Exporting, Capital Investment and Financial Constraints

Many firms cite financial constraints as some of the most important impediments to their investment and growth. Using a unique data set from the Czech Republic this paper investigates the importance of financing constraints in the context of exporters. It finds that exporters are less financially constrained than non-exporters. However, after carefully correcting for possible endogeneity and selection issues, the evidence points to less constrained firms self-selecting into exporting rather than exporting alleviating firms’ financial constraints. The analysis suggests that easing firms’ credit constraints may play an important role in facilitating exporting and that well-developed financial markets that would decrease firms’ cost of external finance may be needed in order to benefit from selling in foreign markets.exporting, cash flow, financial constraints

Trade openness and income – a re-examination

This study uses a new, innovative measure of trade protection and finds that less trade protection is associated with higher income per capita, using data from 131 developed and developing countries.trade restrictiveness, tariff aggregators, income per capita

Choosing formulas for market access negotiation : efficiency and market access considerations

An important issue in multilateral trade negotiations is the approach taken to reduce tariffs. The authors believe that there are important advantages in formula approaches and survey a range of options between the sharply top-down Swiss formula and proportional cuts in tariffs. Over the range the authors consider, they find that the economic efficiency impacts for the importer are not greatly influenced by the extent to which higher tariffs face bigger cuts. However, top-down approaches appear to be more effective in reducing tariff escalation, and provide greater market access gains to poor countries.Environmental Economics&Policies,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry,Export Competitiveness,Trade Policy,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Export Competitiveness,Environmental Economics&Policies,World Trade Organization,Trade Policy

Exports and bank shocks: evidence from matched firm-bank data

A growing literature aims to understand the structural change and cyclical factors that contributed to the Great Trade Collapse. This paper adds to the conversation by investigating the impact of bank distress on firms’ exports using matched firm-bank data for the UK. We use two novel measures of bank distress: the Basel III net stable funding ratio, as well as the market-based bank credit default swap spreads, which best capture bank default risk, especially during crises. Our detailed database provides the crucial firm-bank relationship information that allows us to directly test for the banking channel effect on the real economy, and to carefully account for various endogeneities and biases in estimation. We also test for the possible contagion of the Sovereign Debt Crisis from the GIIPS economies to the UK. We find that the severe bank distress generated by the recent crises immediately, negatively and significantly affects UK firms’ exports, independent of demand shocks. Not all firms were impacted equally: private firms and firms in industries more dependent on external finance were impacted the most, while publicly owned firms were less affected by their bank’s distress

Do bank liquidity shocks hamper firms’ innovation?

This paper highlights the importance of bank-based finance for the innovation activity of UK firms. It identifies both theoretically and empirically how bank shocks affect firms’ innovation. We develop a theoretical model, and test its predictions using a new matched bank-firm-patent dataset for the UK. We find that bank distress during the 2008 and 2011 crises negatively affected firms’ innovation behavior. After carefully controlling for several potential biases in estimation we find that firms whose relationship banks were distressed not only patented less, but those patents were of lower technological value, less original and of lower quality. The negative effect is significantly larger in the case of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). We also find that banks’ specialization in financing innovation mitigates the impact of bank distress on innovation

Exports and Bank Shocks: Evidence from Matched Firm-Bank Data

A growing literature aims to understand the structural change and cyclical factors that contributed to the Great Trade Collapse. This paper adds to the conversation by investigating the impact of bank distress on firms’ exports using matched firm-bank data for the UK. We use two novel measures of bank distress: the Basel III net stable funding ratio, as well as the market-based bank credit default swap spreads, which best capture bank default risk, especially during crises. Our detailed database provides the crucial firm-bank relationship information that allows us to directly test for the banking channel effect on the real economy, and to carefully account for various endogeneities and biases in estimation. We also test for the possible contagion of the Sovereign Debt Crisis from the GIIPS economies to the UK. We find that the severe bank distress generated by the recent crises immediately, negatively and significantly affects UK firms’ exports, independent of demand shocks. However, not all firms were impacted equally: private firms and firms in industries more dependent on external finance were impacted the most, while publicly owned firms were less affected by their bank’s distress

A model for Business Intelligence Systems’ Development

Often, Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) require historical data or data collected from var-ious sources. The solution is found in data warehouses, which are the main technology used to extract, transform, load and store data in the organizational Business Intelligence projects. The development cycle of a data warehouse involves lots of resources, time, high costs and above all, it is built only for some specific tasks. In this paper, we’ll present some of the aspects of the BI systems’ development such as: architecture, lifecycle, modeling techniques and finally, some evaluation criteria for the system’s performance.BIS (Business Intelligence Systems), Data Warehouses, OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing), Object-Oriented Modeling

The Relationship of Cytokines IL-13 and IL-17 with Autoantibodies Profile in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis

Aims. In the present study, we aimed to assess the concentrations of IL-13 and IL-17 in serum of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (eRA), the investigation of correlation between the concentrations of these cytokines and disease activity score, and the concentration of some autoantibodies and the evaluation of the utility of IL-13 and -17 concentration measurements as markers of disease activity. Materials and Methods. Serum samples were collected from 30 patients and from 28 controls and analysed parameters. Results. The serum concentrations of IL-13, IL-17, anti-CCP, and IgM-RF were statistically significantly higher in patients with eRA, compared to the controls. IL-13 concentrations in the severe and moderate groups with eRA were statistically higher than in the mild and control groups. Also, in the case of IL-17, serum concentrations increased proportionally with the disease activity of eRA. We observe that concentrations of IL-13 and -17 did not correlate with autoantibodies. IL-17 concentration significantly positively correlated with CRP, while IL-13 concentration significantly negatively correlated with CRP. Disease activity score, DAS28, was strongly positively correlated with levels of ESR and weakly positively correlated with concentrations of anti-RA33 autoantibodies. IL-13 has a higher diagnostic utility than IL-17, CRP, ESR, IgM-RF, and anti-CCP as markers of disease activity. Conclusions. The presence of higher IL-13 and IL-17 serum levels in patients, compared with those of controls, confirms that these markers, found with high specificity, might be involved in the pathogenesis of eRA. IL-13 and IL-17 might be of better usefulness in the prediction of eRA activity status than IgM-RF and anti-CCP