Modern trade theory emphasizes firm-level productivity differentials to explain the cross-border activities of non-financial firms. This study tests whether a productivity pecking order also determines international banking activities. Using a novel dataset that contains all German banks’ international activities, we estimate the ordered probability of a presence abroad (extensive margin) and t...

Business incubators can play a major role in helping to turn a business idea into a technology-based organization that is economically efficient. However, there is a shortage in the literature regarding the efficiency evaluation and productivity evolution of the new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in the incubation scope. This study develops a model based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) m...

The purpose of this article is to assess whether food safety regulations imposed by the European Union in the 2000s may have induced a slow-down in the productivity of firms in the food processing sector. The impact of regulations on costs and productivity has seldom been studied. This article contributes to the literature by measuring productivity change using a panel of French food processing...

In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in Korea, the credit guarantee policy was used as an instrument by the government to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, the effect of the credit guarantee has not been carefully studied and the policy has been criticized for impairing development of innovative private financial sector and for making SMEs highly dependent on gover...

In models with heterogeneous firms trade integration has a positive impact on aggregate productivity through the selection of the best firms as import competition drives the least productive ones out of the market. To quantify the impact of firm selection on productivity, we calibrate and simulate a multi-country multi-sector model with monopolistic competition and variable markups using firm-l...

This paper tests some of the predictions of recent advances in trade theory that have focused on different trade patterns of firms within the same sector. Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2005) develop a model in which innate productivity differences between firms determine the degree of international engagement of firms: The least productive firms produce for the domestic market, better performers ...

Within the endogenous growth framework, we offer an explanation on how foreign direct investment (FDI) generates externalities in the form of technology transfer. We distinguish between the level and rate effects of spillovers on the productivity of domestic firms. A new insight gained from the theory is that the level and rate effects of spillovers can go in opposite directions. The negative l...