- Número: 147
- Autor(es): Yassine Lefouili and Joana Pinho
- Mês: Abril
- Ano: 2020
This paper explores the incentives for, and the effects of, collusion in prices between two-sided platforms. We characterize the most profitable sustainable agreement when platforms collude on both sides of the market and when they collude on a single side of the market. Under two-sided collusion, prices on both sides are higher than the competitive prices, implying that agents on both sides become worse off as compared to the competitive outcome. An increase in cross-group externalities makes two-sided collusion harder to sustain, and reduces the harm from collusion suffered by the agents on a given side as long as the collusive price on that side is lower than the monopoly price. When platforms collude on a single side of the market, the price on the collusive side is lower (higher) than the competitive price if the magnitude of the cross-group externalities exerted on that side is sufficiently large (small). As a result, one-sided collusion may benefit the agents on the collusive side and harm the agents on the competitive side.
- Número: 146
- Autor(es): Filomena Garcia and Muxin Li
- Mês: Abril
- Ano: 2020
In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a new two sided platform endowed with artificial intelligence in a market where a firm provides a brick and mortar platform to buyers and sellers. In our theoretical model we show that the decision of whether to introduce the new platform depends on the reduction of the search cost for the consumers. We also show that the introduction of the platform enlarges the market with more consumers using both platforms. Finally we study the welfare effect of the introduction of the platform opening the discussion on whether certain artificial intelligence devices for shopping should be regulated.
- Número: 145
- Autor(es): Michele Cincera, Julie Delanote, Pierre Mohnen, Anabela Santos and Christoph Weiss
- Mês: Março
- Ano: 2020
Companies in advanced economies are facing new challenges. Investment in intangible assets – such as R&D expenditures, ICT activities, the cost of training employees and spending on improving the organizational process – has gained relevance to overcome market pressure. In the last decade, many studies discussed the impact of intangible investment on firms’ performance. However, comparison of the effect of different types of intangible investments is less well explored. The paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the impact of several intangible investments on productivity using for the first-time data from the EIB Survey on Investment (EIBIS) covering all 28 EU members, in the period 2015-2017. We allow intangible investments to affect productivity through innovation, using an augmented version of the Crépon-Duguet-Mairesse (1998) model. Our results show that all types of intangible investments positively impact labour productivity. However, ICT and acquisition of new skills are more important for explaining productivity gains than R&D investment and organizational improvements. Furthermore, R&D and ICT investments also affect productivity indirectly through their effects on innovation, which itself increases productivity.
- Número: 144
- Autor(es): Marcelo Duarte e Fernando Carvalho
- Mês: Março
- Ano: 2020
The growing awareness of the importance of national systems of innovation on countries’ development led to an increased availability of instruments designed to measure and compare the innovative capacity of countries. Such instruments provide policymakers with a panoply of relevant information, with which they can stimulate innovation within their territory, thereby increasing national competitiveness. Among the most used innovation indices, the Global Innovation Index stands out by explicitly distinguishing innovation inputs and outputs. Drawing from the Global Innovation Index input-output framework and extant literature on innovation, we intend to answer the question: Which innovation inputs are more strongly related to innovative outputs? Thus, deriving policy implications aimed at improving Portugal’s innovative readiness. Based on a conceptual model, we developed a panel dataset, grounded on the Global Innovation Index framework, composed by 92 countries during the period 2013-2018, and analysed it through a series of multiple regression techniques.
- Número: 143
- Autor(es): Paulo Nuno Vicente, Margarida Lucas e Vânia Carlos
- Mês: Março
- Ano: 2020
Over the past decade, the societal impact of digital transformation, with the prospects of a Fourth Industrial revolution, has led to an innovation imperative in European policymaking regarding Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This article examines Portuguese universities and polytechnic institutes, the two components of the national higher education system, in order to (1) characterize digital infrastructure, networks and equipment availability (hardware and software), (2) describe the self-reported digital practices among Portuguese HEIs’ faculty members, and (3) verify the alignment between faculty members’ digital practices, teaching environment and European recommendations for digital education. The study, descriptive in nature, conducts the most comprehensive online questionnaire available to date on digital innovation in Portuguese HEIs (N=547). The main constraints to digital innovation in Portuguese higher education teaching are the limited infrastructure and resources, a conservative academic culture, a lack of funding opportunities, insufficient technological resources and technical support.
- Número: 142
- Autor(es): António Alberto Nifrário de Pinho Tavares
- Mês: Março
- Ano: 2020
Debureaucratization initiatives are usually welcomed due to the anticipation of its benefits. Although such was the case of Simplex, its effectiveness is yet understudied and thus this scientific article aims to make a balance of the implementation of Simplex project. This balance covers both its effectiveness on the specific case of the Portuguese Social Security System as well as its levers and blockages in the ultimate goal of debureaucratize. The scarcity of information about Simplex impact encouraged this exploratory research as well as the methodological option that backed up a qualitative approach. To meet the study’s goals, this paper also incorporated theoretical elements of the literature review. We selected two Social Security stakeholders as our target groups – accountants and officials. With the former, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews, and with the second, we made focus groups. Findings suggest Simplex is much more than deadlines and cost decrease, and improving people’s lives. It is not just information and communication technologies (ICT), administrative simplification and legislative simplification, or as we called it, the triangle of drivers legislation, technology and procedures, but it is much more.
- Número: 141
- Autor(es): José Santos, Nuno Tavares and Gabriel Osório de Barros
- Mês: Fevereiro
- Ano: 2020
Productivity growth in southern European countries has been slowing down at least since the early 2000s. In this regard, Portugal has been no exception to this common trend as productivity growth has been sluggish since the beginning of the century, well before the global financial crisis. At the same time, corporate levels of indebtedness of Portuguese firms have built-up quite substantially until recent years. Although with different levels of intensity across sectors, this pattern was particularly prevalent in the construction sector, rendering it to be a compelling case to study the relation between debt and productivity. Using microdata from Portuguese construction firms, in this paper, we investigate the long-term impact of persistent corporate debt accumulation on total factor productivity growth. To do so, we rely on the framework provided by the estimation of heterogeneous dynamic-panel models. This framework allows us to account for dynamics, feedback effects, firm heterogeneity, and cross-sectional dependencies arising from unobserved common factors. After taking into account the effect of unobserved common factors affecting all firms in the sector as well as firm’s specific characteristics, we find a negative and significant effect of corporate debt-build up on total productivity growth in the industry. This result is robust to different measures of total factor productivity, labour productivity and firms’ indebtedness. Our results suggest that timely measures aiming to reduce debt overhangs by firms may be essential tools to boost productivity growth in the construction sector.
- Número: 140
- Autor(es): Ana Venâncio, Victor Barros and Clara Raposo
- Mês: Janeiro
- Ano: 2020
We examine the impact of corporate taxation on entrepreneurship, using a quasi-natural experiment, which substantially reduced the corporate tax rate for start-ups located in inland municipalities in Portugal. The combination of a high quality and universal firm level database for Portugal allows the detailed study of firm's behaviour. We use BPlim’s harmonized Central Balance Sheet panel for the period of 2006 to 2015 to evaluate the different behaviour of exporters and non-exporters in Portugal. We follow on the self-selection and learning-by-exporting literature, estimating several exporter productivity premiums. After finding solid evidence of a productivity advantage of exporters compared to non-exporters, which seems to emerge several years before firms start to export, we expand our study in order to explore the causality of the previous findings. Thus, we estimate a logit fixed effects model to assess the impact of several variables in the export propensity of a firm. We corroborate the self-selection theory, given the significance of labour productivity in probability of a firm exporting, as well, as significant effects of firm absolute size, relative market share, sector concentration and investment.
- Número: 139
- Autor(es): Tiago Domingues and Margarida Castro Rego
- Mês: Dezembro
- Ano: 2019
The household saving rate is slowing down since the mid-1980s and in 2018 registered a record low. This article aims to contribute to the debate on the evolution of household savings in Portugal by considering both the microeconomic behaviour and the macroeconomic dynamics of household savings. First, we use microdata from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) to empirically assess the main microeconomic determinants of household savings, the heterogeneity across households regarding different ways of financing negative savings, and the main factors determining liquidity constrained agents. Second, we develop a time-series model for aggregate consumption to forecast the household saving rate in Portugal. We found household characteristics and heterogeneity regarding individual variables to be significant and economically important determinants of household saving decisions and credit constraints. Moreover, our out-of-sample forecast suggests there was no structural change in household savings decisions, indicating that the unexpected rise in the Portuguese household saving rate during the 2008 recession was led by temporary shocks to income and wealth.
- Número: 138
- Autor(es): Edoardo M. Acabbi, Ettore Panetti and Alessandro Sforza
- Mês: Dezembro
- Ano: 2019
How do credit shocks affect labor market reallocation and firms’ exit, and how does their propagation depend on labor rigidities at the firm level? To answer these questions, we match administrative data on worker, firms, banks and credit relationships in Portugal, and conduct an event study of the interbank market freeze at the end of 2008. Consistent with other empirical literature, we provide novel evidence that the credit shock had significant effects on employment dynamics and firms’ survival. These findings are entirely driven by the interaction of the credit shock with labor market frictions, determined by rigidities in labor costs and exposure to working-capital financing, which we label “labor-as-leverage” and “labor-as-investment” financial channels. The credit shock explains about 29 percent of the employment loss among large Portuguese firms between 2008 and 2013, and contributes to productivity losses due to increased labor misallocation.
