Comparing Apples With....Apples: How to Make (More) Sense of Subjective Rankings of Constraints to Business
Comparing Apples With....Apples: How to Make (More) Sense of Subjective Rankings of Constraints to Business
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将苹果与......苹果进行比较：如何（更多）了解商业约束的主观排名
DOI：
10.1596/1813-9450-5054
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发表时间：
2009
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Reyes Aterido
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Mary C. Hallward;Reyes Aterido
利用专家调查或定性调查对各国的商业投资条件进行排名的做法十分普遍。然而，在经济文献中，人们对基于受访者特征的测量误差和内隐误差表示担忧，这就提出了数据在多大程度上反映了他们试图测量的基本现实的问题。本文使用来自105个国家/地区79，000家公司的数据来研究这些问题。调查结果显示，首先，定性排名与商业环境的定量措施相关，使用调查内部和外部来源的定量措施。第二，基于公司特征的看法存在系统性差异-尤其侧重于规模和增长业绩。然而，这并不是说对商业环境的乐观看法仅仅是企业自身业绩的表现。相反，公司规模和业绩影响某些制约因素的相对重要性，特别是在财务、与官员/检查员接触的时间、腐败和获得可靠电力等领域。研究结果还表明，企业类型的主观反应的变化很大程度上是由于不同类型的企业之间的客观条件的差异。几乎没有证据表明，规模和业绩在如何限制一个给定的客观条件是报告的非线性影响。总的来说，在使用商业环境指标来解释公司业绩时，仍然存在对内环境的担忧，但这主要源于这样一个事实，即你是谁以及你做得有多好会影响你所面临的条件，而不是所使用的指标是定性还是定量。
The use of expert or qualitative surveys to rank countries business investment conditions is widespread. However, within the economic literature there are concerns about measurement error and endogeneity based on characteristics of the respondents, raising questions about how well the data reflect the underlying reality they are trying to measure. This paper examines these concerns using data from 79,000 firms in 105 countries. The findings show that first, qualitative rankings correlate well with quantitative measures of the business environment, using both quantitative measures from within the survey and from external sources. Second, there are systematic variations in perceptions based on firm characteristics - focusing in particular on size and growth performance. However, it is not that an optimistic view of the business environment is simply the expression of a firms own performance. Rather, firm size and performance affect the relative importance of certain constraints, particularly in areas such as finance, time with officials/inspectors, corruption, and access to reliable electricity. The results also show that much of the variation in subjective responses by firm types is largely due to differences in the objective conditions across firm types. There is little evidence that size and performance have non-linear effects in how constraining a given objective condition is reported to be. Overall, concerns about endogeneity remain in using business environment indicators to explain firm performance, but this stems primarily from the fact that who you are and how well you are doing can affect the conditions you face rather than whether the indicator used is qualitative or quantitative.