When is Gibrat's Law a Law?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate if the industry context matters for whether Gibrat’s law is rejected or not using a dataset that consists of all limited firms in five-digit NACE-industries in Sweden during 1998–2004. The results reject Gibrat’s law on an aggregate level, since small firms grow faster than large firms. However, Gibrat’s law is confirmed about as often as it is rejected when industry-specific regressions are estimated. It is also found that the industry context—e.g., minimum efficient scale, market concentration rate, and number of young firms in the industry—matters for whether Gibrat’s law is rejected or not.

Do Targeted R&D Grants toward SMEs Increase Employment and Demand for High Human Capital Workers?

Book chapterPublication

Daunfeldt, S. O., Halvarsson, D., Tingvall, P. G., & McKelvie, A.

Publication year

2022

Published in

Springer.

Abstract

Most previous studies on the employment effects of government R&D grants targeting SMEs are characterized by data-, measurement-, and selection problems, making it difficult to construct a relevant control group of firms that did not receive an R&D grant. We investigate the effects on employment and firm-level demand for high human capital workers of two Swedish programs targeted toward growth-oriented SMEs using Coarsened Exact Matching. Our most striking result is the absence of any statistically significant effects. We find no robust evidence that the targeted R&D grant programs had any positive and statistically significant effects on the number of employees recruited into these SMEs, or that the grants are associated with an increase in the demand for high human capital workers. The lack of statistically significant findings is troublesome considering that government support programs require a positive impact to cover the administrative costs associated with these programs.

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Utvärderingar av näringspolitik – en intressekonflikt mellan myndigheter, konsult-företag, politik och skattebetalare?

Article (without peer review)Publication

Colin, E., Sandström, C., & Wennberg, C.

Publication year

2021

Published in

Ekon. Debatt, 49, 30-41.

Abstract

Antalet utvärderingar av ekonomisk politik ökar explosionsartat. Det finns dock få systematiska sammanställningar av de utvärderingar som görs och det saknas kunskap om hur utvärderare skiljer sig åt gällande metoder och slutsatser, inte minst inom näringspolitiken. Vi studerar utvärderingar av 110 näringspoli-tiska insatser 2009–19 genom att granska huruvida valet av utvärderare påver-kar utvärderingarnas resultat. Privata konsulter visar sig vara den vanligaste utvärderaren av näringspolitik och deras utvärderingar skiljer sig från andra utvärderare genom att vara övervägande mer positiva till de utvärderade insat-serna. Vi diskuterar intressekonflikter som kan antas föreligga mellan utvärde-rare, myndigheter, den politiska makten och allmänheten.

Colin, E., Sandström, C., & Wennberg, C. (2021). Utvärderingar av näringspolitik–en intressekonflikt mellan myndigheter, konsultföretag, politik och skattebetalare. Ekon. Debatt, 49, 30-41.

The Effect of Marshallian and Jacobian Knowledge Spillovers on Jobs in the Solar, Wind and Energy Efficiency Sector

Article (with peer review)Publication

Aldieri, L., Grafström, J., & Vinci, C. P.

Publication year

2021

Published in

Energies, 14(14), 4269.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to establish if Marshallian and Jacobian knowledge spillovers affect job creation in the green energy sector. Whether these two effects exist is important for the number of jobs created in related fields and jobs pushed away in other sectors. In the analysis, the production efficiency, in terms of jobs and job spillovers, from inventions in solar, wind and energy efficiency, is explored through data envelopment analysis (DEA), based on the Malmquist productivity index, and tobit regression. A panel dataset of American and European firms over the period of 2002–2017 is used. The contribution to the literature is to show the role of the spillovers from the same technology sector (Marshallian externalities), and of the spillovers from more diversified activity (Jacobian externalities). Since previous empirical evidence concerning the innovation effects on the production efficiency is yet weak, the paper attempts to bridge this gap. The empirical findings suggest negative Marshallian externalities, while Jacobian externalities have no statistical impact on the job creation process. The findings are of strategic importance for governments who are developing industrial strategies for renewable energy.

Aldieri, L., Grafström, J., & Vinci, C. P. (2021). The Effect of Marshallian and Jacobian Knowledge Spillovers on Jobs in the Solar, Wind and Energy Efficiency Sector. Energies, 14(14), 4269.

When is Gibrat’s Law a Law?

Abstract

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Do Targeted R&D Grants toward SMEs Increase Employment and Demand for High Human Capital Workers?

Utvärderingar av näringspolitik – en intressekonflikt mellan myndigheter, konsult-företag, politik och skattebetalare?

The Effect of Marshallian and Jacobian Knowledge Spillovers on Jobs in the Solar, Wind and Energy Efficiency Sector