Knowledge capital, endogenous growth and regional disparities in productivity:multi-level evidences from China

This paper examines the role of knowledge capital in persistent regional productivity disparities in developing countries. The hypotheses are tested using regional and firm level longitudinal data from China. It is found that inequalities in knowledge creation and transfer, both inter-generational and international, played a significant role in increasing regional disparities in productivity. These inequalities are exacerbated by the accumulative nature of knowledge capital. All this leads to self-perpetuating cycles of success and failure, particularly compounded with asymmetric financial and human capital between different regions.

Firm size, source of finance, and growth:evidence from China

Using a comprehensive firm-level data set from China spanning the period 1998–2005, this study investigates the relationship between firm size, financing sources, and total factor productivity growth. Controlling for the endogeneity of financing sources, we find that firm size plays an important role in the way financial structure affects the growth process. Domestic bank loans are more effective for bigger firms, while self-raised finance is more beneficial to smaller firms’ growth. We also uncover evidence that ownership mediates the relationship between firm size, finance, and growth.

Cost economies, efficiency and productivity growth in the Chinese banking industry:evidence from a quarterly panel dataset

This article examines cost economies, productivity growth and cost efficiency of the Chinese banks using a unique panel dataset that identifies banks' four outputs and four input prices over the period of 1995-2001. By assessing the appropriateness of model specification, and making use of alternative methodologies in evaluating the performance of banks, we find that the joint-stock commercial banks outperform state-owned commercial banks in productivity growth and cost efficiency. Under the variable cost assumption, Chinese banks display economies of scale, with state-owned commercial banks enjoying cost advantages over the joint-stock commercial banks. Consequently, our results highlight the ownership advantage of these two types of banks and generally support the ongoing banking reform and transformation that is currently taking place in China.

Source of finance, growth and firm size:evidence from China

Using a comprehensive firm-level dataset spanning the period 1998-2005, this paper provides a thorough investigation of the relationship between firm size, total factor productivity growth and financial structure in China, controlling for the endogeneity of the latter. Generally, it finds financing source matters for firms of different size, and the extent to which financing source matters for firm growth is greater for small firms than big firms. Self-raised finance appears to be most effective in promoting small firms to grow, and bank loan seems to be more supportive to big firms. The relationship between size, finance and growth also depends on ownership. In addition, there exist strong complementarities between formal and informal finance, as well as between indigenous and foreign finance.

Is the post-reform growth of the Indian manufacturing sector efficiency driven? Empirical evidence from plant level data

It is generally believed that the structural reforms that were introduced in India following the macro-economic crisis of 1991 ushered in competition and forced companies to become more efficient. However, whether the post-1991 growth is an outcome of more efficient use of resources or greater use of factor inputs remains an open empirical question. In this paper, we use plant-level data from 1989–1990 and 2000–2001 to address this question. Our results indicate that while there was an increase in the productivity of factor inputs during the 1990s, most of the growth in value added is explained by growth in the use of factor inputs. We also find that median technical efficiency declined in all but one of the industries between 1989–1990 and 2000–2001, and that change in technical efficiency explains a very small proportion of the change in gross value added.

Determinants of employment growth at MNEs:evidence from Egypt, India, South Africa and Vietnam

Many foreign investment operations into emerging markets are small, and are likely to have only a limited impact on the local economy. However, host governments often expect transfer of advanced technology from multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in these markets to local firms by way of inter-firm mobility of skilled labourers. The extent of such transfers would be limited, among other factors, by the size of the pool of skilled labourers that can potentially be mobile between MNEs and local firms. This, in turn, is determined by employment growth at the MNEs. We develop an empirical specification that models this employment growth, by drawing on both the economics and international business literature. This model is then estimated using firm-level data from four emerging markets. We find that wholly owned foreign direct investment operations have higher employment growth, while local industry and institutional characteristics moderate the growth effect. This suggests that policies encouraging foreign investors to set up in form of joint ventures may not actually raise the benefits for the host economy.

Growth expectations and financial performance of small businesses:evidence from Latvia

By applying regulatory focus theory, this paper investigates the impact of both initial confidence and of exactness of growth expectations on subsequent financial performance of the small firms. Drawing on the unique data set based on the repeated survey design, we make one of the first attempts to explore the complexity of this relationship empirically. Overall the findings suggest that controlling for other relevant factors, including actual growth, the entrepreneurs having higher growth expectations perform significantly better later on in terms of profitability. In addition, education has a strong modifying effect: the impact of high growth expectations on subsequent profit performance is stronger for entrepreneurs with lower level of education.

Productivity change using growth accounting and frontier-based approaches:evidence from a Monte Carlo analysis

This study presents some quantitative evidence from a number of simulation experiments on the accuracy of the productivitygrowth estimates derived from growthaccounting (GA) and frontier-based methods (namely data envelopment analysis-, corrected ordinary least squares-, and stochastic frontier analysis-based malmquist indices) under various conditions. These include the presence of technical inefficiency, measurement error, misspecification of the production function (for the GA and parametric approaches) and increased input and price volatility from one period to the next. The study finds that the frontier-based methods usually outperform GA, but the overall performance varies by experiment. Parametric approaches generally perform best when there is no functional form misspecification, but their accuracy greatly diminishes otherwise. The results also show that the deterministic approaches perform adequately even under conditions of (modest) measurement error and when measurement error becomes larger, the accuracy of all approaches (including stochastic approaches) deteriorates rapidly, to the point that their estimates could be considered unreliable for policy purposes.

High-growth firms and productivity:evidence from the United Kingdom

Abstract There is considerable evidence that high-growth firms (HGFs) contribute significantly to employment and economic growth. However, the literature so far does not adequately explore the link between HGFs and productivity. This paper investigates the empirical link between total factor productivity (TFP) growth and HGFs, defined in terms of sales growth, in the United Kingdom over the period 2001-2010, by examining two related research questions. Firstly, does higher TFP growth lead to HGF status and secondly, does HGF experience help firms achieve faster TFP growth? Our findings reveal that firms in both the manufacturing and services sectors are more likely to become HGFs when they exhibit higher TFP growth. In addition, firms that have had HGF experience tend to enjoy faster TFP growth following the high-growth episodes. Policy implications are drawn based on the self-reinforcing process of the high-growth phenomenon that is revealed by our results. © 2014 The Author(s).

The development and growth of tissues derived from cranial neural crest and primitive mesoderm is dependent on the ligation status of retinoic acid receptor γ:evidence that retinoic acid receptor γ functions to maintain stem/progenitor cells in the absence of retinoic acid

Retinoic acid (RA) signaling is important to normal development. However, the function of the different RA receptors (RARs)-RARα, RARβ, and RARγ-is as yet unclear. We have used wild-type and transgenic zebrafish to examine the role of RARγ. Treatment of zebrafish embryos with an RARγ-specific agonist reduced somite formation and axial length, which was associated with a loss of hoxb13a expression and less-clear alterations in hoxc11a or myoD expression. Treatment with the RARγ agonist also disrupted formation of tissues arising from cranial neural crest, including cranial bones and anterior neural ganglia. There was a loss of Sox 9-immunopositive neural crest stem/progenitor cells in the same anterior regions. Pectoral fin outgrowth was blocked by RARγ agonist treatment. However, there was no loss of Tbx-5-immunopositive lateral plate mesodermal stem/progenitor cells and the block was reversed by agonist washout or by cotreatment with an RARγ antagonist. Regeneration of the caudal fin was also blocked by RARγ agonist treatment, which was associated with a loss of canonical Wnt signaling. This regenerative response was restored by agonist washout or cotreatment with the RARγ antagonist. These findings suggest that RARγ plays an essential role in maintaining stem/progenitor cells during embryonic development and tissue regeneration when the receptor is in its nonligated state.

Singular Solutions with Exponential Growth for the (3+1)-D Wave Equation

Недю И. Попиванов, Тодор П. Попов, Рудолф Шерер - Разглеждат се четиримерни гранични задачи за нехомогенното вълново уравнение. Те са предложени от М. Протер като многомерни аналози на задачата на Дарбу в равнината. Известно е, че единственото обобщено решение може да има силна степенна особеност само в една гранична точка. Тази сингулярност е изолирана във върха на характеристичния конус и не се разпространява по конуса. Друг аспект на проблема е, че задачата не е фредхолмова, тъй като има безкрайномерно коядро. Предишни резултати сочат, че решението може да има най-много експоненциален ръст, но оставят открит въпроса дали наистина съществуват такива решения. Показваме, че отговора на този въпрос е положителен и строим обобщено решение на задачата на Протер с експоноциална особеност.

Determinants of Firm Growth with respect to Exporting and Innovation Activities: Evidence from Egyptian SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered to be the driving engine for employment growth, source of innovation and technological progress. Moreover, the success of small exporters is critical for economic growth and is considered as an important development stage for many SMEs. However, their competitive advantage lies within the firm’s ability to innovate. This thesis contributes to the above literature by examining two main factors believed to promote firm growth namely ‘exporting’ and ‘innovation’ activities. Growing interests on the relationship between exporting, innovation and growth have recently been tackled. However, there remains a gap in literature on the relationship between exporting, innovation and firm growth for SMEs in emerging economies. Previous studies are conducted in developed counties such as UK, Ireland, USA, Germany, and Switzerland, which leaves the gap for those developing countries. Thus, this thesis addresses the gap by examining the importance of innovation and exporting activities in the growth of SMEs in Egypt. It is also the researcher’s intent to recognise the unique contribution of innovation on firm exporting activities covering all sectors. gypt, one of the countries that were tremendously affected by the so-called ‘Arab Spring revolution’, is suffering from slow economic growth, high unemployment and poverty rate. Thus, the government must ensure economic growth and job creation. Programmes to encourage and develop SMEs should be part of inclusive growth strategy. Meanwhile, exporting is regarded as a key factor to help the economy recover from recession and stimulate economic growth. On the other hand, innovation leads to better performance in terms of growth, exporting and productivity. Therefore, SMEs and their exporting and innovation activities should be an integral part of any recovery and growth strategy for the economy. Moreover, Egypt is suffering from the so-called ‘Missing Middle’, which is problematic as medium firms tend to provide better employment growth and productivity. Therefore, more light is to shed on the importance of exporting and innovation in the growth of firms. The research design was quantitative in nature, testing the proposed hypotheses. The study was conducted in 2013 based on questionnaires of 406 Egyptians SMEs. The results of the empirical study suggest that both exporting and innovation activities are important in firm growth. However, the results show that, after controlling for endogeneity, innovation does not affect exporting activities in SMEs.

Extracellular Nm23H1 stimulates neurite outgrowth from dorsal root ganglia neurons in vitro independently of nerve growth factor supplementation or its nucleoside diphosphate kinase activity

The nucleoside diphosphate (NDP) kinase, Nm23H1, is a highly expressed during neuronal development, whilst induced over-expression in neuronal cells results in increased neurite outgrowth. Extracellular Nm23H1 affects the survival, proliferation and differentiation of non-neuronal cells. Therefore, this study has examined whether extracellular Nm23H1 regulates nerve growth. We have immobilised recombinant Nm23H1 proteins to defined locations of culture plates, which were then seeded with explants of embryonic chick dorsal root ganglia (DRG) or dissociated adult rat DRG neurons. The substratum-bound extracellular Nm23H1 was stimulatory for neurite outgrowth from chick DRG explants in a concentration-dependent manner. On high concentrations of Nm23H1, chick DRG neurite outgrowth was extensive and effectively limited to the location of the Nm23H1, i.e. neuronal growth cones turned away from adjacent collagen-coated substrata. Nm23H1-coated substrata also significantly enhanced rat DRG neuronal cell adhesion and neurite outgrowth in comparison to collagen-coated substrata. These effects were independent of NGF supplementation. Recombinant Nm23H1 (H118F), which does not possess NDP kinase activity, exhibited the same activity as the wild-type protein. Hence, a novel neuro-stimulatory activity for extracellular Nm23H1 has been identified in vitro, which may function in developing neuronal systems. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.