Dissecting Economic Growth in Uruguay

Uruguay experienced one of its biggest economic booms in history during 2004-2014. Since then, growth has come down significantly. The paper investigates the various causes of the boom and discusses the sustainability of these causes. It then compares Uruguay against high-growth countries that were once at a similar income level, across a broad set of structural indicators, to identify priority reform areas that could improve long-term growth prospect.

The Growth Prospect and Challenges of Financing Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria

This study identifies the growth prospect of financing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria and the challenges that constitute a hindrance to the growth of MSMEs in Nigeria. This study employed descriptive analysis, simple percentages and deductive method to describe the growth prospect of financing MSMEs and the problems experienced by the MSMEs. It was found that the growth and survival of MSMEs are still hampered by inaccessibility to funds owing to different reasons and challenges. The chief among the challenges is that financial institutions look at many MSMEs as high risk debtors without credit worthiness. The key finding of this study is that the financial support in term of loans given to MSMEs by the financial institutions has been declining continuously over the years and this hamper the growth prospect of MSMEs. The Federal Government should formulate policies that would encourage MSMEs to begin to source funds from the capital market through the introduction of the third-tier security market since there is an increasing growth in the number of MSMEs in Nigeria.

Persistent high liquidity, ownership structure and firm performance: Indian evidence

The paper investigates the characteristics and performance of the persistent high liquidity firms in India in the backdrop of ownership concentration. Empirical evidence reveals that the persistent high liquidity firms consistently post superior performance, have better growth prospect and resort to less debt financing. Ownership structure has no influence on the performance of such firms. Consistent with trade off theory we find that persistent cash holding as a policy beyond a certain period may hinder performance. Industry-and- size matched comparison firms with non-persistent liquidity tend to overinvest having a negative impact on performance. Ownership concentration adversely impacts performance of such firms.

East Asian Growth Controversy

This chapter discusses the major controversy on the EAE's phenomenal rates of growth. The summary of the findings indicates that the dominant share of the EAE's growth was due to factor accumulation and that productivity growth was negligible, until after the mid-1980s when some growth in productivity was noted. Based on these results, the survey shows that in the long-run growth rates in EAEs will eventually taper-off because they are not sustained by significant improvements in productivity. While this finding seems to be the consensus amongst the proponents of the neoclassical theory (and also of this chapter), it is suggested that growth accounting exercises provide (at best) only preliminary insights into the processes leading to economic growth. Therefore, hard-line conclusions based on these accounting constructs should be taken with some degree of caution. Nevertheless, it is shown that high growth prospect in the longer term is weak in light of limited advancements in productivity in these economies.

Executives’ Use of Emotional Language and Investor Reactions

Drawing on theories from social judgment and persuasion, this chapter proposes that investors will be sensitive to the use of emotional language by top executives in their communication. In addition, the effect of emotional language on investors will depend on investors’ prior beliefs about the firm. Using a sample of 8,990 transcripts of presentations by executives of 632 organizations at investor conferences between 2004 and 2010, results support the prediction that executives’ use of emotional language has a significant influence on investors and that different ways of expressing emotion have differential effects on investor judgment. Moreover, the effect of emotional language is stronger when the firm’s uncertainty level is high and growth prospect is low. The results provide insights into how organizations can use language strategically to manage their relationships with stock investors, thereby contributing to a growing literature on symbolic management of organization.

R&D Expenditures And Investors Perception For An Input On Innovation Creation And Firm Growth: Empirical Evidence From Athens Stock Exchange

The question that the present study attempts to examine, concerns whether investors value the potential of Greek enterprises to produce innovation, in a way that it could lead them to higher productivity, profitability and future growth. An answer to such a question, seems to bear significance for a country that tries to understand the reasons for an underachieving economy, struggling for growth, both macro and microeconomic. If the answer is positive, this means that investors are affected in their decision for buying or selling a stock by the growth prospect that innovation, expressed with R&D spending, creates for an enterprise. R&D expenditures are used in this study, since they represent the enterprises input for the creation of innovation (Acs & Audretsch, 1988) and therefore, the effort for future development and firm growth. The approach employed, follows the same rationale as Green et al, (1996) and Stark and Thomas (1998) do. The R&D data that we have utilized, are collected from all the Athens Stock Exchange, (henceforth ASE), public firms for the period 2005-2010 that spend on R&D. The results, unlike previous research, depict a strong negative relation between R&D expenditures and stock price. In other words, investors in this Eurozone country do not consider R&D expenditures to be creators of innovation that will result in future growth, but they seem to be affected negatively in their assessment of the firms financial condition by R&D spending.