Employment and Working Hours Effects of Minimum Wage Policy in China

The effect of minimum wage policy on employment and working hours is crucial for assessing the overall effect of this policy. A large number of scholars studied this issue from both the theoretical and empirical perspectives, but still no consensus was reached. Under the background of economic rebalance which is a transition from the export...

Financial Stress Testing: A model based exploration under deep uncertainty

Years of turmoil in the banking sector have revealed the need to assess the performance of banks and explore the resilience of the banking system under adverse futures. Banks are not the safe houses everyone believed them to be, as the recent crisis of 2007 showed. Today, banks are highly uncertain dynamically complex systems that are...

Instituitions and Venture Capital: A cross country analysis on OECD countries

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of any economy. However, access to finance remains a key contraint to SME development and thus economic development. The Venture Capital industry has proved to be a good alternative source of financing in some countries to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Having originated in the USA ...

Proximity and Collaboration in German Nanotechnology Network

The processes of the establishment and facilitation of inter-organizational collaboration in German nanotechnology network are differently influenced by proximity dimentions. Collaborations are very important for newly emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. With this master thesis we focus on howgeographical, organizational and...

Can Wage Restraint Pull the Mediterranean Countries Out of the Sovereign-Debt Crisis? An Empirical Analysis of OECD Export Performance

On March 25th 2011, the European Council passed the Euro-plus Pact in order to enhance the competitiveness of European countries especially for the four Mediterranean countries which were trapped in a sovereign-debt crisis. One of the main focuses of the Pact was to restrain the growth rate of wages to make it below the growth rate of...

Investigating the Relevance of the Pecking Order Theory and the Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow Theory in the Eyes of Investors

Nowadays companies hold increased amounts of cash (Dittmar 2008; Schauten, van Dijk and Van der Waal 2008). Literature gives two contradictory theories that may influence the valuation of these cash holdings by investors in the market. The pecking order theory predicts that managers have more information about the state of the firm than outside...

Export performance and labour flexibility in Schumpeterian innovation models

The euro currency is facing a crisis which raises doubts about Euro-trade area survival (Barber, 2010). Among the European Union member states, Southern European countries (including Ireland), currently face a difficult economic situation (Barber, 2010). There is evidence of a large gap between ‘North’ and ‘South’ Europe in terms of trade...

Innovation and HRM in the firm

Path to achieve success How ICT start-ups adaptively choose the appropriate firm-level innovation policy?

National Innovative Capacity Evolution and Implications for Innovation Policy

Internationalisation of Defence Research and Development; Changing Roles of Research and Technology Organisations

Internal labor organization and innovation in Dutch firms

Milieubeleid compromis of porter? De porter-hypothese voor de Nederlandse papier- en kartonindustrie.