Search

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of Walmart's entry on the survival of new and small retail businesses within non‐metropolitan areas in the province of Quebec. To do so, the study covers the years 1999–2007 and focuses on four non‐metropolitan cities. These include two Walmart entry cities, Rimouski and Salaberry‐de‐Valleyfield, and two other cities, where no Walmart was present during the study period, La Pocatière and Sorel‐Tracy. The results of a difference‐in‐differences analysis, conducted through a semi‐parametric Cox proportional hazards model, reveal that the entry of Walmart decreases the risk of closure of the new and small retail businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presents original evidence on the characteristic features and innovation activities of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Based on a wide-scale survey of 1,124 KIBS firms in Quebec (Canada), we explore empirically the extent to which KIBS from various sectors and regions differ in their characteristics and their uses of innovation practices. The results from the sectoral analysis reveal that KIBS display different characteristic features and innovation behaviours across sectors, thus suggesting that inter-sectoral differences are important when explaining innovation activities in KIBS. The comparison between KIBS in large, medium, central, and resource regions shows that the characteristic features and the innovativeness of KIBS are rather similar, and little or no significant statistical differences were found between the different regions in the province of Quebec. Thus, overall, the results of our study seem to suggest that a location does not tend to make a difference in respect to characteristic features and innovation performance of KIBS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the economic impact of an identical demand shock on Montreal and Quebec City in Quebec. Models used in the study; Experiment conducted to study the differential impacts of a given shock on the areas; Results of the study; Structural explanations on the difference of the areas.