A large body of literature suggests that access to financing is important determinant of firm investments (Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981; Fazzari and Hubbard, 1988; Evans and Jovanovic, 1989; Bond, 1994; Dixit and Pindyck, 1994; Hubbard, 1998). Cabral and Mata (2003) argue that expansion of small firms is hampered by firms financial constraints resulting in observed right skewed firm size distribution. Financial factors are also shown to be important in explaining the patterns of international trade. Chaney (2005) has shown theoretically that in the presence of large fixed cost of exporting access to financing may explain part of the variation in the foreign market participation. Greenaway, Guariglia and Kneller (2007) confirm this prediction for a set of UK manufacturing firms. Further, Zia (2008) reports that removal of subsidized credit causes a significant decline in the exports of privately owned Pakistani firms, while the exports of large, publicly listed, and group network firms remain unaffected. In a similar vein, Bellone, Musso, Nesta and Schiavo (2000) demonstrate that less financially constrained Italian firms are more likely to start exporting earlier, but that exporting per se does not improve financial health of exporters.
They also find, taking export intensity as a proxy for serving a large number of destinations, a negative relationship between access to financing and export intensity. The reasoning for the latter is straightforward. Further expansion of exporters to new foreign markets as well as the introduction of new products to the existing markets is associated with significant sunk cost. Financial constraints will therefore provide an important barrier not only to the entry into export markets, but also to new exporterso expansion dynamics in foreign markets. Damijan, Kostevc and Polanec (2010) show that Slovenian firms with higher debt to asset ratio tend to export greater number of products to greater number of markets. In both cases, firm size is shown to be positively correlated with the expansion dynamics of new exporters.
Frank Cooper and I share a common interest in the cholesterol theory; we both have sky high cholesterol levels. As younger men we were taught this put us at high risk of sudden death. Then we investigated the theory and found it lacking. There is no clear cause/effect relationship between cholesterol levels and heart attacks. Actually the theory has leaked like a sieve from the very beginning.
In Cholesterol & The French Paradox Frank has done a fine job of putting the cholesterol theory to rest. Frank's stated purpose in writing this book is to simplify the subject for non-health professionals. He has done a good job.
In its early days in America, democracy was hardly democratic. With many held in slavery and servitude, women subjugated and disenfranchised, and the landed gentry controlling the ballot box as well as the newly developing government, democracy cried out for sustenance, for major interventions that would assure its healthy, long-term development.
In the 19th and 20th Centuries democracy began to grow up. Political reforms gave citizens greater access to the political process. As noted by Johns Hopkins University Professor Matthew Crenson in his “From Popular to Personal Democracy”in the National Civic Review, “the introduction of primary elections, the use of referendum and recall, sunshine laws, legislative mandates requiring agencies to give public notice and hold public hearings before making policy changes, freedom of information statutes all would seem to have made the government more responsive to citizens than ever before.” 1 Huge gains in civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s and other reforms largely abolished systematic disenfranchisement.
