Financial development and survival of African agri-food exports

This paper investigates the link between export survival of agri-food products and financial development. It tests the hypothesis that financial development differentially affects the survival of exports across products based on their need of external finance. The authors test whether exports of products that are relatively more reliant on external capital survive longer when initiated in more financially developed countries. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more external finance indeed sustain longer in foreign markets if the exporting country is more financially developed.Food&Beverage Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Labor Policies,Debt Markets

Does Lax Environmental Regulation Attract FDI when accounting for "third-country" effects?

This paper investigates if differences in environmental regulations can influence FDI flows in a multi-country setting taking into account the so-called "third-country" effects. We examine bilateral FDI flows using a new extended OECD investment database which covers great number of host countries and a long sample period (1981-2005). The findings based on a spatial gravity-like model are largely plausible across specifications and confirm the existence of a negative relationship between FDI and environmental stringency, once we correct for endogeneity and spatial dependence. The evidence of a positive "third-country" effect for FDI suggests the prevalence of complex FDI from developed to developing countries. The spatial structure of the model allows also to underline the possible existence of competition in environmental standards between countries to attract FDI.Complex FDI; Pollution Haven; Spatial Econometrics

Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter?

Existing literature sees opportunistic behaviour of contractual partners as the main reason why rational agents underinvest in relationship-specific assets. We look beyond this well-know holdup problem and argue that financial vulnerability and short-term planning horizon can also lead to such underinvestment. Subsequently, banks can stimulate growth-enhancing investment in relationship-specific assets by signalling creditworthiness and long-term planning horizon of their borrowers. We empirically confirm this hypothesis by showing that industries dependent on relationship-specific investment from their suppliers grow disproportionately faster in countries with a strong banking sectorfinancial development, relationship-specific investment, growth

Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter ?

Existing literature sees opportunistic behaviour of contractual partners as the main reason why rational agents underinvest in relationship-specific assets. We look beyond this well-know holdup problem and argue that financial vulnerability and short-term planning horizon can also lead to such underinvestment. Subsequently, banks can stimulate growth-enhancing investment in relationship-specific assets by signalling creditworthiness and long-term planning horizon of their borrowers. We empirically confum this hypothesis by showing that industries dependent on relationship-specific investment from their suppliers grow disproportionately faster in countries with a strong banking sector. Our work establishes a novel channel through which finance affects the real economy. It also complements the literature that has stressed legally binding contracts as a standard way to promote investment in relationship-specific assets.financial development; relationship-specific investment; growth

Spatial Dynamic Panel Model and System GMM: A Monte Carlo Investigation

This paper investigates the ?finite sample properties of estimators for spatial dynamic panel models in the presence of several endogenous variables. So far, none of the available estimators in spatial econometrics allows considering spatial dynamic models with one or more endogenous variables. We propose to apply system-GMM, since it can correct for the endogeneity of the dependent variable, the spatial lag as well as other potentially endogenous variables using internal and/or external instruments. The Monte-Carlo investigation compares the performance of spatial MLE, spatial dynamic MLE (Elhorst (2005)), spatial dynamic QMLE (Yu et al. (2008)), LSDV, difference-GMM (Arellano & Bond (1991)), as well as extended-GMM (Arellano & Bover (1995), Blundell & Bover (1998)) in terms of bias, root mean squared error and standard-error accuracy. The results suggest that, in order to account for the endogeneity of several covariates, spatial dynamic panel models should be estimated using extended GMM. On a practical ground, this is also important, because system-GMM avoids the inversion of high dimension spatial weights matrices, which can be computationally unfeasible for large N and/or T.Spatial Econometrics, Dynamic Panel Model, System GMM, Monte Carlo Simulations

Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter?

We show that contract-intensive industries grow disproportionately faster both in countries with a high initial level of financial development and in the US states which deregulated their banking sector. These industries use a high share of relationship-specific inputs that can be purchased only via specific contracts with the suppliers. Accordingly, both firms in those industries and their suppliers face above-average levels of risk and transaction costs. Our empirical results thus confirm the theoretical claim that finance promotes the real economy via managing risk and decreasing transaction costs. Furthermore, the pro-growth effect of finance seems to come from financial intermediaries like banks rather than from stock markets. This suggests that the intrinsic functions of relationship-banking (long-term commitment, increase in reputation and planning horizon of the borrowers) are especially important for the contract-intensive industries.financial development; relationship-specific investment; growth

Financial liberalization and allocative dfficiency of capital

Financial liberalization may have a positive effect on growth not only through the increase in the quantity of the available funds, but also through a more efficient allocation of resources across firms and sectors. Despite this intuitive appeal, there is little empirical evidence on the positive effect of financial liberalization on capital allocation. The main difficulty of investigating the linkage between liberalization of financial markets and capital allocation efficiency lies in the fact that the efficiency of capital allocation is not directly observable. One way to address this issue is to evaluate the effect of financial liberalization within the Heckscher-Ohlin framework. Producing and exporting products inconsistent with a country's factor endowments constitutes a serious misallocation of the funds, which undermines competitiveness of the economy and inhibits its long run growth. This paper tests the allocative efficiency hypothesis by evaluating the effect of stock market liberalization on the survival of different product categories using export data for 91 countries over the period of 1975-2003. Preliminary results suggest that after liberalization of the domestic stock market, products employing intensively scarce factors exit at a relatively higher rate from a country's export portfolio. In other words, following liberalization episodes, a country tends to rebalance its export portfolio towards products consistent with its factor's endowments.Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Markets and Market Access,Currencies and Exchange Rates,Economic Theory&Research

Investment in Relationship-Specific Assets: Does Finance Matter?

We show that contract-intensive industries particularly thrive both in countries with high initial level of financial development and in the US states that deregulated their banking sector. These industries use high share of relationship-specific inputs that can be purchased only via specific contracts with the suppliers. Accordingly, both firms in those industries and their suppliers face above-average levels of risk and transaction costs. Our empirical results thus confirm the theoretical claim that finance promotes real economy via managing risk and decreasing transaction costs. Furthermore, the pro-growth e¤ect of finance seems to come from financial intermediaries like banks rather than from stock markets. This suggests that the intrinsic functions of relationship-banking (long-term commitment, increase in reputation and planning horizon of the borrowers) are especially important for the contract-intensive industries.financial development, relationship-specific investment, growth

Finance, Comparative Advantage, and Resource Allocation

The paper examines the interplay between financial development and comparative advantage in shaping the survival of exporting firms on foreign markets. Exports suffering from comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive shorter on the competitive US market. Crucially, the pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. This suggests a positive role for finance in pushing the manufacturing sector towards export composition congruent with the comparative advantage of a given country. A strong financial sector can thus mitigate misallocation of resources arising from inefficient exporting patterns.financial development; resource misallocation; comparative advantage

Financial development and survival of African agri-food exports

This paper investigates the link between export survival of agri-food products and financial development. Our hypothesis is that financial developement differentially affects the survival of exports across products based on their need of external finance. We propose a test for the role of financial development by examining whether exports of products that are relatively more reliant on external capital survive longer when initiated in more financially developped countries. Our results suggest that agri-food products that require more external finance indeed sustain longer in foreign markets when exported from more financially developed countries.Dans cet article nous étudions la capacité des marchés financiers à promouvoir les exportations de produits agro-alimentaires "à risque" d'un point de vue sanitaire, des pays en développement. Les entreprises sont hétérogènes tant par leur niveau de productivité que par leur accès aux financements. Dans le cas des produits agro-alimentaires, l'évolution des normes sanitaires et règlements techniques imposent des coûts supplémentaires tout au long de la vie des entreprises. Ces coûts supplémentaires, fixes ou variables, peuvent être préjudiciables à la survie des entreprises. Nous associons l'analyse de survie avec la méthodologie introduite par Rajan et Zingales (1998). Nous utilisons une mesure de risque sanitaire au niveau produit comme "proxy" des besoins de financement pour se mettre aux normes de ces produits. Cet article établit de façon solide le rôle sélectif du développement financier dans la promotion des exportations de produits à risque. La disponibilité accrue de la finance améliore de manière disproportionnée les exportations de produits alimentaires qui nécessitent un financement pour répondre aux exigences de sécurité sanitaire. En outre, les résultats suggèrent que la sécurité sanitaire est importante surtout pour les pays développés, limitant le rôle du développement financier à ces marchés