The significance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) for Europe is increasing. The diplomatic initiative "16+1," comprising 11 Central and East European EU member states and five Western Balkan economies, expanded to a "17+1" format in April 2019, when...

Prior research shows that technology spillovers across firms increase innovation, productivity, and value. We study how firms finance their own growth stimulated by technology spillovers from their technological peer firms. We find that greater technology spillovers lead to higher leverage. This...

The constancy of the elasticity of factor substitution (σ) makes its role as a driver of the labor income share exogenous. The constant elasticity of substitution (CES) (Arrow et al., 1961) production function has predominantly been used to support this causal relationship. This paper argues...

The relationship between a declining labor income share and a falling relative price of capital requires capital and labor to be gross substitutes at the aggregate level (i.e., σ-Agg1). We argue that this restriction can be relaxed if we distinguish labor by skills and identify differential...

Despite its long pedigree, studies on the role of the substitution elasticity between capital and labor mostly assume a homogeneous labor market. This paper extends this literature by considering a heterogeneous labor market with capital-skill complementarity. Technological advancement, global...

Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Thailand has become highly dependent on export as the engine of economic recovery and growth. In 2008, the ratio of export to gross domestic product (GDP) was 76.5%. The global economic crisis triggered by the sub-prime loans debacle in the United States...

This study evaluates infrastructure investment and finance in Asia from a global perspective. It provides an overview on infrastructure needs and the various sources of private finance, globally and within Asia, and creates a "bigger picture" for the demand and supply of capital for...

This paper investigates the impacts of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans on the corporate investment choices between diversifying and non-diversifying investments. We find a firm’s DB plan coverage is negatively associated with its propensity of making a major investment. Subject to a major...

Corporate innovation propels both company performance and economic growth. Yet, measuring corporate innovation proves to be challenging, leading researchers to rely on a variety of different signals, such as reported R&D expenditures, patent citations and new product announcements. I posit that...

I theoretically and empirically show that dismissal laws - laws that impose hurdles on firing of employees - spur innovation and thereby economic growth. Theoretically, dismissal laws make it costly for firms to arbitrarily discharge employees. This enables firms to commit to not punish...