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This chapter estimates heterogeneous productivity growth and spatial spillovers through industrial linkages in the United States and China from 1981 to 2010. The authors employ a spatial Durbin stochastic frontier model and estimates with a spatial weight matrix based on inter-country input–output linkages to describe the spatial interdependencies in technology. The authors estimate productivity growth and spillovers at the industry level using the World KLEMS database. The spillovers of factor inputs and productivity growth are decomposed into domestic and international effects. Most of the spillover effects are found to be significant and the spillovers of productivity growth offered and received provide detailed information reflecting interdependence of the industries in the global value chain (GVC). The authors use this model to evaluate the impact of a US–Sino decoupling of trade links based on simulations of four scenarios of the reductions in bilateral intermediate trade. Their estimation results and their simulations are as mentioned based on date that ends in 2010, as this is the only KLEMS data available for these countries at this level of industrial disaggregation. As the GVC linkages between the United States and China have expanded since the end of their sample period their results can be viewed as informative in their own right for this period as well as possible lower bounds on the extent of the spillovers generated by an expanding GVC.

This is a troubled age for democracy, but the nature of that trouble and why it is a problem for democracy is an open question, not easy to answer. Widespread wishing for responsible leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit people and protect the vulnerable don’t help much. The issue goes well beyond library contexts, but it is important that those in libraries think through our role in democracy as well. Micro-targeting library-centric problems won’t be effective and don’t address the key issue of this volume. The author can only address the future if we recover an understanding of the present by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy: (1) the scope must be narrowed to accomplish the task; (2) the characteristics of the retreat from democracy should be established; (3) core working assumptions and values – what libraries are about in this context – must be established; (4) actually-existing democracy should then be characterized; (5) the role of libraries in actually-existing democracy is then explored; (6) the source and character of the threat that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values is analyzed; (7) the chapter concludes by forming a basis of supporting libraries by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture: libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood.

This chapter summarizes existing empirical literature on German gazelles and draws on a large new sample of high-growth firms for a description of the regional and sectoral distribution of gazelles in Germany. In addition, the regional distribution of gazelles is juxtaposed with the occurrence of regional cluster initiatives. In sum, our results are in line with major former findings. We find gazelles in all sectors and many regions with some specificities for young and urban gazelles. We do not find significantly more gazelles in regions, though, which pursue a targeted cluster policy. Finally and consequently, we call for more granular studies on types and characteristics of gazelles in the future.

Purpose – This chapter considers a Hausman and Taylor (1981) panel data model that exhibits a Cliff and Ord (1973) spatial error structure.

Methodology/approach – We analyze the small sample properties of a generalized moments estimation approach for that model. This spatial Hausman–Taylor estimator allows for endogeneity of the time-varying and time-invariant variables with the individual effects. For this model, the spatial fixed effects estimator is known to be consistent, but its disadvantage is that it wipes out the effects of time-invariant variables which are important for most empirical studies.

Findings – Monte Carlo results show that the spatial Hausman–Taylor estimator performs well in small samples.

The study examines the financial and regulatory factors that influenced the extent of derivative activity at twenty-five large international dealer banks during the 1995–1997 period. The findings indicate that their derivative activity is directly related to the size of the bank's capital ratio, asset size, maturity gap, and credit rating, but inversely related to bank profitability. The greater the opportunity for commercial banks to pursue investment banking activities the less incentive they have to expand their level of derivative activity. Banks that are allowed to make direct investment in industrial firms appear to have more opportunities to cross-sell various types of derivatives, such as swaps.

Purpose: In reality, financial decisions are made under conditions of asymmetric information that results in either favorable or adverse selection. As far as financial decisions affect growth of the firm, the latter must also be affected by either favorable or adverse selection. Therefore, the core objective of this chapter is to examine the determinants of each financial decision and the effects on growth of the firm under conditions of information asymmetry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter uses data for the non-financial firms listed in S&P 500. The data cover quarterly periods from 1989 to 2014. The statistical tests include linearity, fixed, and random effects and normality. The generalized method of moments estimation method is employed in order to examine the relative significance and contribution of each financial decision on growth of the firm, respectively. Standard and proposed proxies of information asymmetry are discussed.

Findings: The results conclude that there is a variation in the impact of financial variables on growth of the firm at high and low levels of information asymmetry especially regarding investment and financing decisions. A similar picture emerges in the cases of firm size and industry effects. In addition, corporate dividen d policy has a similar effect on firm growth across all asymmetric levels. These findings prove that information asymmetry plays a vital role in the relationship between corporate financial decisions and growth of the firm. Finally, the results contribute to the vast literature on the estimation of information asymmetry by demonstrating that the classical and standard proxies for information asymmetry are not consistent in terms of the ability to differentiate between favorable or adverse selection (which corresponds to low and high level of information asymmetry).

Originality/Value: This chapter contributes to the related literature in two ways. First, this chapter offers updated empirical evidence on the way that financing, investment, and dividends decisions are made under conditions of favorable and adverse selection. Other related studies deal with each decision separately. Second, the study offers new proxies for measuring information asymmetry in order to reach robust estimates of the effects of financial decisions on growth of the firm under conditions of agency problems.

The era of globalization has increased the challenges for multinational corporations (MNCs) to retain legitimacy. In striving for legitimacy, MNCs increasingly engage in dialogue processes with their stakeholders. However, the era of globalization and the parallel rise of the Internet and the new “Web 2.0” have dramatically widened the range of options for such dialogue processes. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in particular make use of “social media” (e.g., Facebook, Weblogs, Twitter) which enable them to quickly generate attention regarding socially and environmentally harmful business practices by MNCs. In response, MNCs have started applying social media technologies for corporate communication purposes. However, given the novelty of these activities, we lack knowledge on how these organizations make use of social media. Therefore, in this chapter, we examine how MNCs and NGOs utilize one particular social media application, that is, Twitter, for dialogic stakeholder communication.

In our empirical study, we examine current practices of Twitter usage by MNCs and NGOs. We investigate a dataset of more than 3,000 Twitter articles from 30 MNCs and 30 NGOs in the German-speaking world. Our analysis is based on the “conceptual orality or literality” scale by Koch and Oesterreicher (1994).

The comparative analysis shows that on average MNCs and NGOs exhibit a surprisingly similar profile on Twitter. Both tend toward conceptual literality. However, the analysis of Tweets per organization reveals a much larger variance. At the extreme poles, while some NGOs (like Greenpeace Youth) make extensive use of the medium’s potential for conceptual orality, some MNCs (like Deutsche Börse) almost entirely adhere to conceptual literality. In other words, these MNCs promote a classical one-way model of communication and fail to make use of the dialogue-like qualities of the medium.

We analyzed a small number of organizations and we restricted our study to MNCs and NGOs in the German-speaking world. Furthermore, Twitter only allows for short messages with a maximum of 140 letters or signs. This, in turn, renders questionable whether the medium is suited to establish deliberative dialogues between MNCs and NGOs that are based on more elaborate arguments which can be expressed in the short format.

Our study addresses the lack of research regarding new possibilities for stakeholder communication in the age of social media. Moreover, the study methodologically contributes to the study of social media in the context of corporate communication by applying the scale of “conceptual orality or literality” to MNCs’ and NGOs’ Twitter usage.