tracing the dynamics of competition evidence from company profits this article proposes a simple approach to analyzing profit dynamics which allows for time varying persistence of profits the time series model is a simple autoregressive process where the dynamics of the persistence parameter follow an autoregressive process using the longest time series available on profits for more than a hundred u s firms we find that there is ample evidence of time variation in the persistence parameter jel l00 c22

a statistical equilibrium model of competitive firms abstract we find that the empirical density of firm profit rates measured as returns on assets is markedly non gaussian and reasonably well described by an exponential power or subbotin distribution we start from a statistical equilibrium model that leads to a stationary subbotin density in the presence of complex interactions among competitive heterogeneous firms to investigate the dynamics of firm profitability we construct a diffusion process that has the subbotin distribution as its stationary probability density this leads to a phenomenologically inspired interpretation of variations in the shape parameter of the subbotin distribution which essentially measures the competitive pressure in and across industries our findings have profound implications both for the previous literature on the persistence of profits as well as for understanding competition as a dynamic process our main formal finding is that firms idiosyncratic efforts and the tendency for competition to equalize profit rates are two sides of the same coin and that a ratio of these two effects ultimately determines the dispersion of the equilibrium distribution

the competitive environment hypothesis revisited non linearity nonstationarity and profit persistence much empirical literature dealing with the competitive environment hypothesis tends to find nonstationary behaviour and very high persistence in time series of company profits profit time series is modelled using a simple threshold autoregressive model that allows for nonstationary behaviour over subsamples using a new dataset consisting of profits for more than 150 us companies over a time period of 50 years statistical evidence is presented that the high persistence observed in profits when using linear autoregressive models is often due to the misspecification of the data generating process

national systems of biotechnology innovation complex interdependence in the global system this paper explores the relationship between national institutional context and the development of biotechnology in the united states united kingdom japan and germany national patterns in biotechnology r d are linked to the configuration of county specific institutional features into a system of innovation which supports or impedes the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge between the scientific and industrial communities building on this comparative analysis it is argued that the particular characteristics of national systems of biotechnology innovation form the basis for complex interdependence within the global system through international technological cooperation and the cross border adoption and adaptation of institutional forms and practices implications for national technological advantage and the stability of national institutional systems are discussed

the persistence of profit differentials in indian industry the competitive process in a market economy is expected to work to eliminate profit differentials between firms industries in the long run in the indian case we note that quite a large number of industries experience above average profits that persist over time our analysis show that such persistence is higher in fast growing industries with high strategic barriers on the other hand government controls seem to be very effective in discouraging such persistence

when do more patents reduce r d this paper develops a simple duopoly model in which investments in r d and patents are inputs in the production of firm rents patents are necessary to appropriate the returns to the firm s own r d but patents also create potential claims against the rents of rival firms analysis of the model reveals a general necessary condition for the existence of a positive correlation between the firm s r d intensity and the number of patents it obtains when that condition is violated changes in exogenous parameters that induce an increase in firms patenting can also induce a decline in r d intensity such a negative relationship is more likely when 1 there is sufficient overlap in firms technologies so that each firm s inventions are likely to infringe the patents of another firm 2 firms are sufficiently r d intensive and 3 patents are cheap relative to both the cost of r d and the value of final output this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

parametric tests of allocative efficiency in the manufacturing sectors of india and pakistan this paper estimates allocative inefficiency in the manufacturing sectors of india and pakistan based on an extension of the translog profit function approach we propose a new method to the estimation of allocative inefficiency in two countries or groups the model is estimated using pooled annual data from the large scale manufacturing sectors of india and pakistan over the period 1959 87 we find evidence of allocative inefficiencies in both countries specifically results reveal that manufacturing firms in the two countries over utilize capital and raw materials relative to labour and energy the magnitude of over utilization of capital is more severe in pakistan than in india we argue that these findings are hardly surprising given the structure of factor markets and past government policies in the two countries

innovation and industry evolution the theoretical literature on innovation has been concerned with a single innovation produced by a number of identical agents by contrast we consider a market in which one firm is the current incumbent while the remaining firms are challengers moreover we consider a sequence of innovations so that success does not imply that the successful firm reaps monopoly profits forever after but only until the next better innovation is developed we begin with a fully optimizing behavioral model and derive the equivalent of the schumpeterian process of creative destruction that is a firm enjoys temporary monopoly power but is soon overthrown by a more inventive challenger the essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process the fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers goods the new methods of production or transportation the new markets the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates schumpeter 1942 pp 82 83

the persistence of profit a new empirical interpretation abstract inferences are drawn about the true coefficients which correspond to sample estimates of a persistence of profit model fitted over a large number of firms this is done by generating simulated sampling distributions for the estimators over various distributional assumptions profits seem to be stationary for all firms with an average short run persistence coefficient of 0 59 higher than most previous estimates long run profit rates differ between firms although by less than is suggested by direct observation of variations in mean profit rates calculated over time short run persistence appears to be inversely related to unsystematic variation in profit

the persistence of profits a european comparison this paper is concerned with modeling the movements in profits of firms over time at the heart of the emp irical model is a latent variables problem which arises from the fact that entry and imitation do not actually have to occur to have an ef fect on profits a solution to this problem is explored and then emp irical results are presented comparing a sample of firms from the uni ted kingdom france and west germany copyright 1988 by royal economic society

the convergence of profits in the long run inter firm and inter industry comparisons this paper considers the extent to which the short run dynamic behavior and long run equilibrium levels of profitability differ among firms within the same industry movements in profits are modeled in terms of firm specific deviations from average industry profits and industry specific deviations from economy wide average returns applied to a sample of 217 large u k firms 1951 77 the results suggest that considerable heterogeneities exist within most industries that is most firms profitability experience differs considerably from those of their closest rivals copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

entry and patenting in the software industry to what extent are firms kept out of a market by patents covering related technologies do patents held by potential entrants make it easier to enter markets we estimate the empirical relationship between market entry and patents for 27 narrowly defined categories of software products during the period 1990 2004 controlling for demand market structure average patent quality and other factors we find that a 10 increase in the number of patents relevant to market reduces the rate of entry by 3 8 and this relationship intensified following expansions in the patentability of software in the mid 1990s however potential entrants with patent applications relevant to a market are more likely to enter it finally patents appear to substitute for complementary assets in the entry process because patents have both greater entry deterring and entry promoting effects for firms without prior experience in other markets this paper was accepted by bruno cassiman business strategy

do firm sizes and profit rates converge evidence on gibrat s law and the persistence of profits in the long run three panel unit root tests are applied to a 31 year firm size growth and profit rate data set for 96 large quoted uk firms all tests reject the unit root null for log size if the augmented dickey fuller autoregressions exclude a linear time trend if a linear trend is included the results are more ambiguous and appear to differ systematically between tests the view that firm growth is either random or near random does not receive unequivocal support in all tests there is however strong and consistent evidence of mean reversion in profit rates

corporate profitability and the dynamics of competition in emerging markets a time series analysis the paper presents time series analyses of corporate profitability in seven leading developing countries dcs using the common methodology of the persistence of profitability pp studies and systematically compares the results with those for advanced countries acs surprisingly both short and long term persistence of profitability for dcs are found to be lower than those for acs the paper concentrates on economic explanations for these findings it also reports the results on the persistence of the two components of profitability output capital ratios and profit margins these too raise important general issues of economic interpretation for pp studies which are outlined

technological innovation in a corporatist state the case of biotechnology in the federal republic of germany abstract this article examines a decade of federal support for biotechnology in the federal republic of germany in order to determine the impact of liberal corporatist patterns of decision making on industrial policy for this purpose industrial policy is taken to include both public initiatives aimed at promoting the new technology and those designed to control its risks two distinct forms of corporatism are discernible in this case study in the first the principal actors are large businesses the state and to a lesser extent the academic reserch community these actors have been most influential in defining the scope and specific objectives of the federally funced r d program in biotechnology a more traditional form of corporatism including organized labor has been engaged in the debate on regulatory policies in the case of biotechnology these patterns of corporatism have created the consensus necessary for the adoption of a comprehensive r d program but have perpetuated certain barriers to technological innovation in particular the reliance on established peak organizations to formulate policy has discouraged structural changes that could have enhanced germany s early competitiveness in biotechnology incrementalism has produced more favorable results in the context of regulatory policy by permitting control strategies to develop in step with technological progress

contestable markets an uprising in the theory of industry structure presents a transcript of the presidential address delivered at the 94th meeting of the american economic association on december 29 1981 discussion of developments in the theory of industry structure welfare attributes of contestable markets behavior characteristics of oligopoly equilibrium intertemporal vulnerability to inefficient entry ebsco

does the persistence of profits persist a study of company profits in japan 1964 97 abstract earlier in a time series study of the profit rates of japanese manufacturing firms odagiri and yamawaki concluded that profits persist with the addition of 15 more years of data up to 1997 this conclusion is shown to stand the test of time in particular those firms estimated to earn higher than average long run profit rates in the early study were again estimated to earn higher than average long run profit rates the force of convergence was also found to be at work for instance the firms most profitable in period 1 1964 82 were most likely to face a decline in estimated long run profit rates from period 1 to period 2 1983 97 with the use of two sets of data the firm s profit performance was found to be positively related to measures of market share first among a smaller sample of firms for which reliable market share data could be matched market share was estimated to have a significant positive effect on long run profit rate in either period secondly among the entire sample of 357 firms the long run profit rate in either period was estimated to be positively associated with firm sales relative to industry sales which presumably is a crude measure of market share

preemptive patenting and the persistence of monopoly this article takes a different tack and inquires whether institutions such as the patent system create opportunities for firms with monopoly power to maintain their monopoly power the results apply to other situations such as brand identification spatial location and capacity expansion which share the characteristic that early or preemptive actions may lower the returns to potential competitors

the patent paradox revisited an empirical study of patenting in the u s semiconductor industry 1979 1995 we examine the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation recent survey evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns to r d yet the propensity of semiconductor firms to patent has risen dramatically since the mid1980s we explore this apparent paradox by conducting interviews with industry representatives and analyzing the patenting behavior of 95 u s semiconductor firms during 1979 1995 the results suggest that the 1980s strengthening of u s patent rights spawned patent portfolio races among capital intensive firms but it also facilitated entry by specialized design firms

is there a causal effect of concentration on persistent profitability differentials this article searches for a causal effect of industry concentration on estimates of persistent profitability differentials i offer solutions to identification problems that plague related analyses by applying an iv and a natural experiment this is the first study that explains estimates of persistent profit differentials using business segments data allowing to match micro and industry level data more consistently testing linear relations critical concentration levels and interactions with mobility barriers i find no evidence that concentration has any positive effect on long run profitability differences results rather tend to point to a statistically and economically significant negative causal effect

modelling profit series nonstationarity and long memory the dynamic structure of profit rates for 156 us manufacturing companies is analysed by means of fractional integration techniques as an alternative to the commonly used arima models with respect to the persistence of profits thereby the pseudo spectral density aproach of velasco and robinson together with model selection criteria is applied the results show despite the short lengths of the series and tests for the integer degrees of integration d 0 1 that 35 5 of the series may be well approximated by long range dependent processes and 54 are nonstationary this is a confirmation of the strong challenge to the competitive environment hypothesis obtained by previous studies

the persistence of profits in banking an international comparison this article examines the dynamics of bank profitability in the usa germany great britain france italy and switzerland over the period 1993 2014 we find long run bank profit persistence in all six countries in the period before the financial crisis in 2008 banks with large capital ratios are persistently more profitable and there is little evidence of a link between bank size and the persistence of bank profits commercial saving banks are persistently more less profitable in four of the six countries the effects of the financial crisis in 2008 differed dramatically across countries as well as across ownership types while us banks experienced dramatic declines in the immediate aftermath of the crisis they recovered much faster than their european counterparts and essentially retain their long run profit potential by the year 2014

profit persistence in the very long run evidence from survivors and exiters one of the main shortcomings of the profit persistence literature is the fact that it looks only at surviving companies this paper uses a unique dataset to analyse profit persistence in two different samples of stationary series 85 surviving us companies from 1950 1999 and 72 exiters while the exiters perform more competitively than the survivors there is still significant evidence for profit persistence in both samples concentration and growth of the industry as well as size and volatility of profits seem to play an important role in explaining persistence

the contrasting roles of government in the development of biotechnology industry in the us and germany abstract during the last 30 years biotechnology development has charted different paths in the us and in germany even though in germany federal support programs started very early to target biotechnology the innovative performance of this sector has been lagging behind that of the us where the federal support was less direct this article compares the two national science and technology s t policies and analyzes the political economic and social factors that determined the different paths the paper concludes that an indirect s t policy that tries to spread the factors thereby enabling a preferable economic ecology for biotech development is more successful than an interventionist policy political action however is limited and can only enhance science and technology development if the policies mesh with the social and economic dispositions

persistence of firm level profitability in turkey the dynamics of company profits for 172 of the largest manufacturing firms in turkey are studied a time series analysis is used to estimate the long run projected profits and firm specific speed of adjustment parameters that measures the rate at which short run rents are eroded while persistent profitability differences across firms are observed there is also a moderately quick erosion of rents except for the most highly profitable firms firm characteristics rather than industry effects account for the differences in permanent profits contrary to the widespread view that developing countries suffer from uncompetitive markets the results in this paper suggest that the intensity of competition in turkey is no less than in developed countries and similar to other developing countries