The effect of e-business on corporate performance : firm level evidence for Belgium.

E-business offers buyers and sellers a new form of communication and provides an opportunity to create new marketplaces. Theoretical studies suggest in general that the development of e-business results in higher firm performance as a result of lower search and head-to-head comparison costs. However, there are a number of recent theoretical studies, which demonstrate that the growth of e-commerce may lead to monopolistic pricing behaviour so that firms engaging in e-commerce need not perform better compared to more traditional enterprises. To date, there exists little empirical evidence on the impact of information technology on economic performance. This paper is the first that uses a large representative data set of Belgian firms to study empirically the impact of e-business on corporate performance. Our main conclusions can be summarised as follows: (1) The penetration of the Internet in Belgian firms is high, however, the use of e-business is still limited. (2) It is especially the large firms that engage in e-business and mostly in e-procurement. (3) E-business has no effect on total factor productivity in small firms, however, we find positive effects on performance of e-business in large firms.Economy; Internet; Firm performance; e-procurement; e-business;

Antidumping protection hurts exporters: firm-level evidence from France.

This paper empirically evaluates the effects of antidumping measures on the exports of protected firms. While antidumping protection raises the domestic sales of the more “traditional” non-exporting firms on the protected market with about 5%, it negatively affects the firm-level exports of similar products as the protected ones. Export sales of protected firms fall by almost 8% compared to a relevant control group of unprotected firms. The drop in firm-level exports more than doubles for firms that are global, i.e. firms with foreign affiliates. Measured at the product-level, extra-EU exports of goods protected by antidumping fall by 36% while exports to target countries fall by as much as 66% following protection. Protection also affects the extensive margin of exporters but to a lesser extent. Initial exporters face a marginally higher probability to stop exporting during protection compared to unprotected firms. Finally, we find that the productivity of exporters falls while that of non-exporters rises during antidumping protection. We offer a number of plausible explanations for our findings arising from the heterogeneous firm literature. We also discuss the importance of our findings for policy.

Vendor selection and evaluation : an activity based costing appoach.

In this paper we propose an Activity Based Costing approach for vendor selection and evaluation. This system allows us to compute total costs caused by a supplier in a firm's production process, thereby increasing the objectivity in the selection process. We further show that for vendor evaluation purposes the difference between the budgeted and actual total vendor score can be decomposed in a purchaser effect, a supplier effect and a combined effect. We illustrate the Activity Based Costing approach with a case study.Activity based costing; Evaluation; Selection;

Employment dynamics of newly established and traditional firms: A comparison of Russia and the Ukraine.

Dynamics; Employment; Firms;

Globalization and the effects of national versus international competition on the labour market. Theory and evidence from Belgian firm level data.

In this paper we first develop a simple theoretical framework which shows that important differences exist between national and international competition and their effect on national labour markets. National competition refers to a reduction of monopoly power in the product market through improved market contestability and market access, which is the responsibility of competition authorities. International competition refers to a reduction in product market competition as a result of trade liberalization. We show that when the domestic market is unionized, national entry (FDI or domestic entry) has very different effects on the national labour market than international entry (imports in the relevant product market). One result we obtain is that national competition need not increase domestic employment while trade competition need not lower domestic employment. Our analysis has at least two important implications. First, geographic location of competitors matters when institutional settings like trade unions are country specific. Second, a change in competition policy is likely to affect labour markets differently than a change in trade policy. The results also indicate that apart from location, market structure and the level at which wages are bargained over (firm or sector level) matter. In a further step the theoretical predictions we derive, are tested on Belgian company accounts data supplemented with data from a postal survey.

The adjustment of financial ratios in the presence of soft budget restraints: Evidence from Bulgaria.

This paper is the first to study the behaviour of financial ratios in a Central European country. Using the entire population of company accounts in Bulgaria we find that for the financial ratios we considered, adjustment towards an industry target takes place but is significantly lower than that for Western companies reported in earlier studies. We find the adjustment of financial ratios in Bulgaria to be slowest in those firms, characterised by Soft budget constraints, which is a widespread phenomenon in Central Europe. We also find that the speed of adjustment is not significantly different between quoted and unquoted Bulgarian firms. This could be explained by the virtual inexistence of equity markets.Financial ratios; Ratios; Industry; Markets;

Antidumping protection and productivity growth of domestic firms.

In this paper we provide empirical evidence that Antidumping (AD) Protection can induce technological catching-up by domestic firms affected by the import protection. We identify a panel of 1,793 import-competing domestic firms between 1993 and 2000, directly affected by AD cases that were initiated in 1996. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find evidence of increased Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth for firms protected by AD measures compared to firms that did not receive protection. However, our analysis indicates that the effect of protection depends on the 'distance to the frontier firm' in the industry. While protection raises TFP growth of 'laggard' firms, the reverse holds for domestic firms that are close to the efficiency frontier. These results confirm recent theoretical work supporting the view that protection can induce technological catching-up.Antidumping protection; Domestic; Efficiency; Firms; Industry; Productivity; Research; Technological catching-up; Total factor productivity; Work;

Antidumping protection and markups of domestic firms: Evidence from firm level data.

Domestic; Firms; Market; Market power;