Paskutiniais metais aktualiu klausimu tampa inovacijų modeliavimas. Pasirodant kiekvienai naujovei, verslininkams reikia suprasti ir prognozuoti rinkos vystymąsi, kad galėtų numatyti pardavimų eigą, planuoti pardavimų kiekius ir atlikti finansinį planavimą. Šiame darbe tyrinėsime kompiuterių skverbties koeficientus (penetration rate) 23 skirtingose pasaulio šalyse ir mėginsime parinkti geriausiai prognozavimui tinkantį modelį. Skverbties koeficientas paprastai parodo prekės ženklo ar produkto kategorijos populiarumą. Jis apskaičiuojamas dalinant žmonių, kurie perka kažkokią prekę ar paslaugą, skaičių iš tos rinkos visos populiacijos skaičiaus tam tikru periodu. Taigi, skverbties koeficientas yra procentas žmonių populiacijoje, kurie per stebimą periodą nusipirko tam tikrą prekę ar paslaugą. Marketinge dažnai yra spendžiama problema: didinti pardavimus stengiantis privilioti klientus iš konkurentų ar plečiant potencialių pirkėjų populiaciją, t.y. einant į naujas rinkas. Darbo pradžioje bus pristatyti panelinių duomenų vertinimo būdai, analizei reikalinga teorinė dalis, kai kurių reikalingų statistikų skaičiavimas. Vėliau pereisime prie pagrindinės darbo dalies - geriausio modelio parinkimo. Pirmiausia bus nagrinėjami paprasčiausi tiesinio trendo modeliai, įtraukiant autoregresijos procesą bei egzogeninius kintamuosius. Toliau įvairiais metodais mėginsime modeliuoti difuzijos procesą. Bandysime jį aproksimuoti kvadratiniu trendu, taikyti logistinį bei Gompertz modelius ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Lately the modelling of innovation process is a constantly recurring problem. As with any new service for managers it is important to understand and to able to forecast the market developement for strategic, capacity and financial planning purposes. This master thesis analyses computer penetration data in 23 different countries and tries to propose the best fitting model for forcasting. Penetration rate usually shows the popularity of a brand or a product. It is given as a percentage of the countries’ households who have bought that particular brand or product at least once within a defined period of time. In marketing there is a decision to make: enlarge sales by trying to attract more costumers in the sales region or by expanding the population of potential buyers, i.e. by expanding to other emerging markets. In the beginning of this thesis we will introduce some basic information about the panel data and some approaches of the theory needed for estimation. Later on we will pass to the main part of the work which is devoted to choosing the model. At first, we analyze some linear trend models with autoregression terms and exogenous variables. Then we examine a diffusion process by approximating it with a quadratic trend, logistic and Gompertz models. Also some basic information about the Bass diffusion model will be provided.

This study examines the determinants of economic growth at sub-national level in South Africa, and investigates cross-locality medium-term (five-year) growth rate differentials between 354 magisterial districts. The period in question is 1998 to 2002. A dynamic panel data regression model is used that includes measures of geography (distance and natural resources) as well as recent estimates of physical and human capital. It is found that the significant determinants of local economic growth are distance from internal markets, human capital, export propensity, and the capital stock of municipalities (reflecting institutional quality and governance on local government level). Distance from international harbours, as a measure of transport costs, and urban agglomeration (or density) affects growth indirectly through its significant effect on the ability of a region to export. Overall, these results indicate that geography is important for economic growth, independent of its effects in institutions. Bearing in mind the medium-term focus of the work, no evidence of absolute convergence could be found over a five-year period, rather the tentative evidence suggests slow beta convergence. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

This study provides a systematic description of the nature and evolution of major transactions in the U.S. apparel sector, using a theory that applies across sectors. This research investigates the determinants of the existence and magnitude of major inter-firm transactions, relying on a unique longitudinal dataset of over 2,000 of the largest transactional (buy-sell) relations between publicly traded firms in the U.S. apparel sector. The results indicate the importance of inter-firm complementarity, rather than inter-firm similarity, in explaining the sector architecture; thus contributing to the future improvement of industry classification systems. This study also contributes to a deeper understanding of the apparel sector focusing on the change in the relative importance of manufacturing activities versus service activities and in the involvement of firms from the outside apparel sector. Implications of inter-firm transactions are discussed regarding industry policies, and human and environmental welfare in manufacturing and raw materials industries.

This paper investigates the impact of knowledge capital stocks on total factor productivity through the lens of the knowledge capital model proposed by Griliches (1979), augmented with a spatially discounted cross-region knowledge spillover pool variable. The objective is to shift attention from firms and industries to regions and to estimate the impact of cross-region knowledge spillovers on total factor productivity (TFP) in Europe. The dependent variable is the region-level TFP, measured in terms of the superlative TFP index suggested by Caves, Christensen and Diewert (1982). This index describes how efficiently each region transforms physical capital and labour into output. The explanatory variables are internal and out-of-region stocks of knowledge, the latter capturing the contribution of cross-region knowledge spillovers. We construct patent stocks to proxy regional knowledge capital stocks for N=203 regions over the 1997- 2002 time period. In estimating the effects we implement a spatial panel data model that controls for the spatial autocorrelation due to neighbouring regions and the individual heterogeneity across regions. The findings provide a fairly remarkable confirmation of the role of knowledge capital contributing to productivity differences among regions, and add an important spatial dimension to the discussion, by showing that productivity effects of knowledge spillovers increase with geographic proximity. (authors' abstract)

The primary task of this paper is to test the interactive relations between tax rates at municipality level. We include 96 municipalities between the years 2006 to 2013.   The relations are estimated by panel data instrumental variable estimation method with fixed effect for overcoming the possible specific error of simultaneity. In addition, we choose a set of control variables to strength our analysis. The main findings of this study suggest, one percent tax cut in the neighboring municipality leads to a 0,62 percent decrease in the tax in the home municipality ceteris paribus. This result is in line with theory and is similar to findings in previous studies such as Edmark and Åhgren (2008).

Bolagsskattesänkningen genomfördes den 1 januari 2013, målet med sänkningen var att stimulera Sveriges tillväxt då en sänk bolagsskatt sägs öka investeringsviljan. Med sänkningen ville man också minska incitamenten för företag att flytta sina verksamheter till lågskatteländer. Att bolagsskattesatsen sänktes väckte ett intresse som skapade denna uppsats att undersöka vilka faktorer det är som styr bolagsskattesatsen, till exempel, i en liten öppen ekonomi som den svenska.  Teorin grundar sig i kapitalstruktur och finansieringsbeslut. Faktorer som anses påverka bolagsskatten och som valts ut är utländska direktinvesteringar, öppenhet mot kapitalflöde och BNP per Capita. Datainsamling har skett sekundärt och bearbetats i det analytiska programmet R. Med hjälp av R och statistiska metoder har det genomförts paneldataanalys och regressionsanalys. Svaret är kort och gott, ja, faktorerna påverkar bolagsskattesatsen. Det visar att ett land som är större geografiskt och har en hög öppenhet för kapitalrörelser tenderar att ha en lägre bolagsskattesats och att det tycktes vara ett bra val av Sverige att justera bolagsskatten. / The goal with lowering of the Swedish corporate tax rate the 1st of January 2013 was to stimulate the Swedish growth, as a lower corporate tax rate is said to increase the will to invest. The incentives for corporations to move to low tax countries was also thought to be decreased due to the reduction.  When the tax rate was reduced an interest arise to examine which factors influence the tax rate, as for example, for a small economy as the Swedish. Theory presented is based on capital structure and finance decisions. The variables chosen is FDI, Openness towards capital flow and BNP per capita. Collection of data is secondary and has been analysed in the statistic program R with focus on panel data and regression analysis. The answer is for short, yes, the variables do indeed influence the corporate tax rate. Countries whom are larger geographically and has a high openness towards capital movement are more likely to have a lower corporate tax rate and it seemed to be a good choice of the Swedish parliament to lower the corporate tax rate.

Spillover phenomena are usually statistically estimated on the basis of regional and temporal panel data. In this paper we review and investigate exploratory and confirmatory statistical panel data techniques. We illustrate the methods by calculations in the stetting of the well known Research and Development Spillover study by Coe and Helpman (1995). It will be demonstrated that alternative estimation techniques that are well compatible with the data can lead to opposite conclusions. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

Employee turnover is a fairly common phenomenon across organizations throughout the globe, which creates both direct and indirect costs to companies (Lambert et al., 2012). Though numerous authors have investigated the problem, only a small number have studied the Canadian labour market. Furthermore, few have examined how various hiring or screening tests during the hiring process affect worker attrition. The thesis aims to complement existing research about employee voluntary turnover (vs. involuntary turnover) and retention by further investigating some of the root causes and potential solutions from a Canadian perspective. Using longitudinal data from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) supplied by Statistics Canada through an 8-year period, it explores 5 hypotheses relating to the initial hiring process (ten screening tests), the gender and marital status of employees, compensation, and employees’ seniority in the company. The survey datasets are based on respondents of, on average, 6,268 companies and 20,387 corresponding workers from 1999 to 2006. Logit and probit regression models are employed for the empirical tests. The results are surprising, and seem to differ from most studies in other countries. In Canada, it appears wage has no effect on workers’ turnover at all, employee engagement programs negatively affect workers’ decisions to stay, women are more likely to quit than men are, married employees are no more likely to quit than anyone else, children seem to have no impact on employee attrition, and workers with lower status in the company are more likely to stay. The concluding chapter discusses implications of these findings and how they might help Canadian organizations deal with employee voluntary turnover.

In endogenous growth models, in contrast to the neoclassical growth models, government expenditure and taxation have an effect on the long run growth rate. In this thesis I examine whether the empirical evidence support the predictions of endogenous growth models or the neoclassical growth models in relation to fiscal policy. For this purpose I use panel data for fifteen European Union (EU) member and thirty-three developing countries between the years 1970 and 1999. I specifically test the following two propositions. The first proposition states that distortionary taxation decreases growth while non-distortionary taxation does not. The second, states that productive government expenditure increases growth while non-productive expenditure does not. The empirical results are quite different between European Union countries and developing countries. The results do not support endogenous growth especially for developing countries.

近年由於消費型態改變，加上金融技術進步、消費貸款相關法令鬆綁與政府政策刺激消費，以消費者為導向之金融商品漸趨多元化，導致消費金融在全球蓬勃發展；而直接金融興起，使得銀行在企業融資活動中地位重要性不如從前，來自企業金融的收入也隨之受到影響，種種因素加深銀行轉向推展消費金融業務，尋求新的收入來源。台灣自1990中期後，消費金融從金融體系的邊緣性業務逐漸躍升居主要業務，以民國93年資料顯示，消費金融貸款已成為銀行第一大貸款業務。有鑑於無人針對消費金融各項主要業務對銀行績效之影響做一綜合性探討，本研究將先針對國內消費金融發展做一說明、探討，再使用Panel 模型針對主要消費金融業務對銀行績效影響做一探討。 研究發現如下: 一、國內消費金融規模逐漸擴大，以信用卡、現金卡放款、其他消費性 貸款業務成長最快，整體消費金融朝向無擔保信貸發展，傳統有擔保 之業務比重不若以往。 二、民營銀行在消費金融績效優於公營銀行，尤其是金控底下之子銀行， 由於具有通路與規模之利，在推展消金時成效較好。 三、研究期間，消費金融業務對銀行績效確實優於企業金融業務，其中以 房貸對於銀行整體績效貢獻可以同時兼顧收入與風險面，對於整體銀 行逾放比呈現負向顯著關係，收入面則呈現正向挹注效果；而現金卡 放款與信用卡循環信用對銀行收入呈現顯著正向挹注效果，兩項業 務之利率達到15%以上，卻也同時具有增加銀行逾放比效果，此現象 符合高風險高報酬；車貸方面則因積極運作銀行屬於少數，雖然仍與 銀行收入呈現正向關係，但此關聯性不是很鮮明。