Employment and SMEs during crises

The persistent increasing duration of unemployment has become an issue during economic crises. Although lay-offs at large firms normally make headlines during crises, we still know little about the potential impact of firm size on adjustment behavior in a crisis. We studied effects of firm size on employment growth during economic slowdowns using a rich microeconomic database for the 1988-2007 period in Portuguese manufacturing industry. The results show that economic downturns affect firm growth negatively. This negative effect is found to be higher for larger firms, both during and immediately following crisis periods. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) emerge as potential stabilizers in downturn periods. However, larger firms seem to be able to quickly recover from downturn periods. Our results contribute to the scarce literature and to the understanding of the Portuguese case, where many SMEs secure most jobs. These first results may be useful, because SMEs play a determinant role in other European Union economies

Wage Differentials between Foreign Multinationals and Local Plants and Worker Education in Indonesian Manufacturing

This paper reexamines the extent of wage differentials between medium-large (20 or more workers) foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) and local, private plants in Indonesia’s manufacturing industries in 1996 and compares them to corresponding differentials in 2006. Mean, unconditional differentials were quite large when the 17 industries sample industries are combined, and declined from 144 to 69 percent for production workers and from 201 to 84 percent for non-production workers. Conditional differentials that account for the tendency of MNEs to hire relatively educated workers, use relatively large amounts of energy and material inputs per worker, and be relatively large, were positive and statistically significant, but much smaller, falling from 26 to 3.5 percent for production workers and from 34 to 15 percent for non-production workers. Industry-level, conditional differentials were also positive in 10-11 industries in 1996, but tended to decline and most became insignificant by 2006. Both aggregate and industry-level results also suggest that differentials were relatively large for non-production workers, but the industry-level results were again relatively weak for 2006. Finally, the size of MNE-private differentials did not depend significantly on the extent of foreign ownership in most of the samples examined

Foreign Ownership, State Ownership and Energy Efficiency in Indonesia\u27s Private Manufacturing Plants

This paper examines correlations between the shares of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) or state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Indonesian manufacturing industries and energy efficiency in local, private plants in those industries using data on medium-large plants from the industrial censuses for 1996 and 2006. The econometric results suggest that energy intensities in private plants were often positively correlated with the presence of SOEs and majority-foreign MNEs but negatively correlated with the presence of heavily- and minority-foreign MNEs in 1996. However, the results were often reversed for 2006 and were sensitive to the sample analyzed as well as the measure of SOE or MNE presence and its level of aggregation

Human capital, FTAs and foreign direct investment flows into ASEAN

Abstract not available.Shandre M. Thangavelu, Dionisius Narjok

NEW ASPECTS OF MULTINATIONAL FIRMS ACTIVITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS: EXPERIENCE IN ITALY

All papers were peer reviewed. All papers were peer reviewed. ISSN 2029-4441 print / 2029-929X online ISBN 978-609-457-116-9 CD in the conference section: International Economy: Problems of Innovation and Marketing Managemen