This empirical analysis aims at assessing the effect of the economic climate and the intensity of capital utilisation on companies’ capital retirement behaviour. It is conducted using individual company data, as well as original data on the degree of utilisation of production factors. The...

We use firm-level data for France and Italy to explore the impact of service regulation reform implemented in the two countries on the mark-up and eventually on the performance of firms between the second half of the 1990s and 2007. In line with some previous studies, we find that the relation...

Studies of firm-level data have shown that there is a huge dispersion of productivity across firms even when industries are narrowly defined. So there is a significant opportunity for the least productive firms to catch up to the most productive. The formers’ convergence could therefore...

This paper shows that, with pre-set price and capital decisions of firms facing uncertainty and credit rationing, price, mark up and the expected degree of capacity utilization (resp. capital) increases (resp. decreases) with the firm internal net worth.

This paper shows that, with pre-set price and capital decisions of firms facing uncertainty and credit rationing, price, mark up and the expected degree of capacity utilization (resp. capital) increases (resp. decreases) with the firm internal net worth.

We study production factor adjustment taking into account factor utilisation in multiple dimensions (labour and capital working time, capital capacity utilisation) through a unique survey among French manufacturing firms. This survey also allows us to examine the impact of obstacles to...

As part of the International Banking Research Network, the Banque de France contribution to the research project on liquidity risk transmission concentrates on the “outward”' transmission of shocks affecting French banking groups. Using a rich dataset on their international positions, we...

This paper studies the effect of credit constraints on the expansion and survival of firms in foreign markets. It develops a model in which, lower access to external finance, or reduced internal liquidity, hampers the firm ability to finance the recurrent costs to serve foreign markets and...

Short-term increasing returns to production factors are usually found in empirical studies. We argue they can be due to omitted variables, particularly the intensity of factor utilisation. Thanks to original French firm-level data (1992-2008), we show how increasing returns to scale disappear...

The paper uses recent developments of the methodology of efficiency frontiers to provide an original modeling of the risk of volatility of banking profits which relies on the estimation of a profit frontier. This methodology allows taking into account coordinated adjustments of banks’ costs to...