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O Banco de Portugal iniciou, em 2021, um novo ciclo de planeamento estratégico. O quarto plano estratégico do Banco de Portugal 2021-2025 (PE21-25), divulgado no website institucional, define 35 prioridades/objetivos até 2025, as quais estão agregadas em cinco orientações estratégicas, cujas inter-relações e dinâmicas causais constituem a principal base do presente estudo. Neste sentido, o principal objetivo passa por desenvolver um conjunto de ações que permitam produzir recomendações de priorização dos 35 objetivos estratégicos através de uma abordagem metodológica que faz uso da técnica DEcision MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL). A presente investigação visa criar um procedimento de natureza construtivista que, com recurso à colaboração direta de um painel de decisores, permita emitir recomendações, com objetividade e substância empírica, sobre os objetivos estratégicos do Banco de Portugal e, adicionalmente, contribuir para suprir a escassez de literatura sobre o planeamento estratégico dos bancos centrais. De acordo com o objetivo principal deste estudo, os resultados da aplicação da técnica DEMATEL permitem identificar seis prioridades como fatores centrais (i.e., alta proeminência e relação), bem como apresentar uma lista hierarquizada das prioridades estratégicas do PE21-25. In 2021, Banco de Portugal started a new cycle of strategic planning. The Banco de Portugal’s fourth strategic plan (i.e., PE21-25) was published at the institutional website, and defines 35 priorities/objectives grouped into five strategic guidelines. The interrelationships and causal dynamics of those guidelines and priorities are the core of the current research. The main purpose is to develop a set of actions aiming at producing recommendations for prioritizing the 35 strategic objectives using the DEcision MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The objective is to develop a constructivist procedure that, with the direct collaboration of a panel of relevant decision makers, grants the analysis objectivity and empirical substance for making recommendations at the strategic level. Contributing to the literature on central banking strategic planning is an additional objective. The results of the DEMATEL application include the identification of six priorities as central factors (i.e., high prominence and high relation), and a hierarchical list of the PE21-25 strategic priorities analyzed, including their cause-and-effect relationships.

We challenge the dichotomy of network effects and highlight that they are not an exogenous characteristic of networks, but endogenous to the decisions of network users. When users choose which activities to perform in a network, multi-activity users transform indirect into direct network effects and a network effectively becomes one-sided if merely multi-activity users frequent it. Our work contributes to theory by determining the underlying micro-foundations that produce what the literature calls a two-sided market and by highlighting how the standard two-sided pricing results arises only under very specific conditions. We also contribute to estimation by illustrating how the presence of multi-active users can challenge identification in network industries.

Ante la transformación que ha experimentado el sector vitivinícola español, con un consumo decreciente y una orientación hacia el mercado exterior, el objeto de este trabajo es analizar cómo han reaccionado las Denominaciones de Origen Protegidas aragonesas en el periodo entre 2000 y 2017. Así pues, estudiaremos desde una perspectiva teórica la estrategia de agrupación de empresas (clusteres) y los beneficios que estas aportan a las bodegas; y posteriormente analizaremos las principales características del sector, utilizando el Paradigma Estructura-Conducta-Resultados (E-C-R), que nos permitirá conocer información sobre el número de empresas del sector, la concentración del mismo, las estrategias de conducta, la internacionalización, las ventas, los rendimientos económicos y financieros y el endeudamiento. Considering the transformation that the Spanish wine sector must have faced –a decreasing wine consumption and targeting towards the foreign market– the purpose of this work is to analyze how the Aragonese Protected Designations of Origin have reacted between 1995 and 2017. Thus, we will study –from a theoretical perspective– the strategy of agglomeration (clusters) and the benefits that these techniques bring to the wineries; subsequently we will address the main characteristics of the sector, using the StructureConduct-Performance Paradigm (SCP), which will provide us with information about the number of companies in the sector, its concentration ratio, behavior strategies, internationalization, sales, economic and financial rates of returns and indebtedness.

Today’s enterprises are becoming more and more socially active. In some respects, they are starting to resemble third-sector organizations. In the context of progressive isomorphism, the issue of organizational identity deserves attention. Identity is based, among others, on organizational mission and values, whose management requires the shaping of coherent links between these components, as well as actual efforts and their communication. Modern enterprises are markedly fond of using electronic media, including corporate websites, to communicate with the audience. The purpose of the article is to determine the prevalence of different types of missions and values among the largest enterprises located in Poland, especially those related to CSR, as well as to identify the relationship between their declared CSR missions and values and the presentation of selected corporate social activities on their corporate websites. It was found that two-thirds of the analyzed companies posted missions on their corporate websites. In most cases they declared focus on costumers, and less often - product superiority, innovation, or responsibility. Less than half of the companies presented organizational values through their websites. Those which prevailed are: professional, ethical, relational, and describing attitudes towards the environment. The analysis shows that every second analyzed company presented missions and values that referred to issues related to social responsibility. Enterprises that included references to responsibility towards the environment in their mission communicated only some of the corporate social activities. It was different in the case of enterprises which pointed to the importance of societal values among the declared values. Such organizations more often pursued CSR activities and communicated them. Therefore, it can be conclude that a better predictor of the effects of identity management in the area of CSR was the declaration of values related to social responsibility.

The purpose of this study is to present a unique database on commercialized patents and to illustrate how it can be used to analyze the commercialization process of patents. The dataset is based on a survey of Swedish patents owned by inventors and small firms with a remarkably high response rate of 80 percent. It contains some key variables on commercialization not found anywhere else, including whether, when and how (acquisition, licensing, existing or new firm) patents were commercialized as well as whether this commercialization was profitable or not. Thus, this patent database measures technological innovation. The dataset is complemented with indicators of patent quality (patent renewal, forward citations, and patent family) from archive sources. Basic statistics for the key variables are described. Finally, the scientific output in terms of published articles in peer-reviewed journals shows how this database can be used to analyze the commercialization process of patents. The dataset has, for instance, been used to 1) evaluate government loan programs for inventors; 2) analyze the different roles of the inventor and the Schumpeterian entrepreneur during commercialization; 3) estimate the transfer of tacit knowledge when patents are sold or licensed; and 4) analyze the entry strategy among inventors in oligopolistic markets.

Within the policy debate, there is a fear that large incumbent firms buy small firms' inventions to ensure that they are not used in the market. We show that such "acquisitions for sleep" can occur if and only if the quality of a process invention is small; otherwise, the entry profit will be higher than the entry-deterring value. We then show that the incentive for acquiring for the purpose of putting a patent to sleep decreases when the intellectual property law is stricter because the profit for the entrant then increases more than the entry-deterring value does.

On average, small business support projects appear to improve beneficiary sales, and the growth effect is obvious when supporting young or growing firms. However, the effect is largely offset by sales reductions due to overcrowding. Small business support projects must be operated in two ways to alleviate the overcrowding of businesses in a few industries and to enhance the overall effectiveness of the support programs.

This study elucidates the mixed gamble confronting family firms when considering a related firm acquisition. The socioemotional and financial wealth trade-off associated with related firm acquisitions as well as their long-term horizon turns family firms more likely to undertake a related acquisition than non-family firms, especially when they are performing above their aspiration level. Post-merger performance pattern confirm that family firms are able to create long-term value through these acquisitions and by doing so they surpass non-family firms. These findings stand in contrast to commonly used behavioural agency predictions, but can be reconciled with theory through a mixed gambles' lens.

We study the nature of peer effects in the market for new cell phones. Our analysis builds on de-identified data from Facebook that combine information on social networks with information on users’ cell phone models. To identify peer effects, we use variation in friends’ new phone acquisitions resulting from random phone losses and carrier-specific contract terms. A new phone purchase by a friend has a substantial positive and long-term effect on an individual’s own demand for phones of the same brand, most of which is concentrated on the particular model purchased by the friend. We provide evidence that social learning contributes substantially to the observed peer effects. While peer effects increase the overall demand for cell phones, a friend’s purchase of a new phone of a particular brand can reduce individuals’ own demand for phones from competing brands—in particular those running on a different operating system. We discuss the implications of these findings for the nature of firm competition. We also find that stronger peer effects are exerted by more price-sensitive individuals. This positive correlation suggests that the elasticity of aggregate demand is substantially larger than the elasticity of individual demand. Through this channel, peer effects reduce firms’ markups and, in many models, contribute to higher consumer surplus and more efficient resource allocation.

International audience; Amid increasing interest in firm age and its effects on firm performance, this special issue offers an exhaustive review of the literature and a novel collection of evidence on the effects of firm age on performance, including a special focus of interest on innovation performance, financial performance, exports, survival and growth. This editorial positions the theme in the extant literature, and provides key definitions and challenges ahead in the field of evolutionary economics. It introduces the collection of articles composing the special issue. The papers offer a diversity of country contexts, as well as analytical approaches and methods. They include an exhaustive review of the literature on age and firms’ performance, and present original empirical studies focusing on the effects of age on firms’ economic outcomes on the one hand, and on innovation outcomes on the other hand. While most of the papers use econometric analysis, the level of analysis ranges from firm to individual.

International audience; This article investigates the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and innovation for firms of different ages. We blend data drawn from the ISS RiskMetrics and the Bureau van Dijk Orbis databases to perform micro-econometric analyses on a sample of 2200 listed firms. We show that CG may decrease research and development for all firms and that, more importantly, it has a significant and negative effect on the patenting strategy of the younger firms. Our results are consistent with the CG life cycle view, according to which young companies tend to privilege short-termism and value preservation rather than long-term risky innovation strategies. What shown and discussed in this contribution supports the proposition that firm age matters in how CG may alter innovation.

This introductory paper opens the Special Issue on "Clusters, Industrial Districts and Strategy", based on the debate and comments arisen during the 2016 Conference on Clustering. After some brief notes on the need and the intended scope from a multidisciplinary approach (Regional Science, Economic Geography, Sociology and Business Management), we argue why the knowledge of the context is increasingly relevant for competing successfully in the global marketplace, since context-firm’s strategy is a two-way relationship. Cooperative efforts in the forms of clusters, industrial districts or agglomerations can spontaneously arise from a dense population of firms belonging to multiple industries or to the same and related industries along with public actors, or they can be a deliberative, planned and managed effort, which will require the intervention of a governance mode. Whatever the choice is, the result is not always the same. Accordingly, and in light of the pervading differences found across literature and papers presented in this Special Issue, it seems plausible that clustering can be idiosyncratic to the location. Further efforts should be devoted to find contingent recipes for fostering competitiveness in light of the context and the firms collaborating. At the end, we introduce the nine papers of this Special Issue, while encourage scholars to continue this academic conversation., Este artículo abre el Número Especial sobre "Clusters, Distritos Industriales y Estrategia", y está basado en el debate y comentarios recogidos durante la celebración del Congreso Clustering-2016. Tras unas notas breves sobre la necesidad y el alcance pretendido con este Número Especial y desde una aproximación multidisciplinar (Ciencia Regional, Geografía Económica, Sociología, Dirección de Empresas), argumentamos por qué el conocimiento del contexto es cada vez más relevante para competir con éxito en el mercado global, ya que el contextoestrategia de la empresa es una relación de doble sentido. Los esfuerzos cooperativos bajo la forma de clusters, distritos industriales o aglomeraciones pueden o bien surgir de manera espontánea a partir de una alta densidad de empresas que pertenecen a múltiples industrias o a la misma y relacionadas, conjuntamente con actores públicos, o bien pueden ser el fruto de un esfuerzo deliberativo, planeado y dirigido, lo cual necesitará la intervención de una forma de gobernanza. Sea cual sea la elección, el resultado no es siempre el mismo. Por consiguiente, y a la vista de las diferencias encontradas de manera extensiva en la literatura y los artículos de este Número Especial, parece plausible que el trabajo en red "clustering" pueda ser idiosincrático de la localización. Se deben dedicar más esfuerzos investigadores a encontrar recetas contingentes que promuevan la competitividad en función del contexto y cómo las empresas colaboran. Finalmente, presentamos los nueve artículos de este Número Especial, a la vez que animamos a los estudiosos para continuar esta conversación académica.

This paper investigates whether firms' exports of different products within a market are systematically interconnected. Using high-quality Swedish firm-registry data from 1997-2011, I first document that the distribution of firm export sales is skewed towards their best performing products ('superstars'). I then use a novel instrumental variable approach to identify if the 'superstar' products induce more trade of non-superstar products. I find evidence that the exports of low-ranked (non-star) products of a firm are contingent on the exports of a single superstar product to each destination. Extending the 'superstar' concept to a 'superstar core' of products strengthens this result. Hence, I find that the exports of non-star products complements the superstar(s) while conversely, the same complementarity is not found using low-ranked products as placebo-superstars. The main contributions of this paper is identifying a new, sizeable and systematic intra-firm-destination one-way demand driven complementarity between products that can explain export sales variation within a market. Ignoring this pattern of between product dependency may lead to an over-emphasis on product scope as products should not be viewed in isolation.

The aggregate labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined dramatically over the last three decades: Since the mid-1980’s, the compensation for labor declined from 67% to 47% of value added which is unseen in any other sector of the U.S. economy. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing plants, in contrast, rose by over 5 percentage points. We reconcile these two facts by documenting (1) an important reallocation of production towards “hyper-productive plants” and (2) a downward adjustment of the labor share of those same plants over time. These two related forces account for almost all the change in the trend of aggregate labor share in the manufacturing sector, with only a small role for exit of high-labor-share plants. Relative to their peers, plants that account for the majority of production by the late 2000's arrive at a low labor share by gradually increasing value added by a factor of three while keeping employment and compensation unchanged.

This study estimates a dynamic discrete choice model to analyze the effect of switching costs on firm market power. Given the presence of switching costs for consumers in the market for disposable diapers, I show how firms apply dynamic strategies to a market for differentiated products and in a context of vertical retailer-manufacturer relationships. My findings support the existence of state dependence in consumer demand. Furthermore, I show that the firm profits would be higher in a counterfactual scenario of no switching costs.

The aim of this paper is to specify how ubiquitous use of the Internet can influence the intensity of competition and explain the reasons for different opinions that exist in this respect. The study is carried out on the basis of the Porter`s five forces analysis. The critical review of existing research on this issue has been done and conclusions from the observation of changes in the contemporary economic environment added. Possible ways in which the Internet has an impact on not only the rise, but mainly fall in intensity of competition have been pointed out. The key causes of ambiguous views suggested in the literature have been identified and the need of finding new tools for competition research in the Internet economy conditions explained. Celem artykułu jest wyszczególnienie sposobów wpływu powszechnego wykorzystania Internetu na intensywność konkurencji oraz wyjaśnienie przyczyn istniejących rozbieżności i sprzecznych poglądów dotyczących oddziaływania globalnej sieci na zmiany konkurencji. Jako narzędzie analityczne wykorzystano koncepcję pięciu sił konkurencji Portera. Dokonano krytycznego przeglądu dotychczasowych badań i uzupełniono go o wnioski wynikające z obserwacji zmian zachodzących we współczesnym środowisku gospodarczym. Na podstawie przeprowadzonej analizy wskazano wielokierunkowe sposoby oddziaływania Internetu na konkurencję w poszczególnych obszarach. Zidentyfikowano także główne przyczyny zróżnicowania opinii występujących w literaturze oraz uzasadniono potrzebę opracowania nowych narzędzi badań konkurencji w warunkach gospodarki internetowej. Publikacja dofinansowana z projektu: „Popularyzacja najnowszej wiedzy ekonomicznej wśród ludzi młodych” realizowanego z Narodowym Bankiem Polskim w ramach programu edukacji ekonomicznej.

Merger value is frequently evaluated in single market contexts without considering possible gains stemming from firms' multimarket presence. This study concentrates on the question through which channels, and of which magnitude, mergers among multimarket firms create incremental value. We establish a simple theoretical model that determines merger value in a multimarket firm environment. The model enables us to derive merger values as being independent of post-merger market shares, but rather dependent on pre-merger market shares. We test our hypotheses using a comprehensive dataset that encompasses information on mergers and firm-level multimarket production and innovation within the semiconductor industry. Using the pairwise stable equilibrium concept, we estimate firms' structural value functions. Our results show that multimarket effects contribute, on average, 20% of the total merger value added. Moreover, we find that multimarket efficiency gains dominate multimarket power effects by contributing majority of the value added. We also find that our estimated merger values are well aligned with the merging firms' post-merger stock market performance.

This article explores the dynamics of market selection by investigating of the relationships linking productivity, profitability, investment and growth, based on China's manufacturing firm-level dataset over the period 1998 - 2007. First, we find that productivity variations, rather than relative levels, are the dominant productivity-related determinant of firm growth, and account for 15% - 20% of the variance in firms' growth rates. The direct relation between profitability and firm growth is much weaker as it contributes for less than 5% to explain the different patterns of firm growth. On the other hand, the profitability-growth relationship is mediated via investment. Firm's contemporaneous and lagged profitabilities display positive and significant effect on the probability to report an investment spike, and, in turn, investment activity is related to higher firm growth.

This paper investigates the impact of eco-innovation on firms’ growth processes, with a special focus on gazelles, i.e. firms’ showing higher growth rates than the average. In a context shaped by more and more stringent environmental regulatory frameworks, we posit that inducement mechanisms stimulate the adoption of green technologies, increasing the derived demand for technologies produced by upstream firms supplying eco-innovations. For these reason we expect the generation of green technologies to trigger sales growth. We use firm-level data drawn from the Bureau van Dijk Database, coupled with patent information obtained from the OECD Science and Technology Indicators. The results confirm that eco-innovations are likely to augment the effects of generic innovation on firms’ growth, and this is particularly true for gazelles, which actually appear to run faster than the others.