Work in progress
Preference for Skew in Lotteries (with Thomas Astebro and Luís Santos Pinto)
Abstract: Using a laboratory experiment we
investigate how skew influences choices under risk. We find that subjects make
significantly riskier choices when the distribution of payoffs is positively
skewed, these choices being driven in part by the shape of the utility function
but also by subjective distortion of probabilities. A utility model with
probability distortion calibrated on laboratory data is able to explain why
most gamblers in public lotteries buy only a small number of tickets.
Risky
Innovation Strategies (with Martin Woerter)
Abstract: Earlier studies suggest that innovation strategies
affect performance. We find that external innovation increases the mean of
different measures of performance, but also increases dispersion and the
kurtosis of the distribution of profits. This means that external strategies
are more risky and that they may require a very large number of attempts before
average returns are obtained. This puts smaller firms at a position of
disproportionately high risk. Despite the earlier evidence that the rewards
from innovation are positively skewed, we did not find any effect of innovation
strategies upon the skewness of the distribution of innovation outcomes.
Reacting to Performance in International Markets: The Rigidity and Learning Paradox (with Luís F. Lages)
Abstract:
This paper
uses organizational learning and threat-rigidity perspectives to analyze
firms’ reaction to past performance change in foreign markets. We find
that firms are more likely to change their international strategy when
performance declines and that the direction of change depends on the
competitive environment. Specifically, in low competitive markets, firms tend
to react to performance decline by adapting their strategy to the foreign
market, whereas in more competitive markets, firms tend to react by
standardizing their strategy. We submit that both threat-rigidity and
organizational learning may thus apply depending on competitive circumstances,
and that these perspectives should be regarded as complements to each other,
not as alternatives.
The Termination
of Joint Ventures (with Pedro Portugal)
Abstract: We analyze the
patterns of international joint venture termination, and compare four different
explanations for the longevity of joint ventures. We distinguish between three
ways in which termination may occur and allow for the possibility that some
joint ventures never confront the chances of terminating in these ways. We find
that the chances of terminating a joint venture decrease and then increase over
time, in particular when the joint venture is terminated by dissolution of the firm
and by acquisition by the foreign partner. Our findings thus support a view
that sees joint ventures as real options held by partners.
Borrowing
Patterns, Bankruptcy and Voluntary Liquidation (with António Antunes and Pedro Portugal)
Abstract: We study the impact of financial
variables upon bankruptcy and voluntary exit. Controlling for efficiency, which we find
to decrease the odds of both bankruptcy and voluntary exit, characteristics of firms which correlate with the firms’
access to funds, exert very different impacts
upon the two modes of exit. Our findings support the
idea that information asymmetries create cash constraints and that financial decisions are used to signal firms’ quality and reduce the degree of
information asymmetries between borrowers and lenders.
Articles in journals
Founding
Conditions and the Survival of New Firms, forthcoming in the Strategic Management Journal 2010 (with
Paul Geroski and Pedro Portugal)
(full text of an
earlier version, pdf file).
Counterfactual Decomposition of Wage
Changes Using Quantile Regressions Journal of Applied Econometrics,
20, 445--465, 2005 (with José A. F. Machado) (the
decomposition can be performed using the following R-program)
Patterns of Entry,
Post-Entry Growth and Survival: A Comparison Between Domestic and Foreign Owned
Firms
Small Business Economics, 22, 282--298, 2004. (with
Pedro Portugal),
On the Evolution of the
Firm Size Distribution: Facts and Theory
American Economic Review, 93 (4), 1075-1090, 2003 (with Luís Cabral)
The Survival of New
Domestic and Foreign Owned Firms
Strategic Management Journal, 23 (4), 323-343, 2002, (with Pedro
Portugal).
Earning Functions in Portugal
1982-1994: Evidence from Quantile Regressions
Empirical Economics, 26(1), 115-134, 2001, (with José A. F.
Machado).
Closure
and Divestiture by Foreign Entrants: The Impact of Entry and Post-Entry
Strategies
Strategic Management Journal, 21(5), 549-562, 2000, (with Pedro
Portugal).
Box-Cox
Quantile Regression and the Distribution of Firm Sizes
Journal of Applied Econometrics, 15(3), 253-274, 2000, (with
José A. F. Machado)
Markets,
Entrepreneurs and the Size of New Firms
Economics Letters, 52, 89-94, 1996.
Firm Start-Up Size: A
Conditional Quantile Approach
European Economic Review, 40(6) 1305-1323, 1996, (with José
A. F. Machado).
Small Firm Births and Macroeconomic
Fluctuations
Review of Industrial Organization, 11(2), 173-182, 1996.
The Survival of New
Plants: Start-up Conditions and Post-entry Evolution
International Journal of Industrial Organization, 13(4), 459-482,
1995, (with Pedro Portugal and Paulo Guimarães).
Life Duration of New Firms
Journal of Industrial Economics, 42(3) 227-246, 1994, (with Pedro
Portugal).
reprinted in Storey, D. (ed.) Small Business: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, Routdlege, 2000
and in Audretsch, David B. and Steven Klepper (eds.) Innovation,
Evolution of Industry and Economic Growth, Edward Elgar,
2000
Firm Growth During
Infancy
Small Business Economics, 6(1), 27-40, 1994.
Firm Entry and
Firm Growth
Review of Industrial Organization, 8(5), 567-578, 1993.
Entry and Type of
Entrant: Evidence from Portugal
International Journal of Industrial Organization, 11(1), 101-122,
1993.
Chapters in edited volumes
Gibrat's Law. in The New Palgrave
Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and
Technological
intensity, demand conditions and the longevity of firms
in Audretsch, D and A. R. Thurik
(ed.) Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment, Cambridge University Press,
1999, (with Pedro Portugal).
Competition
Policy in Portugal
in Martin, S. (ed.) Competition Policy in
Sunk Costs and
the Dynamics of Entry in Portuguese Manufacturing
in van Witteloostuijn, A. (ed.) Market
Evolution: Competition and Cooperation Across Markets
and Over Time,
Small Firms
in Portuguese Manufacturing Industries
in Audretsch, D. e Z. Acs (eds.) Small Firms and Entrepreneurship: An
East-West Perspective,
Concentration and
Competitive Dynamics and Competitive Dynamics
in Amaral, J.; D. Lucena
e A. Mello The Portuguese Economy Towards 1992, Norwell,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.
Sunk Costs
and Entry by Small and Large Plants
in Geroski, P. e Schwalbach,
J. (eds.) Entry and Market Contestability: An International Study,
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