Obstacles to growth for small and medium enterprises in Turkey

Many studies have shown that firm growth decreases monotonically with size and age. In this study, the authors investigate employment growth of firms in Turkey with an emphasis on small and medium size enterprises. In Turkey, small and medium size enterprises account for almost 77 percent of employment and play a crucial role in the economy. However, the analysis of firm dynamics in Turkey shows that medium-size firms (51-250 workers) are theslowest growing group in the economy. Moreover, small and medium size enterprises grow at a slower rate in Turkey than in several comparator countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. After determining this irregularity, the paper analyzes how the investment climate affects firm growth and finds that improved access to finance is the most important factor that significantly increases firm growth rates.Microfinance,Achieving Shared Growth,Small Scale Enterprise,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets

Exchange Rate Pass-Through in ASEAN: Identifying Supply-Side Constraints to Export Performance in Ecuador: An Exercise with Investment Climate Survey Data

We apply a Heckman selection model to the 2003-Investment Climate Survey (ICS) to investigate supply-side constraints to export performance at the firm level in Ecuador. To correct for the non-random truncation problem, we use the Heckman selection model to estimate the probability of exporting (export propensity) and the share of total sales that are exported (export intensity) by Ecuadorian firms. A baseline model with 12 independent variables divided into three categories – idiosyncratic characteristics, technology, and business environment – is developed. Three other models are developed with the addition of variables related to trade integration, business environment, and infrastructure. Results corroborate with the hypothesis implicit in the Heckman model, which considers both decisions made by a firm – whether to export, and how much of its sales to export – to be interdependent. In the Ecuadorian case, three important results for the firm’s export performance are found: technology matters; infrastructure does not; and trade orientation is significant, with specialized firms tending to have smaller export intensity when having the countries of the Andean Community as their main trade partners, the opposite happening if the U.S. is their main trade partner. We find a robust and stable relationship for export propensity and intensity with size, import of inputs, labor regulations, in-house R&D, quality certification, web-use, and foreign ownership. Also, capacity utilization and trade with the U.S. positively affect export intensity, while trade within the Andean Community has the opposite effect in our outcome variable. No significant relationship was found for the infrastructure variables.World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4179, March 2007.Ecuador; exports; innovation; foreign networks; business environment; firm level

Identifying supply-side constraints to export performance in Ecuador : an exercise with Investment Climate Survey data

The authors apply a Heckman selection model to the 2003 Investment Climate Survey (ICS) to investigate supply-side constraints to export performance at the firm level in Ecuador. To correct for the non-random truncation problems, they use the Heckman selection model to estimate the probability of exporting (export propensity) and the share of total sales that are exported (export intensity) by Ecuadorian firms. They develop a baseline model with 12 independent variables divided into three categories-idiosyncratic characteristics, technology, and business environment. The authors develop three other models with the addition of variables related to trade integration, business environment, and infrastructure. Results corroborate with the hypothesis implicit in the Heckman model, which considers both decisions made by a firm-whether to export, and how much of its sales to export-to be interdependent. In the Ecuadorian case, they find three important results for the firm's export performance: technology matters; infrastructure does not; and trade orientation is significant, with specialized firms tending to have smaller export intensity when their main trade partners are countries of the Andean Community, and the opposite happening if the United States is their main trade partner. The authors find a robust and stable relationship for export propensity and intensity with size, import of inputs, labor regulations, in-house research and development, quality certification, web-use, and foreign ownership. Also, capacity utilization and trade with the United States positively affect export intensity, while trade within the Andean Community has the opposite effect in the outcome variable. But they find no significant relationship for the infrastructure variables.Free Trade,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Markets and Market Access

Las sentencias téticas en portugués y español en películas argentinas dobladas en Brasil

IX Congresso Brasileiro de Hispanistas realizado nos dias 22 a 25 agosto 2016Este estudio de corpus paralelo investiga la traducción al portugués brasileño (PB) de sentencias téticas del español en guiones de películas argentinas, con el objetivo de analizar su traducción al PB. Las sentencias téticas, también llamadas de foco sentencial, introducen eventos o entidades y se diferencian por ejemplo de las sentencias categóricas, que exhiben la dicotomía tópicocomentario. De acuerdo con Sasse (1987, 2006) y Lambrecht (1994, 2000), entre otros, las sentencias téticas constituyen una categoría gramatical verificable translingüísticamente con marcas propias, por lo que difieren de otras construcciones, como las categóricas, y cuyas características sintácticas varían según las lenguas. El análisis parte de las definiciones de Sasse (1987) y de Smit (2010) – de base pragmática/informacional – para identificar esos enunciados en el texto original. El corpus paralelo está constituido de texto oral no espontáneo, correspondiente al guión original de las películas El secreto de sus Ojos/O segredo dos seus olhos (Argentina 2010, dir. Juan José Campanella) y Bombón el Perro/O Cachorro (Argentina 2004, dir. Carlos Sorín) y el respectivo texto oral doblado al portugués. Los resultados del doblaje al portugués de los enunciados efectivamente téticos no favorecen la identificación de una sintaxis diferenciada entre sentencias téticas y categóricas; el orden SV ha sido común a ambos tipos de sentencia, a excepción de los casos de téticas en sentencias existenciales y de verbos inacusativos, que presenta el orden VS, claramente influida por la semántica del verbo. Se ha podido sacar a luz ver una clara diferencia sintáctica entre español argentino y portugués brasileño, pues en PB sentencias categóricas y téticas presentaron orden SV y en español, como previsto, las construcciones téticas eran de orden SV y las categóricas, VSUNILA­-UNIOEST

Technology adoption and the investment climate : firm-level evidence for Eastern Europe and Central Asia

The international diffusion of technology presents an opportunity for developing economies distant from the world technological frontier to reduce their income gap relative to advanced economies. It is therefore crucial to understand why, when faced with similar technological alternatives different firms in different countries choose to adopt different vintages of capital. This paper examines technology adoption across firms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The findings show that access to complementary inputs - managerial capacity, skilled labor, finance, and good infrastructure - and to international knowledge - through foreign direct investment or exports - is an important correlate of technology adoption. The link between market incentives and technology adoption is more nuanced. Although consumer pressure results in technology adoption, competitor pressure does not, suggesting that only firms with rents are able to adopt technology given substantial resource constraints. Privatized firms exhibit better technology adoption outcomes but only when a clear private owner with a profit incentive is present. Better governance is associated with technology adoption only in the countries that joined the European Union in 2004. Future increases in technology adoption by firms in the region will require complementary reforms of the investment climate.E-Business,Technology Industry,ICT Policy and Strategies,Microfinance,

Identifying supply-side constraints to export performance in ecuador : an exercise with investment climate survey data

We apply a Heckman selection model to the 2003-Investment Climate Survey (ICS) to investigate supply-side constraints to export performance at the firm level in Ecuador. To correct for the non-random truncation problem, we use the Heckman selection model to estimate the probability of exporting (export propensity) and the share of total sales that are exported (export intensity) by Ecuadorian firms. A baseline model with 12 independent variables divided into three categories – idiosyncratic characteristics, technology, and business environment – is developed. Three other models are developed with the addition of variables related to trade integration, business environment, and infrastructure. Results corroborate with the hypothesis implicit in the Heckman model, which considers both decisions made by a firm – whether to export, and how much of its sales to export – to be interdependent. In the Ecuadorian case, three important results for the firm’s export performance are found: technology matters; infrastructure does not; and trade orientation is significant, with specialized firms tending to have smaller export intensity when having the countries of the Andean Community as their main trade partners, the opposite happening if the U.S. is their main trade partner. We find a robust and stable relationship for export propensity and intensity with size, import of inputs, labor regulations, in-house R&D, quality certification, web-use, and foreign ownership. Also, capacity utilization and trade with the U.S. positively affect export intensity, while trade within the Andean Community has the opposite effect in our outcome variable. No significant relationship was found for the infrastructure variables

The on-going case: getting around amnesty laws by seeking justice for the disappeared. O contorno da lei da anistia na busca de justiça: uma comparação das abordagens no Brasil e no Chile sobre os desaparecidos.

ABSTRACTInternationally the amnesty laws of Chile and Brazil have been deemed invalid, but they they have been upheld locally. This paper seeks to compare the approaches in each country to use the disappeared to challenge the amnesty legislation and also sketch out the potential international consequences for Brazil, if it remains steadfast in its refusal to address the justice issues of the past.Key-words: Chile; Brazil; Amnesty Laws.RESUMOInternacionalmente as leis de anistia do Chile e do Brasil foram considerados inválidas, mas localmente elas foram mantidas. Este trabalho visa comparar as abordagens em cada país ao utilizar os desaparecidos para desafiar a anistia e também esboçar as potenciais consequências para o Brasil, se caso ele continue firme em sua recusa em abordar as questões de justiça do passado.Palavras-Chave: Chile; Brasil; Anistia

THE POTENTIAL OF NEAR INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY AS A METHOD OF DETERMINATION OF THE FAT CONTENT IN

Yogurt is a food product produced by fresh milk as the raw material which is easier to digest and assimilate than fresh milk. Today, it is a very popular food product and is marketed worldwide.Consequently, is important to know its chemical composition. On the other hand, the use of near-infrared technologies is increasing in the last years as it is a fast and easy technique.Nevertheless, studies about its use in yogurts are limited. 141 samples of yogurt were analysed by NIRS. The whole experiment was carried out at 20ºC. 75% of the samples were used for calibration set and the rest were used for validating this model. A NIR Luminar 5030 Miniature “Hand-held” with a spectral range of 1100-2300 nm was used to obtain the spectra, with a sampling interval of 2 nm. The software used for analysis was The Unscrambler. The predictive models were established by using partial least squares (PLS). The information that is used to predict the composition and quantities of the samples is contained into the spectral curves. The pivotal step for spectroscopy technique is to extract quantitative data from them. In this study, PLS algorithm was used to achieve this purpose. 87 samples were chosen as a calibration sample cluster, and PLS mathematic model was built by using NIR-spectroscopy and fat content of each sample (Fig.1). The correlation coefficient between spectral data and fat content of yogurt was 0.965, the standard error of calibration (SEC) was 0.587, and the standard error of prediction (SEP) was 0.642. The fat content of another 33 samples was predicted by a mathematical model (Fig.2). The correlation coefficient of linear regression between predicted and measured values shows a reasonable to excellent prediction performance of 0.929. In conclusion, the results indicated that NIRS could quantitatively analyze fat content of yogurt in a fast and non-destructive way