1、原文：R&D and Firm Performance in a Transition EconomyINTRODUCTIONAccording to international comparative statistics the Eastern European countries show much less innovative activity than e.g. the EU averageThis might be good or bad.If the firms are not capable enough to handle R&D processes it is good

2、that they recognize this. During a countrys transformation process to a market economy, adoption of established processes and products in connection with product variation and competitive production possibilities are an attractive alternative to innovation. However most observers ask for more R&D in

3、 these countries and for policies easing innovation in order to increase growth.Those policy interventions are not only subject of theoretical discussions.Subsidies granted by the European Commission in member countries, like thesixth framework program, are also relevant for the accession countries

4、of theEuropean Union. Perhaps R&D subsidies are partly wasted if granted in anearly stage of the transformation process and could be usedin a more productiveway. It might be the case that instead of conducting research and developmentfirms in these areas are better off by the production of establish

5、ed products atlower costs than in the Western countries. Answers to these questions wouldsurely be helpful for the policy design for transformation processes.The purpose of our article is to compare the success of innovative activity inEastern and Western Germany in order to investigate whether ther

6、e aredifferences with respect to R&D performance between the two parts ofreunified Germany.Eastern Germany is a very special example of a transitioneconomy. The movement from the former German Democratic Republic tostates of the GermanFederalRepublic was accompanied by the introductionof a well esta

7、blished currency,a stable and reliable legal framework and ahighly developed system of industrial relations.Although differences betweenboth parts of the reunified Germany arose in themeantime,these are certainlysmaller than those with respect to other transition economics. Hence this is theunparall

8、eled opportunity to compare an established market economy with atransition economy on the basis of very similar environmental conditions.Hence,the ceteris paribus condition applies.R&D conducted by East-German firms is heavily subsidized as the policydecision makers regard it as being very important

9、 that the competitiveness ofthese companies is improved by technological leadership.It remains to beshown that these subsidies are notwasted.We intend to answer this question bycomparing the performance of Eastern andWestern German enterprises.Innovation in a transition economy likeEasternGermany mi

10、ght suffer fromlacking experience with both the currenttechnological frontier and mechanismsatplace in amarket economy.For example,outdated human capitalmayoften lead to duplicate research (by accident),or firms could rely only onimitation (on purpose).In combination with high demand uncertainty and

11、lacking experience inmarketing strategy,investments inR&Dmay not lead to(expected) returns.Reasonable returns could be necessary to survive for startupfirms,though.The purpose of this paper has two dimensions:On one hand,we compare Western and Eastern German manufacturing firms by relating a credit

12、rating index as measure of performance to R&D spending and other firm characteristics.On the other hand,we extend the rating model by a second equation dealing with financial distress and bankruptcy.This is particularly interesting because Eastern German manufacturing is predominantly composed of sm

13、all and medium-sized enterprises that were newly founded after the German reunification in 1990.We ask the question whether investment inR&Dis valued as in Western Germany,or if agencies rate such firms more conservative,because young firms lack a corresponding track record on which the rating could

14、 be based.This study could be highly relevant for innovation policy. Eastern German firms receive relatively more subsidies than their Western German counterparts.The German government intends to foster the transformation process froma planned economy to a viablemarket economy byamong other policies

15、,an intensive support for innovative activities in order to strengthen thecompetitiveness of the Eastern German regions.If,however,innovation activities in the East do not lead to successful products and market success, but fail or, in the worst case, put firms at the risk of bankruptcy, this policy

16、 strategy may be an inefficient allocation of resources.Our study is an extension of the (few) existing studies on the effects of innovations in transition economies.Aghion et al. (2002) as well as Carlin et al.(2004) investigate the effect of innovations on growth of a sample of 2,245 respectively

17、3,288 firms from 24 Eastern European countries and they find that some competitive pressure is good for innovativeness,but too much can be counterproductive (Carlin et al. 2004).Innovativeness has a positive impact on growth.However,it is not tested whether innovations have also a positive effect on

18、 profitability. Konings and Xavier (2002) utilize information concerning innovation and use the ratio of intangible assets to total fixed assets as an exogenous variable explaining survival and growth for a sample of 2,813 Slovenian firms over the time period from 1994 to 1998.It turns out that the

19、innovation variable has negative,yet insignificant,coefficients both in the growth and the survival equations.However, this is a first indication that innovation might not support growth and survival of firms in a transition economy.This stands in contrast to the empirical results estimated for firm

20、s in non-transition countries (see e.g. Hall 1987,Cefis and Marsili 2006).We are not aware of a study that directly compares non-transition and transition countries.CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKFirm performance with respect to R&D has been measured by a variety of indicators such as productivity,profitabilit

21、y, and firms stock market valuations .In this paper we employ a broad measure encompassing productivity,profitability and stock market value.We approximate the overall firm value by firmscredit ratings.The firm value is expected to reflect the value of both tangible assets and intangible assets,in p

22、articular knowledge capital, the intangible assets created byR&Dactivity.It accounts for business and financial risks,such as industry characteristics,competitive position,management,productivity,profitability,liquidity as well as financial policy and flexibility.Thus it reflects both currently obse

23、rvable firm characteristics and expectations regarding future developments.The statement that innovative activity is a risky undertaking is close to triviality.Risk is expected to affect firmvalue negatively,as the probability of a bankruptcy or at least payment delays will increase.However,due to t

24、he fact that innovation is a driving force for economic success,a trade-off between risk and future success exists.There might well be an internal optimum whichmeans thatsomeR&Dis useful,whilst toomuchR&Ddoes notmaximize the present firm value. Thus a moderately successfully R&D performing firm is e

25、xpected to have high revenues and a good financial performance.In the long run an innovative firm may have better chances to survive, if investments into these activities are not toolarge.Aside of the general relevance of evaluating the effect of R&Dactivity on firm value,it is of specific interest

26、in the case of Eastern Germany.We are able to comparethe marketeconomyofWesternGermanywith aneconomyintransition where bothhave the samecurrency unit, the samelegal system,the same economic system and all other important contributions to the business environment.It should be noted, though,that in Ea

27、stern Germany a much smaller share of all workers is covered by collective bargaining agreements and that more than 15 years after the unification, wages are still lower in Eastern Germany,on average.However, this should improve the competitiveness of the affected companies.After the German reunific

28、ation in 1990, the East German industrial sector more or less collapsed.The existing larger firms were sold to newowners and a restructuring process took place.Among introductions of other policy measures,R&D has been heavily subsidized in order to speed up the convergence process.Fostering innovati

29、on is clearly intended to improve the competitiveness of the companies in question and this was highly needed for the former producers in a centrally governed planning society.In order to be a successful stimulus to the catching-up process,the subsidies must be used efficiently within the firm.As sa

30、id above we use credit ratings as the variable reflecting economic performance of a firm.In a second step ofour analysiswe investigatewhether the results we find with respect to the rating are also reflected in other performance indicators.Since Eastern German firms are,on average, much younger and

31、smaller thanWestern German firms,they face higher market uncertainty.This could result inmore conservative ratings simply due to lacking track records and experiencewith suchbusinesses.In order to assessapotentialdownwardbias for non-economicallymotivated reasons by the rating agency,we verify our f

32、inding on the credit rating by an estimation of a second equation. As an alternative to the rating, we consider financial distress.Although we observe actual bankcruptcy,too, we prefer to use a broader measure of financial distress,because firm bankruptcies are rare events,and the econometric analys

33、is of such is difficult.Financial distress is described by the payment behavior of firms.Adefault is certainly an incidence that a lender definitely wants to avoid,but late payments are also a problemand usually related to financial losses and,in addition, itmay be awarning thatmore seriousproblems

34、could arise inthe near future.Therefore, we believe that payment behavior is an objective measure concerning the risk of borrowers or other remittees,and that it directly translates into liquidity of firms.In summary,we argue that R&D in Eastern Germany is perceived as more risky rather than benefic

35、ial for firm value.In the West,the opposite is true.However,the regressions on future financial distress measured by the payment behavior (time elapsing until payment of bills) indicate that Eastern German firms are not discriminated by the rating agency.R&D does indeed lead toliquidity problems in

36、the future rather than to improved successful products or cost reductions in production. These results call into question the high subsidization of Eastern German firms. If the resources are inefficiently used,policy makers could think about alternative ways to improve the competitiveness of the Eas

37、tern German business sector. CONCLUSIONThis paper reports the results of an empirical study concerning the effects of innovative activity on credit ratings of firms. The credit rating approach is extended by an objective variable concerning the financial status of firms.We use the time taken until p

38、ayment obligations are fulfilled. it turns out that theEasternGerman firmsare very dissimilar to theWestern German ones. They performworse.AnyR&D effort leads to a lower credit rating,hence the rating agency distrusts these firms.An examination of the payment behavior (as an indicator for financial

39、distress) shows that the rating agency does not discriminate Eastern German firms with respect to ratings. Innovative activity increases future financial distress in Eastern Germany.The firms invest in R&D without getting corresponding returns afterwards.It remains a demanding task for future work t

40、o explain why this phenomenon occurs in EasternGermany.IfR&Dis subsidized,we find that it contributes positively to performance in theWest,but not in Eastern German firms.However,in the case of subsidy receipt,R&Ddoes at least not harmthe economic performance in the East.This research would disentag

41、le R&D into original research and research mainly aiming at imitation of existing products in establishedmarkets.On the one hand,EasternGerman firms could mainly focus on imitation which would possibly explain the less successful outcome ofR&Din such firms.On the other hand,theymaywell come upwithma

42、rket novelties,but those may either lack sufficient demand or do not achieve the quality necessary to succeed in (international) markets.Source:Dirk Czarnitzki.Kornelius Kraft,2006.“R&D and Firm Performance in a Transition Economy”.KYKLOS news.vol.59,no.4,april,pp.481-496.譯文：轉(zhuǎn)型經(jīng)濟(jì)中的研發(fā)和企業(yè)績效簡介根據(jù)國際比較統(tǒng)計(jì)東

43、歐國家表現(xiàn)出很大的不足，例如創(chuàng)新活動。歐盟的平均水平，這在這方面可能是好也或是壞的。如果公司沒有足夠能力來處理的RD過程是好的，他們認(rèn)識到這一點(diǎn)。在一個國家向市場經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)型的過程中，產(chǎn)品的變化和競爭力的生產(chǎn)可能性連接產(chǎn)品的采用是一個有吸引力的替代品創(chuàng)新，但大多數(shù)觀察家要求在這些國家和政策的放寬創(chuàng)新更多的研發(fā)，以增加經(jīng)濟(jì)的增長。這些政策措施不僅是理論討論的主題。還是獲歐洲委員會成員國，如第六框架計(jì)劃的補(bǔ)貼，有關(guān)的歐洲聯(lián)盟也加入進(jìn)來了。也許研發(fā)補(bǔ)貼部分是浪費(fèi)的，但是給予一個轉(zhuǎn)型的早期階段，可以更高效地利用。它可能是這樣，而不是在這些領(lǐng)域進(jìn)行研究和開發(fā)。公司總體上達(dá)到小康較低的費(fèi)用由既定的產(chǎn)品的生產(chǎn)能

44、力所決定?；卮疬@些問題，一定會為在轉(zhuǎn)化過程中的政策設(shè)計(jì)提供幫助。文章的目的是比較德國東部和西部，以創(chuàng)新活動成功，調(diào)查是否有與研發(fā)方面的兩部分之間的表現(xiàn)差異。德國東部是一個非常特殊的轉(zhuǎn)軌經(jīng)濟(jì)的例子。從原德意志民主共和國運(yùn)動對德意志聯(lián)邦共和國的國家是伴隨著一個完善的貨幣，一個穩(wěn)定和可靠的法律框架和高度發(fā)達(dá)的工業(yè)關(guān)系制度。雖然統(tǒng)一后的德國之間的差異使得兩個部分的產(chǎn)生，但是這些方面肯定比其他轉(zhuǎn)軌經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)概率小。因此，比較與過渡經(jīng)濟(jì)對非常相似的環(huán)境條件的基礎(chǔ)上建立的市場經(jīng)濟(jì)，這是無與倫比的機(jī)會。因此，在其他條件不變的情況下也是適用的。德國企業(yè)進(jìn)行大量補(bǔ)貼研發(fā)項(xiàng)目的政策，決策者認(rèn)為是非常重要的，因?yàn)檫@些公司

45、的競爭力是由技術(shù)領(lǐng)先地位所提高的。雖然有待證明?；卮鸨容^德國東部企業(yè)的業(yè)績這個問題。在轉(zhuǎn)軌經(jīng)濟(jì)創(chuàng)新時(shí)可能遭受缺乏目前的技術(shù)限制。如地方的經(jīng)驗(yàn)過時(shí)，常常導(dǎo)致重復(fù)研究，或公司只依靠模仿。在高需求的不確定性和缺乏經(jīng)驗(yàn)策略組合下，投資印度盧比不會導(dǎo)致預(yù)計(jì)的回報(bào)。合理回報(bào)可能為企業(yè)的生存提供了一線生機(jī)。本文的目的有兩個方面：一方面，我們比較西方和有關(guān)作為衡量性能的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的RD支出和其他企業(yè)特征的信用評級指標(biāo)東德制造公司。另一方面，我們擴(kuò)大了第二次與金融危機(jī)和破產(chǎn)處理方程的評級模型。特別有趣的是，因?yàn)榈聡鴸|部制造業(yè)主要是小型和中型的企業(yè)新生力，在1990年德國的統(tǒng)一要求企業(yè)組成的投資相對于印度盧比來說是有價(jià)

46、值的。或者如果企業(yè)的生產(chǎn)模式比較保守，而新生的企業(yè)缺乏經(jīng)驗(yàn)，難以跟蹤記錄，就更難以評比，這也就為此打下了研究基礎(chǔ)。這項(xiàng)研究是與高度創(chuàng)新的政策有關(guān)。德國東部企業(yè)獲得比更多的德國西部所沒有獲得的補(bǔ)貼。德國政府也打算推動改革，使其計(jì)劃經(jīng)濟(jì)向市場經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)變，正因?yàn)檎叩闹С郑矠閯?chuàng)新活動密集的行動打下了基礎(chǔ)，以加強(qiáng)對德國東部地區(qū)的支援。但是，在德國東部的創(chuàng)新活動不一定會推廣的市場上的情況下，也就不一定會成功。倘若失敗，或者考慮最壞的打算，擺在企業(yè)面前的是企業(yè)面臨的破產(chǎn)危機(jī)，而這一政策可能產(chǎn)生的效果就是資源的最低利用。我們的研究是關(guān)于經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)型創(chuàng)新的影響。根據(jù)現(xiàn)有的資料所延伸。在研究的經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)型創(chuàng)新上分別有來

47、自24個東歐國家2,2453,288公司的樣本來研究其影響，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，存在一些競爭壓力是有好處的。但是過多的可能會適得其反。創(chuàng)新對經(jīng)濟(jì)增長是有積極的影響的。但是，它沒有預(yù)測是否也有創(chuàng)新，對盈利能力產(chǎn)生積極的影響。一些人利用信息相關(guān)的創(chuàng)新和利用無形資產(chǎn)總額的比率作為別的來解釋有關(guān)公司所提供的數(shù)據(jù)所在的生存條件和發(fā)展的變量的固定資產(chǎn)。事實(shí)證明，創(chuàng)新變量都在變化，相應(yīng)的系數(shù)表明創(chuàng)新可能不支持在一個過渡經(jīng)濟(jì)增長和企業(yè)的生存價(jià)值。以在非過渡國家的公司的估計(jì)研究為代表，我們可以得到對非過的和轉(zhuǎn)型的國家的一個認(rèn)識與看法。概念框架公司方面的RD績效測量，如生產(chǎn)力指標(biāo)，盈利品種和公司股票的市場估值。在本文中，我們采用了廣泛的措施，包括生產(chǎn)率，盈利能力和股市。由公司的信用評級公司的價(jià)值。公司的價(jià)值預(yù)期，以反映包括有形資產(chǎn)和無形資產(chǎn)的價(jià)值，特別是知識資本。它占為商業(yè)和金融風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，如行業(yè)特點(diǎn)，競爭地位，管理，生產(chǎn)效率，盈利能力，流動性以及財(cái)政政策，這既反映了目前的經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展趨勢也觀察了企業(yè)特征和未來發(fā)展的期望。創(chuàng)新活動是一個冒險(xiǎn)的行動，要有預(yù)見性的思想的，否則就會使得一個企業(yè)有破產(chǎn)的可能，或有拖欠付款的可能，使得信用度降低。然而，由于這一個事實(shí)，即創(chuàng)新是經(jīng)濟(jì)成功的驅(qū)動力，貿(mào)易和未來的成功與風(fēng)險(xiǎn)之間的影響