Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano
- 1 February 2017
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2008Details
- Abstract
- Financial institutions are key to allocate capital to its most productive uses. In order to examine the relationship between productivity and bank credit in the context of different financial market set-ups, we introduce a model of overlapping generations of entrepreneurs under complete and incomplete credit markets. Then, we exploit firm-level data for France, Germany and Italy to explore the relation between bank credit and productivity following the main derivations of the model. We estimate an extended set of elasticities of bank credit with respect to a series of productivity measures of firms. We focus not only on the elasticity between bank credit and productivity during the same year, but also on the elasticity between credit and future realised productivity. Our estimates show a clear Eurozone core-periphery divide, the elasticities between credit and productivity estimated in France and Germany are consistent with complete markets, whereas in Italy they are consistent with incomplete markets. The implication is that in Italy firms turn to be constrained in their long-term investments and bank credit is allocated less efficiently than in France and Germany. Hence capital misallocation by banks can be a key driver of the long-standing slow productivity growth that characterises Italy and other periphery countries.
- JEL Code
- G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
G31 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Capital Budgeting, Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies, Capacity
D92 : Microeconomics→Intertemporal Choice→Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
O16 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economic Development→Financial Markets, Saving and Capital Investment, Corporate Finance and Governance - Network
- Competitiveness Research Network
- 4 January 2012
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1412Details
- Abstract
- This paper analyzes the performance of global value chains during the trade collapse. To do so, it exploits a unique transaction-level dataset on French firms containing information on cross-border monthly transactions matched with data on worldwide intrafirm linkages as defined by property rights (multinational business groups, hierarchies of firms). This newly assembled dataset allows us to distinguish firm-level transactions among two alternative organizational modes of global value chains: internalization of activities (intragroup trade/trade among related parties) or establishment of supply contracts (arm's length trade/trade among unrelated parties). After an overall assessment of the role of global value chains during the trade collapse, we document that intra-group trade in intermediates was characterized by a faster drop followed by a faster recovery than arm's length trade. Amplified fluctuations in terms of trade elasticities by value chains have been referred to as the "bullwhip effect" and have been attributed to the adjustment of inventories within supply chains. In this paper we first confirm the existence of such an effect due to trade in intermediates, and we underline the role that different organizational modes can play in driving this adjustment.
- JEL Code
- F23 : International Economics→International Factor Movements and International Business→Multinational Firms, International Business
F15 : International Economics→Trade→Economic Integration
L22 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Organization and Market Structure
- 28 December 2007
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 847Details
- Abstract
- What determines a country's ability to compete in international markets? What fosters the global competitiveness of its firms? And in the European context, have key elements of the EU strategy such as EMU and enlargement helped or hindered domestic firms' competitiveness in local and global markets? We address these questions by calibrating and simulating a conceptual framework that, based on Melitz and Ottaviano (2005), predicts that tougher and more transparent international competition drives less productive firms out the market, thereby increasing average productivity as well as reducing average prices and mark-ups. The model also predicts a parallel reduction of price dispersion within sectors. Our conceptual framework allows us to disentangle the effects of technology and freeness of entry from those of accessibility (i.e. the ease for local firms to reach local and foreign consumers). On the one hand, by controlling for the impact of trade frictions, we are able to construct an index of 'revealed competitiveness', which would drive the relative performance of countries in an ideal world in which all faced the same barriers to international transactions. On the other hand, by focusing on the role of accessibility while keeping 'revealed competitiveness' as given, we are able to evaluate the impacts of EMU and enlargement on the competitiveness of European firms. We find that EMU positively affects the competitiveness of firms located in participating economies. Enlargement has, instead, two contrasting effects. It improves the accessibility of EU members but it also increases substantially the relative importance of unproductive competitors from Eastern Europe.
- JEL Code
- F12 : International Economics→Trade→Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies, Fragmentation
R13 : Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics→General Regional Economics→General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies