The interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation, and SME growth

This paper investigates the interface between organizational learning capability, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), and small business performance. It reports on the findings from 350 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in North Cyprus operating in the services and retailing sectors. The findings indicate a positive relationship between EO and sales and market share growth, but not between EO and employment growth. There is also a positive relationship between organizational learning capability and EO. This paper contributes to the small business management literature by providing a holistic analysis of the interface between organizational learning capability, EO, and growth.

Endothelin-1 and fibroblast growth factors stimulate the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling cascade in cardiac myocytes. The potential role of the cascade in the integration of two signaling pathways leading to myocyte hypertrophy.

Maximally effective concentrations of endothelin-1 (ET-1), acidic FGF (aFGF), or 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) by 3-4-fold in crude extracts of myocytes cultured from neonatal rat heart ventricles. Maximal activation was achieved after 5 min. Thereafter, MAPK activity stimulated by ET-1 or aFGF declined to control values within 1-2 h, whereas activation by TPA was more sustained. Two peaks of MAPK activity (a 42- and a 44-kDa MAPK) were resolved in cells exposed to ET-1 or aFGF by fast protein liquid chromatography on a Mono Q column. One major and one minor peak of MAPK kinase (MAPKK) was stimulated by ET-1 or aFGF. Cardiac myocytes expressed protein kinase C (PKC)-alpha, -delta, -epsilon and -zeta as shown immunoblotting. Exposure to 1 microM TPA for 24 h down-regulated PKC-alpha, -delta, and -epsilon, but not PKC-zeta. This maneuver wholly abolished the activation of MAPK on re-exposure to TPA but did not affect the response to aFGF. The effect of ET-1 was partially down-regulated. ET-1 stimulated phospho[3H]inositide hydrolysis 18-fold, whereas aFGF stimulated by only 30%. Agonists which initially utilize dissimilar signaling pathways may therefore converge at the level of MAPKK/MAPK and this may be relevant to the hypertrophic response of the heart.

Finite-dimensional non-associative algebras and codimension growth

Let A be a (non-necessarily associative) finite-dimensional algebra over a field of characteristic zero. A quantitative estimate of the polynomial identities satisfied by A is achieved through the study of the asymptotics of the sequence of codimensions of A. It is well known that for such an algebra this sequence is exponentially bounded. Here we capture the exponential rate of growth of the sequence of codimensions for several classes of algebras including simple algebras with a special non-degenerate form, finite-dimensional Jordan or alternative algebras and many more. In all cases such rate of growth is integer and is explicitly related to the dimension of a subalgebra of A. One of the main tools of independent interest is the construction in the free non-associative algebra of multialternating polynomials satisfying special properties. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Employment Protection Legislation and Firm Growth : Evidence from a Natural Experiment

A natural experiment is used to identify the causal relationship between employment protection legislation and fi…rm growth. The natural experiment occurred in Sweden in 2001, when an exemption made it possible for fi…rms with less than eleven employees to exclude two workers from the last-in-fi…rst-out principle when dismissing personnel. The estimated average treatment effect of the reform show that the number of employees increased with 0.135 percent in fi…rms with 5-9 employees relative to fi…rms with 10-15 employees, which corresponds to over 5,000 additional jobs per year created by the reform. Firms with ten employees, just below the size threshold, became 3.4 percent less likely to increase their workforce to a level surpassing the threshold, indicating that the last-in-…first-out rule prevented these …firms from growing. Thus, employment protection legislation seems to act as a growth barrier for small fi…rms.

A note on policy, the composition of public expenditures and economic growth

In this article we study the growth and welfare effects of fiscal and monetary policies in economies where public investment is part of the productive process we present four different models that share the same technology with public infrastructure as a separate argument of the production function. We show that growth is maximized at positive levels of income tax and inflation. However, unless there are no transfers or public goods in the economy, maximization of growth does not imply welfare maximization we show that the optimal tax rate is greater than the rate that maximizes growth and the optimal rate of money creation is below the growth maximizing rate. With public infrastructure in the production function we no longer obtain superneutrality in the Sidrausky model.

Inequality and economic growth in Latin

Latin America is the region that bears the highest rates of inequality in the world. Deininger and Squire (1996) showed that Latin American countries achieved only minor reductions in inequality between 1960 and 1990. On the other hand, East Asian countries, recurrently cited in recent literature on this issue, have significantly narrowed the gap in income inequality, while achieving sustained economic growth. These facts have triggered a renewed discussion on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. According to the above literature, income inequality could have an adverse effect on countries’ growth rates. The main authors who spouse this line of thinking are Persson and Tebellini (1994), Alesina and Rodrik (1994), Perotti (1996), Bénabou (1996), and Deininger and Squire (1996, 1998). More recently, however, articles were published that questioned the evidence presented previously. Representatives of this new point of view, namely Li and Zou (1998), Barro (1999), Deininger and Olinto (2000) and Forbes (2000), believe that the relation between these variables can be positive, i.e., income inequality can indeed foster economic growth. Using this literature as a starting point, this article seeks to evaluate the relation between income inequality and economic growth in Latin America, based on a 13-country panel, from 1970 to 1995. After briefly reviewing the above articles, this study estimates the per capita GDP and growth rate equations, based on the neoclassical approach for economic growth. It also estimates the Kuznets curve for this sample of countries. Econometric results are in line with recent work conducted in this area – particularly Li and Zou (1998) and Forbes (2000) – and confirm the positive relation between inequality and growth, and also support Kuznets hypothesis.

Environmental protection and economic growth

This paper explores the link between environmental policy and economic growth by employing an extension of the AK Growth Model. We include a state equation for renewable natural resources. We assume that the change in environmental regulations induces costs and that economic agents also derive some utility from capital stock accumulation vis-`a-vis the environment. Using the Hopf bifurcation theorem, we show that cyclical environmental policy strategies are optimal, providing theoretical support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve.

Public investment in basic education and economic growth

The main objective of this paper was to visualize the relation between government spending on basic education and the human capital accumulation process, observing the impacts of this spending on individual investments in higher education, and on economic growth. It is used an overlapping-generations model where the government tax the adult generation and spent it in basic education of the next generations. It was demonstrated that the magnitude of the marginal effect of government spending in basic education on growth crucially depends on public budget constrains. The paper explains why some countries with a lot of public investment in basic education growth at low rates. In that sense if a country has only a lot of public investment in basic education without investment in higher education it may growth at low rates because the taxation can cause distortions in the agents incentives to invest in higher education.

New evidence on trade liberalization and productivity growth

Although the subject of a large number of studies, the debate on the links between trade reform and productivity growth is still unresolved and most studies at the micro level have not been able to establish a relationship between the two phenomena. Brazil provides a natural experiment to study this issue that is seldom available: it was one of the closest economies in the world until 1988, when trade reform was launched, and intra-industry data are available on an annual basis before, during and after liberalization. Using a panel of industry sectors this paper tests and measures the impact of trade reform on productivity growth. Results confirm the association between the former and the latter and show that the magnitude of the impact of tariff reduction on the growth rates of TFP and output per worker was substantial. Our data reveal large and widespread productivity improvement, so that the estimations in this paper are an indication that liberalization had an important effect on industrial performance in the country. Cross-sectional differences in protection are also investigated.

Trade barriers and productivity growth: cross-industry evidence

This article investigates the impact of trade protection on the evolution of labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) of the Brazilian manufacturing sector. An annual panel-dataset of 16 industries for the years 1985 through 1997, a period that includes a major trade liberalization, was used. The regressions reported here are robust to openness indicator (nominal tari®s and e®ective protection rate were used), control variables and time period and suggest that barriers to trade negatively a®ects productivity growth at industry level: those sectors with lower barriers experienced higher growth. We were also able to link the observed increase of industry productivity growth after 1991 to the widespread reduction on exective protection experienced in the country in the nineties.

Inflationary financing of public investment and economic growth

a theoretical model is constructed in order to explain particular historical experiences in which inflation acceleration apparently helped to spur a period of economic growth. Government financed expenditures affect positively the productivity growth in this model so that the distortionary effect of inflation tax is compensated by the productive effect of public expenditures. We show that for some interval of money creation rates there is an equilibrium where money is valued and where steady state physical capital grows with inflation. It is also shown that zero inflation and growth maximization are never the optimal policies.