scholarly journals Firm ownership and size versus innovation activities over the business cycle: near-zero inertia as a sign of the transition from the fifth to the sixth Kondratieff wave

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Jakimowicz ◽  
Daniel Rzeczkowski

Research background: The innovation activity of Polish industrial processing enterprises is examined in a broader time context than typical business cycle frames, which makes it possible to look at the investigated problems from the perspective of Kondratieff waves. Purpose of the article: The aim of the research is to describe the combined effect of mutual interactions between the ownership and size of Polish industrial processing enterprises on the goals of innovative activity and their degree of importance for the further development of the innovativeness of those firms. These relations are examined in various phases of the business cycle. Additionally, taking secular changes into account made it possible to lend credence to the claim that the global financial crisis is a typical phenomenon for the breakthrough period between two Kondratieff waves. Methods: A characteristic feature of the applied method is the focus on the combined effect of the enterprise type and ownership structure on firms’ innovation over three periods: prosperity 2004–2006, crisis 2008–2010 and recovery 2012–2014. As regards statistical techniques, the Pearson’s χ^2 independence test and correspondence analysis were applied. The results of the research are presented in a graphic form in three- and two-dimensional correspondence maps, which indicate the co-occurrence of (1) ownership sectors and enterprise types taken together, and (2) effects (goals) of the innovative activity of enterprises, together with the degree of their influence (importance) for further innovative activity. Mutual interactions between ownership sectors and enterprise types were visually analysed, indicating significant features of the triangles representing them. Findings & Value added: A significant combined effect of the ownership sectors and enterprise types on firms’ innovative activity was found. There was a certain type of dynamic equilibrium between those variables, which changes depending on the business cycle phase. In the global financial crisis of 2008–2010, a surprising phenomenon was found, consisting of the growth of innovative activity in most enterprises as compared to the period of prosperity in 2004–2006. The enterprises achieved the goals assumed, and the degree of their importance proved the significant influence on further innovative activity of those firms. Additionally, it was demonstrated that in the period of recovery (2012–2014) mutual interactions between ownership and size eliminated the relationship between those variables and the goals of innovative activity, and eco-innovations proved to be directly subordinated to traditional types of innovations, mainly product and process innovations. Changes occurring in the last of the examined periods are related to the near-zero inertia of the entire industrial processing section, which allows to interpret the global financial crisis as a typical phenomenon for a breakthrough marking the end of one Kondratieff wave and the beginning of the next. Moreover, 2015 is identified as the year of breakthrough, ending the Fifth and beginning the Sixth Kondratieff Wave, which was related to the transition from the information and telecommunications revolution to the biomedical-hydrogen revolution. The calculations presented in this paper are consistent with those forecasts.

Equilibrium ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Jakimowicz ◽  
Daniel Rzeczkowski

Research background: There is no doubt that innovation is an important source of economic growth. In the assessment of the innovative activity of Polish industrial processing enterprises, two opposing views can be found. The first indicates the exogenous shock resulting from the global financial crisis and the associated innovation crisis and the subsequent period of innovative pessimism. The second shows the Polish economy as the European Green Island due to strong and uninterrupted economic growth over the past 27 years, controlled inflation, and reduction of unemployment as well as increase of the citizens’ well-being. In these conditions, an interesting research gap appeared, which is worth filling, at the centre of which there are factors determining the innovative activity of enterprises, and in particular the role and importance of innovation barriers in various phases of the business cycle. Purpose of the article: The aim of the research is to determine the impact of innovation barriers and degrees of their importance on the innovation activity of Polish industrial processing enterprises during the business cycle. The time frame of the analysis covers three phases of the cycle: the prosperity period of 2004–2006, the global financial crisis of 2008–2010 and the recovery from 2012–2014. Methods: Pearson’s χ2 independence test and correspondence analysis were used for data analysis. The research results are presented in a graphical form of biplots that describe the coexistence of three types of variables: (1) types of enterprises and ownership sectors, (2) effects or objectives of innovative activity, and (3) innovation barriers and reasons for the lack of innovation. The basis of calculations were three databases covering the mentioned periods. Findings & Value added: High resistance of innovative activity of Polish industrial processing enterprises to economic fluctuations has been demonstrated. Innovation barriers and degrees of their importance had little impact on the operations of enterprises in the first of the analysed periods, when prosperity was booming. The impact of the global financial crisis on innovation activities proved to be counterintuitive, as enterprises have continuously achieved their goals and the importance of innovation barriers has diminished even more. In the third period, innovation barriers no longer had any significance for the innovation activities of enterprises. The phenomenon of a gradual decline in the importance of innovation barriers, regardless of the phases of the business cycle, was called the Polish Green Island Effect. The relationship found is a peculiarity which is probably unprecedented in recent world economic history.


Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1177
Author(s):  
Aleksander Jakimowicz ◽  
Daniel Rzeczkowski

Singulation of components determining the innovative activity of enterprises is a complex issue as it depends on both microeconomic and macroeconomic factors. The purpose of this article is to present the results of research on the impact of the mutual interactions between ownership and the size of companies on the achievement of the objectives of innovative activity by Polish industrial processing enterprises in changing cyclical conditions. The importance of innovation barriers was also assessed. Empirical data came from three periods that covered different phases of the business cycle: prosperity 2004–2006, global financial crisis 2008–2010, and recovery 2012–2014. The research used a cybernetic approach based on feedback loops presenting interactions between variables. In addition, two statistical methods were used: the Pearson’s χ2 independence test and correspondence analysis. The following discoveries were made during the research: (1) consideration of the combined impact of ownership and the size of companies on their innovation activities makes it possible to study phenomena that may be overlooked if the impact of these factors is considered separately; (2) public enterprises achieve significantly worse results in terms of innovation than companies from other ownership sectors; (3) the Red Queen effect, which assumes that the best innovative enterprises exert selection pressure on all other companies, applies to industrial processing companies, and in particular public enterprises; (4) the industrial processing section is more sensitive to secular trends than to cyclical fluctuations; (5) confirmation of occurrence of the Polish Green Island effect, which assumes that companies achieve good results in terms of innovation, irrespective of the phases of the business cycle; and (6) statistical evidence is provided that the global financial crisis may be associated with the turn of the Fifth and Sixth Kondratieff waves. Most likely, the role of the communication channel between the world economy and the Polish manufacturing section is fulfilled by foreign ownership, whose percentage of share capital of this section is estimated at 50%.


Author(s):  
Nauro F. Campos ◽  
Paul De Grauwe ◽  
Yuemei Ji

Structural reform policies move like the business cycle. There are moments when these are implemented with great fervour and others when they are put on the back burner or even dismantled. After the global financial crisis, and in particular the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, many countries were forced by creditor countries or were self-imposed to apply deep reforms to their product markets and especially to their labour markets. Now that Europe is recovering, the pressure to implement structural reforms has abated....


2020 ◽  
Vol 253 ◽  
pp. R18-R28
Author(s):  
Marianne Sensier ◽  
Fiona Devine

We investigate economic resilience of UK regions before, during and after the 2007/8 global financial crisis. We date business cycle turning points in real output, employment and productivity to assess the resilience dimensions of resistance, recovery and renewal and rank the economic resilience of regions in a resilience scorecard. Our empirical results reveal that the business cycle in productivity has not returned to its pre-recession peak level for Yorkshire and the Humber and the employment level has not recovered in Scotland. The resilience scorecard ranks the South East as the most resilient region with Northern Ireland the least resilient.


Forecasting ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 498-500
Author(s):  
Alessia Paccagnini

The global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic have heightened uncertainty in financial markets and the business cycle [...]


Author(s):  
Don Harding ◽  
Adrian Pagan

This chapter looks at using the binary states describing the recurrent events to help in either constructing economic models of time series or evaluating the fit of such models. The chapter provides a general discussion of the issues that come up when using the binary states in regressions. It then turns to the analysis of complete economic models. In these it is very common to see variance decompositions computed and used to draw conclusions about which shocks are responsible for the recurrent events. It is shown that this methodology is flawed when it comes to shedding light on what causes the business cycle. What can be done is investigated in the chapter, which illustrates how to determine which shocks are important to a matching of the business cycle features discussed in Chapter 5. The discussion moves on to some economic models that have been constructed in the wake of the global financial crisis and which aim to highlight the role of financial shocks.


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