The case study describes about energy systems. Baxi Technologies, part of the Baxi Group, one of Europe's leading heating and home comfort specialists with a turnover of £670 million. Baxi has formed a strategic partnership with the University to develop new technologies at the cutting-edge of energy efficiency. The Partnership...
The authors have analysed the relationship between the international trade of services and the employment behaviour of firms. Using a new dataset which measures trade in services at the firm-level, no evidence that importing intermediate services is associated with job losses was found. Using regression and propensity score matching techniques,...
The literature on firm exporting behaviour has established that both sunk-cost of exports and firm characteristics, such as size and productivity matter. In this paper we provide fresh evidence on the actual barriers to exporting firms face and how they vary with export experience and other firm-level characteristics. Our results...
Each year around 8 per cent of Swedish manufacturing firms leave an industry. Of the exit routes available, the least likely is firm closure. Firms are more likely to merge, become acquired or switch to a new industry. We investigate the importance of various firm and industry characteristics for the...
We analyze how global economic integration of factor markets affects the stability of the macro economy, with respect to expectations-driven fluctuations, when countries differ in their labour market institutions. It is shown that, due to the occurrence of equilibrium indeterminacy, liberalization of capital movements is likely to be accompanied by...
Nowadays literature on firm exporting behaviour has pointed out to sunk-cost as key determinant of export behaviour yet little insight into what they include or how they vary with experience. In this paper we provide fresh evidence on the barriers to exporting and the role of export experience and other...
This paper explains the human factors requirements of mobile phones in order to facilitate inclusive design and provide older users with technological support that enhances their day-to-day lives. Particular emphasis is placed on whether human factors requirements are fully considered and meet the needs of older users. The scope of...
The authors study vertical integration and product innovation as interdependent strategic choices of vertically related firms. Product differentiation in the downstream market is considered as a strategic device of downstream firms facing a threat of vertical integration and market foreclosure by an upstream monopolist. The main finding is that, although...
Financial constraints have been found to play an important role on various aspects of firm behavior. Yet, their effects on firm survival have been largely neglected. We use a panel of 9420 newly established UK firms over the period 1997-2002 to study the effects of financial variables on firms' failure...
Economic theory suggests some ambiguity concerning the effects of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights IPRs on international trade. Here the empirical literature is extended that attempts to resolve this ambiguity. Panel data is used to estimate a gravity equation for manufacturing exports, in aggregate and by industry, from five advanced countries...
Single-source, or noncompetitive, defence procurement is a widespread phenomenon that is prevalent in both developing countries and in advanced arms exporting countries. The usual competitive bidding process - which assists in both value-for-money evaluation and in lowering corruption risk is often circumvented with regards to defence. Whilst there can...
The aim of this paper is to model the impact of R&D spending on the entire productivity distribution. This is relevant since a vast empirical literature has ascertained that firms are greatly heterogeneous with respect to productivity even in narrowly defined industries. Therefore it is important to investigate how R&D...
Single-source, or noncompetitive, defence procurement is a widespread phenomenon that is prevalent in both developing countries and in advanced arms exporting countries. The usual competitive bidding process - which assists in both value-for-money evaluation and in lowering corruption risk is often circumvented with regards to defence. Whilst there can...
There have been numerous studies of the impact of investment in Information Technology IT on manufacturing productivity (e.g., Brynjolfsson and Hitt (1996)) and Morrison (1997)), but little evidence on this relationship in services. The authors have attempted to fill this gap, by analyzing the impact of IT on the relative...
The substantial within-industry variation in firm productivity typically observed in the data suggests that there is ample scope for productivity catch-up by laggard firms. We analyse the normative effects of such catch-up. In the short run, where firms' process technologies are fixed, catch-up can reduce social welfare if the initial...
This paper explains a mobile ad hoc networking approach to detecting and querying events related to farm animals such as oestrus, animal diseases and decreased efficiency of pastures. This problem is essential because inattention to the health or welfare of the animals can lead to reduced productivity and death of...
The paper compares the performances of uniform price auctions with fixed price offerings using laboratory experiments. In the uniform treatment, there is no evidence that the tacit collusion equilibria, which predict symmetric behaviors among bidders, have been achieved. On the contrary, in accordance with another set of equilibria, subjects with...
In this paper we extend the Melitz (2003) heterogeneous firm trade model to include differences in country sizes and production technologies. We begin by characterising a "Superior" technology, in terms of both survival cutoffs and representative firm productivity, and then examine a costly trading equilibrium between a leading and laggard...
A new and rapidly expanding literature on firm heterogeneity and firm level globalisation strategies has developed over the last decade. New insights on why some firms export and others do not, why some firms fail to survive in export markets, whilst others do and why some choose to produce overseas...
Foreign-owned firms exhibit widely-documented productivity advantages over domestic firms. To interpret this stylized fact, we model the relationships between FDI flows and national productivity distributions across firms in an international oligopoly. Industrial structure is determined endogenously, and both greenfield- and acquisition-FDI are allowed for. The technology gap between firms interacts...
