles this question by using a large sample of European SMEs over 2010–2014 while also carefully addressing possible endogeneity issues. It provides robust evidence that, compared to their male counterparts, female entrepreneurs: (a) tend to demand more public subsidies, and (b) are more sensitive to the quality of the politico-institutional environment. The upshot is that a corrupt environment is not gender neutral: in light of 'essential gender features,' corruption negatively influences SMEs helmed by female entrepreneurs more than male ones.