Three Essays in Economic Analyses of Firms' Performance

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dc.contributor.advisorTombe, Trevor
dc.contributor.authorWang, Longzhou
dc.contributor.committeememberMuehlenbachs, Lucija
dc.contributor.committeememberStaubli, Stefan
dc.date2022-11
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-23T13:50:33Z
dc.date.available2022-06-23T13:50:33Z
dc.date.issued2022-06-16
dc.description.abstractMany developing countries, such as China and India, have undergone dramatic changes during the past few decades. Two topics have gained widespread attention and discussion among these changes, namely environmental protection and transportation infrastructure construction. Although a large amount of literature discusses the impacts of environmental protection and transportation infrastructure on various economic outcomes, their findings are still controversial. My thesis contributes to this literature by analyzing the effects of environmental regulation and expressway construction in China on various economic outcomes using various moderate empirical methods, big datasets, and multiple software programs. Specifically, this thesis is a collection of three essays. The first two chapters theoretically and empirically study the effects of environmental regulation on firms' international trade, product quality, productivity, markups, credit constraints, profitability, and competitiveness. The last chapter studies the effects of transportation infrastructure on exports, productivity, markups, market competition, and misallocation. Chapter 1 explores the effects of two wastewater regulations on export product quality using disaggregated level data from China. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, I find that the first regulation improves product quality by 4.8%, while the second regulation with more rigorous standards declines product quality by 9.3%. However, decomposing analysis shows that both the intensive and extensive marginal effects of the two regulations almost equally improve the product quality at the firm-year level. The positive effect of the first regulation can be attributed to advanced technology adoption, innovation enhancement, and changes in the composition of firms and products. The negative effect of the second regulation is driven by firms' exit. Although the more rigorous regulation declines firms' competitiveness, the first regulation improves firms' competitiveness despite rising production costs and declining labor demand. Credit constraints have an essential impact on firms' performance, which might explain the controversial results of the effects of environmental regulation on firms' performance, especially for developing countries with the underdevelopment of financial markets. Chapter 2 develops a new dynamic general equilibrium model studying how environmental regulation affects firms' performance by considering their credit constraints. The model predicts that stricter regulation reduces labor demand and production due to the increases in firms' production costs. However, regulation increases firms' sales revenue, profits, and productivity through a selection effect. Moreover, most of these effects decrease with firms' credit constraints. These predictions are empirically tested by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment on firms in China's textile printing and dyeing industry. In addition to the growing pollution problem in developing countries, the construction of infrastructure has also undergone dramatic changes over the past few decades, which could significantly impact firms' performances. Chapter 3 identifies how proximity to new transportation infrastructure affects exports by combining highly disaggregated data on firm exports with novel datasets on firm geolocation and the Chinese national expressway expansion from 2000 - 2013. I find that accessing the expressway network increases export amounts by 7.1%, decreases export prices by 5.2%, and has an insignificant impact on export revenues. Exploiting the Ming Dynasty Courier Road (1587) as an instrument for the expressway network suggests that the expressway network’s design is exogenous. Decomposing the effect on export amounts across firms reveals that they are driven by incumbent firms, and not entry or exit dynamics. There are several potential mechanisms driving these results, including rising firm productivity, greater market concentration, higher markups, and decreases in resource misallocation. Overall, access to expressways increases firms' competitiveness by improving firm and market efficiency. This thesis provides rich analyses of the effects of different policies on multiple economic outcomes, which deepen the understanding of the economic impacts of environmental regulation and transportation infrastructure development and has reference significance for policymakers to improve policy effectiveness.en_US
dc.identifier.citationWang, L. (2022). Three Essays in Economic Analyses of Firms’ Performance (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39850
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1880/114767
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisher.facultyArtsen_US
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.en_US
dc.subjectWastewater regulationen_US
dc.subjectProduct qualityen_US
dc.subjectPorter hypothesisen_US
dc.subjectCompetitivenessen_US
dc.subjectCredit constraintsen_US
dc.subjectFirms' decisions and outcomesen_US
dc.subjectExpressway expansionen_US
dc.subjectInternational tradeen_US
dc.subjectProductivityen_US
dc.subjectMarkupsen_US
dc.subjectMisallocationen_US
dc.subject.classificationEducation--Businessen_US
dc.subject.classificationEducation--Financeen_US
dc.subject.classificationEducation--Industrialen_US
dc.subject.classificationLiterature--Asianen_US
dc.subject.classificationAccountingen_US
dc.subject.classificationGeographyen_US
dc.subject.classificationSociology--Transportationen_US
dc.subject.classificationUrban and Regional Planningen_US
dc.subject.classificationEnergyen_US
dc.subject.classificationEngineering--Environmentalen_US
dc.titleThree Essays in Economic Analyses of Firms' Performanceen_US
dc.typedoctoral thesisen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineEconomicsen_US
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgaryen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrueen_US
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