L80 - Industry Studies: Services: GeneralReturn

Production in Turkey has a high dependence on imported inputs. Therefore, the policy aiming at increasing exports through the depreciated national currency leads to different results depending on the degree of dependence on imported inputs. In this context, this study econometrically analyses increases in exports of manufacturing and service industries which have different levels of imported input dependence. The analysis findings indicate that national currency depreciation leads to competitive effects in the manufacturing industry, but not in the service sector. The effect of labour costs, on the other hand, is much lower in the manufacturing industry than in services. In addition, we found that the unit value index of crude material imports has a significant negative impact on the sectoral competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. In contrast, changes in import prices seem to have no significant impact on service exports.

We analyze how efficiency of firms in the Czech Republic is affected by their size, age, competition, capital structure, ownership types, and global financial crisis. We employ the stochastic frontier approach, use a large and detailed dataset, and cover time span 2001-2012. While effects of firm characteristics are small, the effects of ownership are economically substantial. We show that majority owners are most contributive with respect to firm's efficiency when compared to other categories we analyze. Minority owners with legally grounded power are able to impose significant efficiency improvement. The effect of the foreign ownership is strongest when foreign owners control firms with less than majority of voting power. Minority owners sharing the control do not seem to contribute to efficiency. The impact of crisis is not balanced but can be regarded as marginally positive in general. The firms' characteristics change only a little. In contrast, worsening impact of the crisis is evidenced for controlling ownership categories. Minority owners exhibit a limited disciplining effect to improve efficiency after the crisis, though.

This paper analyzes the technological efficiency of companies in the European Union (EU). Our extensive database covers more than 4 million firm/year observations from many EU countries including both manufacturing and service sectors in 2001-2007. Methodologically we apply a model of a stochastic production productivity frontier. We show that: the economic signifikance of company age is negligible, the higher the debt the greater the efficiency, bigger companies are less efficient, and a medium-level concentration of the market benefits companies. Majority ownership, in contrast, does not lead to higher efficiency, but a combination of majority and minority ownership has a positive disciplinary influence leading to higher efficiency. As to the origins of ownership, it does not seem that foreign-(co-)owned companies imply greater efficiency in old European countries, whereas foreign ownership is a significant driver of efficiency in new EU members through FDI.

We employ a large panel data set and analyze efficiency in the Czech firms during 1998-2007. We investigate how their efficiency evolves over time and how it is affected by ownership structures. Methodologically we employ a panel version of a stochastic production frontier model. We distinguish several categories of the ownership concentration by domestic owners and through foreign direct investments (FDI). Our results show that concentrated and foreign ownership impact efficiency positively in general. This results confirm benefits of the foreign direct ownership on the microeconomic level. Further, we show cases when majority ownership does not necessarily constitute improvements in efficiency. We also analyze effect of ownership coalitions and bring detailed new evidence on how ownership structures and industry sectors affect firms' efficiency.