Service sector firm death and productivity in urban and rural locations

While the positive impact of firm productivity on survival is well documented, limited evidence exists on geographic variations of this relationship and on services industries. We show that in knowledge intensive services, this relationship is more strongly moderated in core urban areas compared to suburban and rural areas

Greening Global Value Chains: A Conceptual Framework for Policy Action

This is Chapter 6 of the Global Value Chain Development Report 2023. The Global Value Chain (GVC) Development Report 2023 explores approaches to build resilient and sustainable GVCs. It provides an overview of the most recent trends in GVCs, assesses the effects of recent trade tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic on GVCs, and illustrates changes in the nature of supply chains. It also analyses the challenges of climate change to GVCs and proposes policy options for enhancing inclusive development through GVC participation

Tracking the Van. The role of forward linkages in logistics MNEs’ location choices across European NUTS3 regions

Logistics firms play a crucial role in overcoming time and distance constraints in supply chain management. However, little is known about their location patterns. This paper fills the gap by studying the logistics MNEs’ location choices across 380 NUTS3. Using data on 1,777 FDIs, our findings reveal that forward linkages with a region's retail and wholesale industry exert a stronger impact than intermediate production demand. Results are robust to the inclusion of standard FDIs’ determinants and to controls for spatial dependence. Findings suggest that intersectoral demand from downstream sectors positively affect logistics operators independently from the manufacturing base

Do green foreign direct investments increase the innovative capability of MNE subsidiaries?

Technologies to mitigate climate change may diffuse from lead markets to the rest of the world through several mechanisms and make important contributions to the global green transformation. In this paper, we explore the role played by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in transferring knowledge and innovative capabilities in green technologies to their global subsidiaries. We posit that the degree of green knowledge transfer and innovative capability development in subsidiaries depend on: (i) the host country characteristics, (ii) the specific technology in question, and (iii) the mode of entry. The empirical analysis combines data on foreign direct investments with patent analysis. The results suggest that being a subsidiary of a green MNE has a positive impact on the number and quality of green patents produced locally. This green innovative advantage vis-à-vis domestic companies is larger in less developed countries and in those that are less reliant on oil rents, in particular if they already possess higher levels of relevant domestic innovative capacity. Furthermore, firm and sectoral characteristics also matter. The analysis suggests that green FDIs are more effective when technologies are characterized by low tradability and tacit knowledge. Finally, cross-border acquisitions are more efficient at strengthening green innovative capabilities than subsidiaries established with greenfield investments

The unintended consequences of the pandemic on non-Covid-19 research activities

Covid-19 ushered in a shift in research priorities pivoting researchers’ energies away from on-going projects. Presenting evidence from a new analysis of business, management and economics scholars, James Walker, Chris Brewster, Rita Fontinha, Washika Haak-Shaheem, Stefano Benigni, Fabio Lamperti and Dalila Ribaudo examine which researchers have been most affected by this shift, how it has impacted different types of university and what policies may be required to remediate the disruption to normal research patterns

The unintended consequences of the pandemic on non-pandemic research activities

Research about the Covid-19 pandemic has taken centre stage in shaping the work of many scholars, inter alia highlighting the importance of research in addressing the grand challenges humanity faces. However, the pandemic has also ushered in increased administrative, teaching and out of work commitments for many researchers, leading to concerns that academics will become less willing to invest time in obtaining resources to undertake non-Covid-related projects. Using a large-scale survey of business, economics and management researchers, coupled with their publication histories and additional institutional data, we examine how far individuals experienced the focus on the pandemic as ‘crowding out’ interest in, and undermining their confidence in applying for grants for work not focused on the pandemic. We found 40% of the sample agree that the pandemic has impaired their confidence in applying for non-pandemic-related grants and ‘crowded out’ other projects. Researchers with current and prior grants, particularly those with the most experience of holding grants, scholars whose work ‘impacted’ beyond academia, and early career researchers, disproportionately considered themselves to be most affected. We also found that researchers’ perceptions differed based on institutional characteristics. We discuss the implications of these findings for grant providers and national research agencies as well as for individual academic researchers and the institutions in which they work