Learning from Trade Through Innovation: Causal Link Between Imports, Exports and Innovation in Spanish Microdata

The paper explores the learning from trade hypothesis. Standardized research approach searchs for learning effects from trade focusing solely on exports, whereby firm's learning effects are accounted in the firm of total factor productivity improvements. In contrast, this papers defines a firm learning from trade in tfirms of introduction of either new products or processes induced by its import and export links with foreign markets. By using microdata for a large sample of Spanish firms, including data on innovation and trade, we find clear sequencing between imports, exports and innovation. The results suggest that firms learn primarily from import links, which enables them to innovate products and processes and to dress up for starting to export. In a sequence, exporting may enable firms to introduce further innovations. These positive learning effects from trade, however, seem to be limited to small and partially medium firms only. On the other side, firms that are closer to the relevant technological frontier seem to benefit more from trading activities in tfirms of innovation than the technological laggard firms

Financial Constraints and the Cyclicality of R&D Investment: Evidence from Slovenia

This paper uses firm level data to show how R&D investment responds to shocks in sales growth in credit constrained firms. A credit constrained firm has to rely on its cash flow and borrowing capacity to survive its short-run liquidity shock when hit by a negative shock. This reduces the possibility for further borrowing in order to invest in non-tangible long tfirm R&D, hence a negative shock should hit R&D investments more in firms that are more credit constrained. We find that in financially constrained firms sales growth is positively associated with R&D investment, suggesting procyclical behavior of R&D investment in credit constrained firms. In contrast, we find that in firms with no financial constraints R&D investment is negatively correlated with sales growth, suggesting countercyclical behavior of R&D, consistent with the Schumpeterian idea of restructuring. Furthfirmore, we find that the firm level response in R&D investment to sales growth is stronger in firms that are more financially dependent, such as firms that are no part of a multinational, firms not receiving subsidies or firms with less collateral

A Stochastic Multi-scale Approach for Numerical Modeling of Complex Materials - Application to Uniaxial Cyclic Response of Concrete

In complex materials, numerous intertwined phenomena underlie the overall response at macroscale. These phenomena can pertain to different engineering fields (mechanical , chemical, electrical), occur at different scales, can appear as uncertain, and are nonlinear. Interacting with complex materials thus calls for developing nonlinear computational approaches where multi-scale techniques that grasp key phenomena at the relevant scale need to be mingled with stochastic methods accounting for uncertainties. In this chapter, we develop such a computational approach for modeling the mechanical response of a representative volume of concrete in uniaxial cyclic loading. A mesoscale is defined such that it represents an equivalent heterogeneous medium: nonlinear local response is modeled in the framework of Thermodynamics with Internal Variables; spatial variability of the local response is represented by correlated random vector fields generated with the Spectral Representation Method. Macroscale response is recovered through standard ho-mogenization procedure from Micromechanics and shows salient features of the uniaxial cyclic response of concrete that are not explicitly modeled at mesoscale.Comment: Computational Methods for Solids and Fluids, 41, Springer International Publishing, pp.123-160, 2016, Computational Methods in Applied Sciences, 978-3-319-27994-

Recommendations for improving the quality of reporting clinical electrochemotherapy studies based on qualitative systematic review

Background: Electrochemotherapy is becoming a well-established treatment for malignancies of skin and non-skin origin and its use is widening across Europe. The technique was developed and optimized from solid experimental and clinical evidence. A consensus document is now warranted to formalize reporting results, which should strengthen evidence-based practice recommendations. This consensus should be derived from high quality clinical data collection, clinical expertise and summarizing patient feedback. The first step, which is addressed in this paper, aims to critically analyze the quality of published studies and to provide the recommendations for reporting clinical trials on electrochemotherapy. Methods: The quality of reporting in published studies on electrochemotherapy was analyzed in order to produce procedure specific reporting recommendations. A comprehensive literature search of studies published from 2006 to 2015 was performed followed by qualitative analysis of manuscripts assessing for 47 quality criteria grouped into four major clusters: (1) trial design, (2) description of patient population, (3) description of treatment delivery and patient outcome, (4) analysis of results and their interpretation. The summary measure during literature assessment was the proportion of studies fulfilling each manuscript quality criteria. Results: A total of 56 studies were screened, from the period 2006 to 2015, of which 33 were included in the qualitative analysis, with a total of 1215 patients. Overall, the quality of reporting was highly variable. Twenty-four reports (73%) were single-center, non-comparative studies, and only 15 (45%) were prospective in nature (only 2 of them were entered into a clinical trials registry). Electrochemotherapy technique was consistently reported, with most studies (31/33) adhering closely to published standard operating procedures. The quality of reporting the patient population was variable among the analyzed studies, with only between 45% and 100% achieving dedicated quality criteria. Reporting of treatment delivery and patient outcome was also highly variable with studies only fulfilling between 3% and 100%. Finally, reporting study results critically varied, fulfilling from 27% to 100% of the quality criteria. Based on the critical issues emerging from this analysis, recommendations and minimal requirements for reporting clinical data on electrochemotherapy were prepared and summarized into a checklist. Conclusions: There is an increasing body of published clinical data on electrochemotherapy, but more high quality clinical data are needed. Published papers often lack accurate description of study population, treatment delivery as well as patient outcome. Our recommendations, provided in the form of a summary checklist, are intended to ameliorate data reporting in future studies on electrochemotherapy and help researchers to provide a solid evidence basis for clinical practice

European Electricity Market Reforms: Any Signs of Efficiency Improvements?

This paper investigates whether European electricity market refirms have induced any changes infirm efficiency either through productive, allocative or dynamic efficiency improve- ments. In particular, this ex-post analysis looks closely at productivity e ects of changing industry structure, ownership structure and regulation with respect to barriers to entry and access to wholesale and retail markets. Based on the Europeanfirm-level data for the period 1996-2007, the results indicate sluggish productivity improvements of European electricityfirms due to refirms implemented in the last decade. In particular, productivity gains are associated with high-productivityfirms close to the technology frontier, while no signi cant impact is found for the laggards. Looking from a dynamic perspective, it seems that the clos- est are thefirms to the frontier the more they are able to improve productivity in response to liberalization e orts stimulating competition

Firms' Pattern of Trade and Access to Finance

This paper summarizes recent advances in the empirical research on firms' learning from trade participation and the role of finance in both starting to trade, surviving in export markets as well as expanding along the intensive and extensive trade margins. It highlights the increased importance of imports, which impacts at firms' perfirmance primarily through relaxed technological constraints by increasing firms' scope of inputs and by lowering their input price index. In addition, imports are shown to boost firms' innovation and introduction of new products, which facilitates firms' decisions to start exporting. Another important aspect that has been highlighted is the essential role of finance in furthering firms' survival and expansion in export markets