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Many electricity markets in the world have experienced the vertical unbundling where the generation and transmission sectors were separated from a vertically-integrated monopolistic power company. This restructuring could positively impact the productivity of the firms because of intensified competition and enhanced autonomy but could also negatively affect the productivity because of the loss of synergy and scaled economy. By exploiting the vertical unbundling that took place in China in 2003, this study finds that vertical unbundling increased the labor use of the generation firms and the material use of the transmission firms. Additional investigation reveals that generation firms suffer from an efficiency loss in labor use due to the loss of coordination after vertical unbundling and the transmission firms face an increased transaction cost in acquiring material and bear the additional cost transferred from the efficiency loss of the upstream generation firms. Our findings suggest that benefits of vertical unbundling relative to integration critically hinge on the market structure of the industry.

This paper examines the impact of ICT-based extension services on farmers’ adoption of a new agricultural technology (Bradyrhizobium inoculant), knowledge gain on the new technology, yields and net...

The trading market of carbon emission permits is not only an effective tool for tackling climate change, but it also reinforces the connection between carbon and energy markets by risk transmission...

This article investigates the impact of cost difference on vertical collusion between a container port and a liner from the perspective of a shipping container transport chain, taking the deregulat...

In this article, I empirically examine whether the performance of a chain-affiliated establishment is affected by its organizational form. Using cross-sectional data on the movie theater industry, I find evidence that performance is higher in a company-owned theater than in a franchised one, mainly due to the higher quality of its equipment. This finding and the observation that the share of franchised theaters falls over time in this industry are consistent with the implications of the capital constraint argument for franchising. I also find that company-owned theaters set prices higher than franchised ones, implying that consumer benefit from watching movies in a better-equipped theater exceeds the cost of higher prices.

Using Chinese provincial data from 2000 to 2016, this paper investigates the effect of informal environmental regulation (IER) on industrial structure upgrading. We find that IER in the form of env...

Focusing on supporting the new and high-tech industries, China’s high- and new-technology enterprise (HNTE) programme aims to stimulate the innovation and creativity of enterprises. Centering on Ch...

Labour productivity growth in manufacturing is decomposed into technical efficiency change (movement towards or away from the frontier), technological progress (shifts in the production fro...

This paper analyzes the quality disclosure when firms simultaneously choose the quantities of products to be produced. By assuming that each firm is privately informed about the quality of its own ...

This study explores organization capital and its spillover effects among Chinese manufacturing firms. By linking patent data with China’s annual survey of industrial enterprises database, we examin...

The extant literature recognize that social relations and networks strengthen corporate innovation, but the contribution of the top management teams and the channel of social status and network loc...

This paper examines the relationship between the productivity of parent firms and the scale of their subsidiaries in foreign markets. The empirical exam is based on a large sample of firms from 32 ...

Innovation activity is commonly regarded as one prerequisite for the competitiveness of food manufacturers. However, new product introductions typically face a high failure rate, which frequently d...

As one of the industries that have been developing fast in the last few decades, it is found that the Chinese military industry presents a rapid growth in production market, while an opposite one i...

The economic role of the construction industries has changed across countries in the past decades with rapid economic growth. This research investigates the economic role of multinational construct...

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of working capital management (WCM) and the market environment (ME) on corporate performance in the context of China’s economy with firms classified...

The functional activities, such as management, marketing, R&D and fabrication, carried out by a country or industry is of great importance for its governance and upgrading on the global value chain...

In this study, we explore the relationship between financial structure and the efficiency of capital allocation to determine a scientific and effective approach to transform and upgrade China’s fin...

Despite a rich literature on the determinants of automobile pricing, there is relatively little formal evidence regarding the effects of spatial intrabrand competition in auto retailing. Using an e...

In this paper, we examine the economic impact of information and communication technology (ICT) innovation, within a general equilibrium framework of empirically estimated constant-elasticity-of-su...

Identifying the factors affecting profitability is important from the perspective of market players. One of the most important benchmarks of firm performance is accounting profit and effective fact...

Due to the worldwide pandemic and ‘Stay at Home’ order, many firms have experienced challenges for supply chain management. As the key parts of supply chain management, customer concentration may h...

The Chilean wine industry has been quite innovative in terms of winemaking and trading. Yet, to survive in this competitive industry, wine managers should be aware of the relevance of monitoring th...

The aim of this paper is to highlight the determinants of environmental innovation of manufacturing firms in European Transition countries. Following an established literature, the analysis relies ...

This paper applies the incomplete contracts model to study an optimal banking structure corresponding to different levels of technological development from the perspective of technological innovati...

This study aims to investigate the impact of research and development (R&D) investment on the operational performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 2013 to 2017. The findings sh...

This paper investigates the impact of customer concentration on a supplier firm’s over-investment behaviour. Based on a large sample analysis on the US market, we find that a supplier firm with hig...

Our main purpose is to investigate the dynamic control problem of a monopolist’s product and process innovation under reference quality. The main features of this article are: (i) a monopolist deal...

Aimed at improving innovation capacity and upgrading technology of manufacturing industry, ‘China Manufacturing 2025’ (CM2025), which relies on selective industrial policies, has attracted great at...

We analyse the impact of technological diversity on innovation performance in the discovery stage, measured by R&D intensity and patent applications, and in the commercialization stage, mea...

This paper provides an empirical framework to assess the nonlinear complementary linkage effects that arise from the interaction between motorway capital and information and communications ...

This article studies how store format choices and market concentration affect agglomeration economies and competition among chain stores. Using data on supermarket chains in Arizona, Georgia and Il...

This study examines effects of packers’ inventory and market power on their price adjustment behaviour in the U.S. beef industry. Econometric model used in the study allows inventory and market pow...

International audience; A growing body of literature argues that improving energy efficiency is an essential step that firms must take to mitigate climate change issues. It is assumed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general plays a prominent role in firms’ policies, and this paper specifically investigates the effects of the individual CSR dimensions on SMEs’ energy efficiency improvement. Based on data from a sample of 146 thousand SMEs, and using logit model, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, the study reveals that high activities in social, environmental and economic CSR dimensions are associated with high energy efficiency. Specifically, the environmental CSR dimension has the highest contribution to improving energy efficiency. Furthermore, this study indicates that energy efficiency improvement can be achieved by large SMEs provided they have developed simultaneously the environmental, social, and economic CSR dimensions. In doing so, this study answers to recent calls for more research on CSR-energy efficiency relationship and addresses with greater precision why it matters to relate the role of the CSR dimensions and energy efficiency. Furthermore, this study can be of value to policymakers who are called to promote CSR practices of SMEs in order to foster their energy efficiency.

In this paper, we use univariate instrumental estimations to study the interactions between firm-level innovation, exports and productivity in the Indian manufacturing sector. To differentiate ince...

Trade policy barriers and high transaction costs hinder developing countries from taking the full advantages of the global trading system. In order to help developing countries overcome the problem...

This article evaluates the impact of credit constraints on the performance of Chinese agricultural wholesalers. We estimate a stochastic frontier function using transaction and credit data of agric...

This study estimates the willingness to pay of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for a business online banking services. The estimation utilizes a contingent valuation method employing data from 400 SMEs in the United Arab Emirates free zones. An interval regression model is used to identify company characteristics affecting WTP. The results indicate an average WTP for online banking of $518.50 per month. Firms engaging in international trade value these services at least 10% more than those with only domestic operations. Other variables that significantly affect WTP include number of employees and the transportation cost of using traditional branch banking.

The banking systems of emerging economies in general and India in particular are facing sustained impairment due to mounting non-performing assets (NPAs). In the absence of stringent policies and t...

China’s civil aviation transportation industry is a natural monopoly industry field, and the effect of administrative monopoly is obviously. This paper uses absolute market concentration (CRn) and ...

The purpose of this study is to construct a two-stage effective and innovative going concern prediction model to predict going concern doubt for the sustainability of enterprises and capital market...

Using a balanced panel of manufacturing firms from China between 2007 and 2013, we estimate that being connected to a high-speed rail (HSR) system leads to 9.5% reduction in local firms’ input inve...

It is normal for enterprises to engage in remanufacturing nowadays. Nevertheless, the concern of enterprises and researchers is whether remanufacturers should compete for leadership in supply chain...

This study aims to investigate the impact of competition on determinants of allocative, scope and cost efficiencies of Indian scheduled commercial banks (SCBs). Specifically, the study, analyzes th...

This article examines how quality affects heterogeneous multiple-product firms’ exporting behaviours. We develop a structural model of the global movie market, including both consumers’ mov...

A fundamental policy in European broadband regulation is unbundled access to the local loop of the incumbent telephone company. We present comparative static results that show as the access price decreases, the retail price decreases, the variety of plans offered by Internet service providers increases and the quantity of each variety increases when a threshold condition is met. Using data from 18 European countries from 2006 to 2012, we find empirical support for these results when Internet product variety is measured by variation in download speeds.

In this article, we explore how smart beta strategies are applied in the Chinese A-share market. Specifically, we empirically examine several popular smart beta strategies, including mean-variance ...

This study comprises a comparative examination of the effects of innovation support programmes’ spend on innovative activities in small, medium and large Brazilian firms. The econometric methodolog...

We investigate firm heterogeneity in productivity sources across technology sectors for Japanese manufacturers. Firm heterogeneity in productivity sources conveys more information about firm-specif...

The impacts of simultaneous disruption of demand and cost on pricing, production and coordination of a dual-channel supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer are examined. First, coordina...