Investment and Exit Decisions at the Plant Level
Investment and Exit Decisions at the Plant Level

Author: Joachim Winter

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 3642998038

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This book develops a dynamic programming framework for the analysis of firms' joint investment and market exit decisions and reviews methods for econometric estimation of such models. In an empirical application of this framework, a version of this model that allows for financial constraints is estimated by structural methods, using a plant-level dataset for a sample of U.S. firms. The empirical analysis shows that both the plant's productivity and firm-level financial constraints have important effects on plant-level investment and exit decisions. The main contribution of the book to the empirical investment literature is the application of a mixed discrete-continuous Markov process framework to investment and exit decisions, and the structural estimation using a full-information maximum-likelihood method, the nested fixed-point algorithm.

Spatial Change and Interregional Flows in the Integrating Europe
Spatial Change and Interregional Flows in the Integrating Europe

Author: Johannes Bröcker

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 3642575528

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Within the broad frame of regional research in an international perspective, the contributions of this volume present new theoretical, methodological and empirical results as well as political strategies for the following topics: - ecomomic integration in the Baltic rim, - innovation and regional growth, - economic integration, trade and migration, - transport infrastructure and the regions. Most of the topics deal with the long-term integration process in Europe, with a particular focus on the North European and Baltic Sea integration.

Intertemporal Asset Pricing
Intertemporal Asset Pricing

Author: Bernd Meyer

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 3642586724

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In the mid-eighties Mehra and Prescott showed that the risk premium earned by American stocks cannot reasonably be explained by conventional capital market models. Using time additive utility, the observed risk pre mium can only be explained by unrealistically high risk aversion parameters. This phenomenon is well known as the equity premium puzzle. Shortly aft erwards it was also observed that the risk-free rate is too low relative to the observed risk premium. This essay is the first one to analyze these puzzles in the German capital market. It starts with a thorough discussion of the available theoretical mod els and then goes on to perform various empirical studies on the German capital market. After discussing natural properties of the pricing kernel by which future cash flows are translated into securities prices, various multi period equilibrium models are investigated for their implied pricing kernels. The starting point is a representative investor who optimizes his invest ment and consumption policy over time. One important implication of time additive utility is the identity of relative risk aversion and the inverse in tertemporal elasticity of substitution. Since this identity is at odds with reality, the essay goes on to discuss recursive preferences which violate the expected utility principle but allow to separate relative risk aversion and intertemporal elasticity of substitution.

Cooperation and Competition in a Common Market
Cooperation and Competition in a Common Market

Author: Jaime Behar

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 3642576508

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The essays included in this book are the result ofseven years ofresearch spanning the 1990-1997 period. Most of them have been published in scientific magazines or as chapters of books. To the end of this edition, and in order to avoid repetitions, the original texts have been modified, particularly with regard to the titles and introductions ofthe chapters. Chapter two reproduces the article "Economic Integration and Intra-Industry Trade: The Case of the Argentine-Brazilian Free Trade Agreement", published in the Journal of Common Markets (vol XXIX, No 5, pp. 527-552, sept. 1991). Chapter three originates from an empirical study prepared for UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The analytical framework and the preliminary conclusions of that work appeared in a working paper "The MERCOSUR Pattern of Intra-Industry Trade" (RP No 75, Stockholm: LAIS, 1997). Chapter four was published with the title "Plant-size Effects ofTrade: The Case of MERCOSUR Countries" as a chapter of the book Growth Trade and Integration in Latin America (W. Karlsson and A. Malaki (eds. ), Stockholm: LAIS, pp. 297-319, 1996). Chapter five in tum corresponds to the article entitled "Measuring the Effects of Economic Integration for the Southern Cone Countries: Industry Simulations of Trade Liberalization" as published in The Developing Economies (Vol. XXXIII, No 1, pp. 1-31, mars 1995). Finally, chapter six is the revised and updated version of the paper presented at the First European Congress ofLatinamericanists, which took place at Salamanca, Spain in June 1996.

East European Transition and EU Enlargement
East European Transition and EU Enlargement

Author: Wojciech W. Charemza

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 3642574971

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In March 1998 the European Union formally launched the accession process that will lead to a significant enlargement of the Union. So far ten countries from Central Europe: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia have submitted their applications for EU membership. This unique process immediately attracted attention of economists and policy makers. Nevertheless, it can be noticed that among numerous results already published, there is a distinctive shortage of books and papers in which quantitative research methods are applied. This is to a large extent justified by the fact that the transition and accession processes are new to the economic sciences, their methodology is not wellresearched, statistical data for the Central and East European countries are scarce and not always reliable and, generally, quantitative approach seems to be a risky and uncertain business. All these all problems can also be seen as a challenge rather than an obstacle. With this on mind, we have decided to clarify the status quo by organising a research seminar which focused on the methodology and quantitative analysis of the Central and East European transition and pre-accession processes. The seminar, East European Transition and EU Enlargement: a Quantitative Approach organised by Macroeconomic and Financial Data Centre (University of Gdansk and University ofLeicester) took place in Gdansk in June 2001. Our edited volume contains papers developed from this seminar.

Systemic Transformation, Trade and Economic Growth
Systemic Transformation, Trade and Economic Growth

Author: Natalja von Westernhagen

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 3642574831

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Since the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have been involved in the transition process. This book compares the progress of some of these economies in transition and analyses their growth potential. The focus lies on the special role that foreign trade liberalisation and foreign direct investment plays in economic growth. Since foreign trade and foreign direct investment are important channels of technology transfer they can substantially contribute to a higher level of economic growth. Based on the gravity model this book investigates potential in foreign trade and foreign direct investment for selected CIS and CEECs with developed OECD economies. Policy options for some of these countries are discussed including issues of foreign trade, foreign direct investment, structural adjustment, and economic growth.

Surveys in Experimental Economics
Surveys in Experimental Economics

Author: Friedel Bolle

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 3642574580

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Experimental Economics has experienced a steadily growing interest by economists during the last decade. This may not surprise since laboratory and field experiments obviously provide a further valuable source of empirical evidence of economic behavior besides statistics, econometrics, polls, interviews and simulations. In an overview of the recent developments in Experimental Economics, the present book concentrates on three central themes standing in the actual research focus: bargaining, cooperation and election markets. For each one of these topics the volume presents several state-of-the-art survey articles by experts in the field, accompanied by detailed comments. While the experimental approach sheds new light on the microeconomic standard topics of bargaining and cooperation, the election market approach as a new field may provide better forecasts for political elections - and for soccer World Championships.

The Competitive Advantage of Industrial Districts
The Competitive Advantage of Industrial Districts

Author: Michele Bagella

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 3642576664

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Several interesting results on the economics of industrial districts are collected in this book. The first part investigates over internal determinants of industrial district competitiveness looking at internal productivity, at patterns of innovation and at those factors which create a favorable industrial atmosphere. The second part of the book investigates over foreign competitiveness of industrial districts focusing on the performance of export and of other forms of internationalisation.

The National Innovation System of Belgium
The National Innovation System of Belgium

Author: Henri Capron

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2000-08-09

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9783790813081

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This book deals with aspects of the national innovation system of Belgium. It is the result of a study jointly undertaken by teams of the University of Antwerp (RUCA) and the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in the context of the OECD DSTI Working Group on Innovation and Technology Policy, which brought to gether specialists from most of the OECD countries in an effort to streamline and co-ordinate research on national innovation systems. The 'systemic' approach - as opposed to the traditional 'linear causal' ap proach - has, in recent years, increasingly become the framework for the study of the complex relationships between R&D, innovation, the economic performance of firms and of the economy in which they operate, technological policy, and, fi nally, the institutional framework of the national economy, including its transna tional aspects. Obviously, the systemic approach did not fall out of the blue but has its roots in different schools of economic thought. The theoretical foundations of the national innovation system approach are therefore first discussed in Chapter 1. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce the reader to some peculiarities of the Belgian economy. Chapter 2 deals with the sources of Belgian prosperity, looked at from a long-term perspective and with particular attention being given to the small-open-economy characteristics of Belgium.

Complexity and Industrial Clusters
Complexity and Industrial Clusters

Author: Alberto Quadrio Curzio

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 3642500072

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This volume contains the proceedings of the international conference "Complexity and Industrial Clusters: Dynamics and Models in Theory and Practice", organized by Fondazione Comunita e Innovazione and held in Milan on June 19 and 20, 2001 under the aegis of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (founded in Rome in 1604), one of the oldest and most famous national academies of science in the world. Fondazione Comunita e Innovazione encourages research and the dissemination of knowledge about social, economic, cultural and civil issues. It promotes research and innovation related to local production systems and industrial districts, with special reference to: the interactions between large companies and SMEs (small and medium-size enterprises), the effects of industrial districts on the development and welfare of their communities and of neighbouring areas, the effects of globalisation on these local systems of productions. Fondazione Comunita e Innovazione was created in Milan in 1999. It supports studies, publications, and events, both on its own and in cooperation with corporations, research institutes, foundations, associations and universities. It also grants scientific sponsorship to research that is in line with its mission, as set forth in its by-laws. The founding member of the Fondazione is Edison (formerly Monted:son). The other subscribing members, in historical order, are: Ausimont, Tecnimont, Eridania, Accenture, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.