Farm size and use of inputs: explanations for the inverse productivity relationship

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-354
Author(s):  
Shen Cheng ◽  
Zhihao Zheng ◽  
Shida Henneberry
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Land Productivity ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Demand Models ◽  
Labor Inputs ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The relationship between farm size and land productivity is a hotly debated issue in the study of agricultural economics and development economics. The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes leading to the inverse productivity relationship by examining the relationship between farm size and factor inputs. Design/methodology/approach With a large panel data set of farm households in China during 2010–2011, this study uses the factor demand models to examine the relationship between farm size and per-mu labor and non-labor inputs while employing a stochastic frontier production function in determining the difference of labor efforts in farming operation across farm sizes. Moreover, the models for value-added margins and profits are used to further determine producer behavior of small-size farms. Findings Results of this study show that, as compared to larger farms, smaller farms not only utilize more labor and non-labor inputs per mu, but also benefit from a higher labor effort. Moreover, smaller farms concentrate more on grain output and cash costs while focusing less on the family labor input costs in an effort to maximize value-added margins rather than profits. The higher yields on smaller farms are thus a result of the utilization of a relatively higher level of labor and non-labor inputs along with skilled-oriented precision farming technology. The inverse productivity relationship is explained by the behavior of small-size producers with employment constraints, leading to smaller farms generating a higher yield than larger farms. Originality/value While Sen (1966), Feder (1985), Eswaran and Kotwal (1986) and others have theoretically derived the causal relationship between the incomplete factor markets, especially incomplete labor markets, and the inverse productivity, empirical studies to test the causal relationships are limited. In particular, a solid foundation based on an empirical analysis is lacking when it comes to explaining the inverse productivity in China. Results of this study are expected to have significant policy implications in terms of the understanding of small-size producer behavior and the associated mechanism underlying the inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity.

Does intellectual capital impact firms' capital structure? Exploring the role of firm risk and profitability

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D'Amato
Keyword(s):  
Capital Structure ◽  
Intellectual Capital ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Firm Risk ◽  
Financial Leverage ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Firm Profitability ◽  
The Relationship

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between intellectual capital and firm capital structure by exploring whether firm profitability and risk are drivers of this relationship.Design/methodology/approachBased on a comprehensive data set of Italian firms over the 2008–2017 period, this paper examines whether intellectual capital affects firm financial leverage. Moreover, it analyzes whether firm profitability and risk mediate the abovementioned relationship. Financial leverage is measured by the debt/equity ratio. Intellectual capital is measured via the value-added intellectual coefficient approach.FindingsThe findings show that firms with a high level of intellectual capital have lower financial leverage and are more profitable and riskier than firms with a low level of intellectual capital. Furthermore, this study finds that firm profitability and risk mediate the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage. Thus, the higher profitability and risk of intellectual capital-intensive firms help explain their lower financial leverage.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings have several implications. From a theoretical standpoint, the paper presents and tests a mediating model of the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage and its underlying processes. In terms of the more general managerial implications, the results provide managers with a clear interpretation of the relationship between intellectual capital and financial leverage and point to the need to strengthen the capital structure of intangible-intensive firms.Originality/valueThrough a mediation framework, this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between intellectual capital and firm financial leverage by exploring the underlying mechanisms behind that relationship, which is a novel approach in the literature.

scholarly journals Tourism and social media in the world: an empirical investigation

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 1319-1331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simplice Asongu ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Development Outcomes ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between tourism and social media from a cross section of 138 countries with data for the year 2012. Design/methodology/approach The empirical evidence is based on Ordinary Least Squares, Negative Binomial and Quantile Regressions. Findings Two main findings are established. First, there is a positive relationship between Facebook penetration and the number of tourist arrivals. Second, Facebook penetration is more relevant in promoting tourist arrivals in countries where initial levels in tourist arrivals are the highest and low. The established positive relationship can be elucidated from four principal angles: the transformation of travel research, the rise in social sharing, improvements in customer service and the reshaping of travel agencies. Originality/value This study explores a new data set on social media. There are very few empirical studies on the relevance of social media in development outcomes.

scholarly journals On financial development and economic growth in Egypt

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Mohieldin ◽  
Khaled Hussein ◽  
Ahmed Rostom
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Time Series Modelling ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Real Growth ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose This paper aims to discuss the evolution of the Egyptian banking sector and the main trends in financial development in Egypt. The purpose of this study is to examine empirically the relationship between the development of the financial sector and economic growth in Egypt between 1980 and 2016. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws comparisons based on critical financial indicators between Egypt and selected emerging markets and developing economies. It uses a new data set of financial development indexes released by the International Monetary Fund. This paper uses econometric time series modelling of bivariate regressions for real growth per capita and measures of financial development to assess the relationship between financial development and economic growth in Egypt. Findings There are three specific findings based on the empirical analysis. First, there is a strong association between real growth per capita and financial development measured by money supply to GDP. Second, access to and the efficiency of banking services are not associated with real per capita income. Third, the Financial Markets Access Index – which compiles data on market capitalization outside of the top ten largest companies and the number of corporate issuers of debt – indicates a robust association with real per capita GDP. Originality/value The paper uses advanced empirical investigation techniques and new data sets available to assess the critical relationship between finance and growth in Egypt. The main policy implications of the empirical results of this paper suggest a stronger focus on promoting a more proactive role for the financial services industry in Egypt. In particular, there is a critical role for bank financing to support the private sector to maintain an inclusive growth momentum. Further development of the capital market will promote sustainability of such economic growth.

Does a meaningful relationship exist between copper prices and economic growth in Zambia?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney Chikalipah
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Bayesian Model Averaging ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Model Averaging ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Metal Exchange ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Heritage Foundation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the causal relationship between the copper price dynamics and economic growth in Zambia over the period from 1995 to 2015.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a data set assembled from five difference sources: the heritage foundation; the London metal exchange index; the Penn World Tables version 9.0; the total economy database; and the World Bank Development Indicators. The paper employs the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) approach as the estimation technique.FindingsThe estimates demonstrate that there exists a positive and significant relationship between movements in copper prices and economic growth in Zambia. The study draws policy implications from these findings.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to the period from 1995 to 2015, this is due to lack of data on the country’s institutional indicators, trade openness and the real exchange rate.Practical implicationsThere have been calls to diversify the economy of Zambia due to the recurring chaotic events, which are often induced by over-dependence on copper exports. Thus, the study findings will be useful to academia, policy makers and stakeholders with vested interest in the economy of Zambia.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study to investigate the causal relationship that exists between copper prices and economic growth in Zambia. The existing empirical studies in the domain have devoted their attention on establishing the relationship between commodity price movements and exchange rates in Zambia.

Corruption and firm-level productivity: greasing or sanding effect?

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Bbaale ◽  
Ibrahim Mike Okumu
Keyword(s):  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Red Tape ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Corruption was ranked among the top five biggest obstacles affecting the operation of enterprises in Africa and was rated as a severe obstacle by close to 40 percent of firms in the sample. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corruption and firm level productivity. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the Enterprise Survey Data Set of the World Bank and employs an instrumental variable (IV) approach to deal with the potential endogeneity of corruption in a productivity equation. The authors use industry-country averages of the bribe tax and time tax as well as a dummy of female ownership as IVs. Findings Using three different measures of corruption, the authors find evidence that corruption “sands the wheels of commerce” and hence dampens firm-level productivity even when the endogeneity of corruption is controlled for. The authors find no evidence to support the trade-off between bribe payments and the red tape suggesting that government officials deliberately use bureaucracy as a mechanism of trapping the most productive firms that can afford to pay higher bribes. Hence this study lends no support to the “greasing” hypothesis. Practical implications The results thus suggest that in the second best choice environment firms are still not better off paying bribes rather mitigating corruption could be ideal. Therefore alongside existing regulatory corruption mitigants in the respective African countries, the paper suggests that government through public information dissemination ought to enlighten firms that corruption is not productivity enhancing. Thus firms are better-off evading corruption tendencies than propagating them. Originality/value The contribution to empirical literature is that much of the empirical studies have overly concentrated on Europe and Asia and with very limited evidence available for African countries. Therefore in terms of extending the work of McAuthar and Teal (2002) and Fisman and Svensson (2007), the authors argue that by using a new data set stretching from 2006 to as recent as 2017 the paper is rightly placed to make an empirical contribution about the relationship between corruption and firm-level productivity.

Effects of human capital on the relationship between export and firm innovation

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangqiang Liu ◽  
Lirang Pang ◽  
Dongmin Kong
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Least Squares Method ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Firm Innovation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose This study aims to examine the effects of human capital, such as top managers and employees, on the relationship between export and firm innovation. Although the issue of how firms remain creative and competitive in international markets is important both in practice and in research, little attention has been devoted to the internal mechanism through which export affects innovation. Design/methodology/approach Using a hand-collected data set of human capital on the overseas experiences of managers and educational levels of employees as the basis, this study utilizes Chinese A-share listed firms from 2006 to 2015 to test the research questions through regression analyses. Findings First, export significantly enhances firm innovation. Second, different types of human capital exhibit different moderating and mediating effects. Specifically, returnee managers play positive moderating and mediating roles on the relationship between export and innovation, whereas highly educated employees exhibit negative moderating effects and no mediating effect. Third, to address potential endogeneity, the authors construct novel instrumental variables of export and human capital and use the two-stage least-squares method to identify causality. Originality/value This study provides direct policy implications by showing the roles of export and human capital in innovation, thereby guiding the management practices of firms and talent policies of governments.

The long-run relationship between farm size and productivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-386
Author(s):  
Wanjun Yao ◽  
Shigeyuki Hamori
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Land Productivity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-term relationship between farm size and productivity in China at the national level. Design/methodology/approach In contrast to the micro-data examination conducted by earlier literature, in this study, the authors use household aggregate panel data on 29 provinces in China for 1988–2012. Using the panel data PMG model, the authors control the factor of difference in land quality due to the fixed effect in each province, and the authors consider the difference in the long-run coefficients of farm size and land productivity rather than the difference in their short-run relationship. Thus, the authors examine the long-term relationship between farm size and productivity. Furthermore, the authors examine the robustness of this relationship in the long-term using samples of rice, wheat and corn production by region. Findings In contrast with the findings presented previously, the authors find that the relationship between farm size and agricultural productivity is statistically positive in the long term. Originality/value The relationship between farm size and agricultural productivity is a key research issue in agricultural and development economics. In China, many studies have provided evidence of the inverse relationship between farm size and agricultural productivity at the family farm level. However, this inverse relationship seems to reflect specific regions and specific periods in the relationship between farm size and land productivity. At the nationwide level, in the long-term, this is not an inverse but a positive relationship. It is desirable to expand farm size for the long-term development of agriculture.

scholarly journals Earnings management and managerial ownership in private firms

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve O’Callaghan ◽  
John Ashton ◽  
Lynn Hodgkinson
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Management ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Private Firms ◽  
Managerial Ownership ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Behaviour ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate two related questions. First, is earnings management behaviour in private firms related to managerial ownership and if so, what form does the relationship take. Second, is there evidence of opportunistic earnings management behaviour in private firms. Design/methodology/approach This study uses univariate and multivariate (regression) methodologies to examine the association between managerial ownership and earnings management in private firms. The study employs a data set of 1,223 large private UK firms. Findings Evidence is presented indicating opportunistic earnings management behaviour in private firms. Specifically, firms with low managerial ownership appear to engage in more earnings management when faced with poor performance. Further, when firms report income-increasing discretionary accruals, the magnitude of abnormal accruals varies non-linearly with managerial ownership. Research limitations/implications This study is limited by availability of data on sample firm ownership. This study uses cross-sectional data due to these limitations. Further research could investigate the relationships between earnings management and classes of shareholders other than managers in private firms. Practical implications Policy implications of this work suggest that non-managing shareholders in private firms face considerable agency costs, in particular where managerial ownership is very low or very high. Originality/value Pervasiveness of earnings management in private firms compared to public firms is well documented in the literature. There is limited extant research on the relationship between ownership structure and earnings management in private firms. The novel aspect of this study is to present findings on the association between this behaviour, managerial ownership and firm performance in private firms.

scholarly journals Creating relationship continuity across projects in the construction industry

IMP Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malena Ingemansson Havenvid ◽  
Elsebeth Holmen ◽  
Åse Linné ◽  
Ann-Charlott Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Mutual Orientation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Construction Firms ◽  
Relationship Continuity ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Strategy Types ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship continuity across projects among actors in the construction industry, and to discuss why and how such continuity takes place. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on the results from four in-depth case studies illustrating different strategies for pursuing relationship continuity. The results are analysed and discussed in light of the oft-mentioned strategies suggested by Mintzberg (1987): emergent, deliberate and deliberately emergent strategies. Furthermore, the ARA-model is used to discuss why the relationship continuity strategies are pursued, and which factors might enable and constrain the relationship continuity. Findings The main findings are twofold. First, the authors found that the strategy applied for pursuing relationship continuity may, in one-time period, contain one type of strategy or a mix of strategy types. Second, the type of strategy may evolve over time, from one type of strategy being more pronounced in one period, to other strategies being more pronounced in later periods. The strategies applied by construction firms and their counterparts can thus contain elements of emergent, deliberate and deliberately emergent strategies, in varying degrees over time. It is also shown that the strategies of the involved actors co-evolve as a result of interaction. Also, the main reasons for pursuing continuity appear to lie in the re-use and development of important resources and activities across projects to create efficiency and the possibility to develop mutual orientation, commitment and trust over time, and thus reduce uncertainty. Research limitations/implications Further empirical studies are needed to support the findings. For managers, the main implication is that relationship continuity can arise as part of an emerging interaction pattern between firms or as part of a planned strategy, but that elements of both might be needed to sustain it. Originality/value The authors combine Mintzberg’s strategy concepts with the ARA-model to bring new light to the widely debated issue of discontinuity and fragmentation in the construction industry.

Do intraday week effect in currencies hourly trading reflect leverage and asymmetric anomalies? Policy implications for traders

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wajid Shakeel Ahmed ◽  
Muhammad Sohaib ◽  
Jamal Maqsood ◽  
Ateeb Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Garch Model ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Asymmetric Effect ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
Trading Pattern

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine if intraday week (IDW) effect of the currencies reflect leverage and asymmetric impact in currencies market. The study data set comprises of intraday patterns of 15 currencies from developed and emerging economies. Design methodology approach The study applies the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (E-GARCH) model technique to observe the IDW leverage and asymmetric effect after introducing hourly dummies variables, namely, IDWmon, IDWwed, IDWfrid and IDWfrid-mon. Findings The study results favor the propositions and confirm that IDW effect do exist in the international forex markets in relation to hourly trading pattern for respective currencies. Mostly, currencies do depreciate on Monday and Wednesday compared to the rest of the days. However, on the last trading day, i.e. Friday currencies observe an appreciation pattern which is for both economies. The results have an evidence of leverage and asymmetric effect confirmed by the E-GARCH model as a result of press releases and influence by micro-factors in the currency markets. Practical implications The study believes to have theoretical connection related to the better understanding of currencies trend for developed and emerging economies, as the IDW effect exists. Moreover, confirmation of both the leverage and asymmetric effect in observed currencies would be able to assist the investors in making rational choices during the trading hours and would confirm considerable profits through profit incentivized strategies. Originality value The study not only add knowledge to the previous study work in relation to the hourly trading pattern of currencies with reference to the IDW effects but also highlights the leverage and asymmetric effect in currencies that will help in formulating future trading strategies particular to emerging economies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document