The Impact of Financial Constaints on Firm Survival and Growth

We propose a new approach for identifying and measuring the degree of financial constraint faced by firms and use it to investigate the effect of financial constraints on firm survival and development. Using panel data on French manufacturing firms over the 1996-2004 period, we find that (i) financial constraints significantly increase the probability of exiting the market, (ii) access to external financial resources has a positive effect on the growth of firms in terms of sales, capital stock and employment, (iii) financial constraints are positively related with productivity growth in the short-run. We interpret this last result as the sign that constrained firms need to cut costs in order to generate the resources they cannot raise on financial markets.Financial constraints; Firm growth; Firm survival

Financial Constraints as a Barrier to Export Participation.

The paper analyzes the link between financial constraints and firms' export decisions, using a large micro-level data set on French Manufacturing firms over the 1996-2004 period. Our main finding is that firms enjoying better ex-ante financial heath are more likely to start exporting. This results contrasts with the previous empirical literature which found evidence that participation to exports market improves a firm financial health but not that export starters display specific ex-ante financial advantages. By contrast, our result supports the view that financial constraints act as a barrier to export participation. This finding has important policy implications as it suggests that, in presence of financial markets imperfections, public intervention can be called for to help efficient but financially constrained firms to overcome the sunk entry costs into export markets and expand their activities abroad.Export;Firm heterogeneity;Financial constraint;Sunk costs;

Financial Constraints and Firm Export Behavior

The paper analyzes the link between financial constraints and firm export behavior. Our main finding is that firms enjoying better financial health are more likely to become exporters. The result contrasts with the previous empirical literature which found evidence that export participation improves firm financial health, but not that export starters display any ex-ante financial advantage. On the contrary, we find that financial constraints act as a barrier to export participation. Better access to external financial resources increases the probability to start exporting and also shortens the time before firms decide to serve foreign customers. This finding has important policy implications as it suggests that, in presence of financial markets imperfections, public intervention can be called for to help efficient but financially constrained firms to overcome the sunk entry costs into export markets and expand their activities abroad.Export; Firm heterogeneity; Financial constraints; Sunk costs

Exports and Productivity: Comparable Evidence for 14 Countries

We use comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. Our overall results are in line with the big picture that is by now familiar from the literature: Exporters are more productive than non-exporters when observed and unobserved heterogeneity are controlled for, and these exporter productivity premia tend to increase with the share of exports in total sales; there is strong evidence in favour of self-selection of more productive firms into export markets, but nearly no evidence in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. We document that the exporter premia differ considerably across countries in identically specified empirical models. In a meta-analysis of our results we find that countries that are more open and have more effective government report higher productivity premia. However, the level of development per se does not appear to be an explanation for the observed cross-country differences.Exports, productivity, micro data, international comparison

Innovation and Competition: The Role of Finance Constraints in a Duopoly Case.

In this paper we analyse the role of financial resources in a process of competition interpreted as a continuous restructuring of productive capacities. Financial constraints appear an essential means of co-ordination. Co-ordination with the environment where this process of restructuring takes place for the process itself to be viable and co-ordination between firms for the survival of competition.Competition;Co-ordination;Finance;Innovation;

Innovation, productivity gains and the evolution of market structure

The paper analyses the co-ordinating role that markets and organisations are called on to play in determining productivity gains. In fact, the viability of innovation processes cannot be dissociated from the way market structures emerge and evolve. The success (or not) of the introduction of new technologies and the emergence and evolution of given market structures does not depend on the properties of technology, but on the capacity to coordinate the activity of the different firms participating in the restructuring process, which results in a certain degree of stability of the market structure

Productivity and market selection of french manufacturing firms in the nineties

In this paper, we analyse post-entry and pre-exit performance of French manufacturing firms using a dataset covering 14 industries over the period 1990-2002. Our purpose is to shed light on the working of market selection mechanisms within French manufacturing industries. We found that market selection in France rightly operates in favour of more productive firms, but displays some potential inefficiency in selecting more severely new firms compared to mature firms. This claim is based on three results. First, on average, young firms fail to survive when they are faced with a small productivity disadvantage with respect to incumbents. By contrast, mature firms exit the market only when they are confronted by a large, persistent, and increasing productivity gap with their surviving counterparts. Second, we show that successful entrants do not easily catch up to the average size of the industry despite the fact that they exhibit significant TFP and profitability advantages over incumbents. This reveals the existence of barriers to growth for young firms. Thirdly, we show that, on the whole, productivity improvements due to market selection mechanisms within French manufacturing industries are primarily due to market share reallocation across incumbents and that the net entry effect is weak relative to the findings for other industrialised countries