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This paper examines differences in the hazard rates of young, established and mature firms during the financial crisis, using microdata from more than 300,000 Irish firms. The findings confirm that firm size at the time of the crisis had the largest impact on the probability of exit. The liability of smallness was pronounced in mature cohorts. Industry conditions had a considerable effect on the hazard rate of young cohorts, as opposed to mature counterparts. Interestingly, agglomeration raised the hazard rates of younger cohorts only. By contrast, attributes of the labour force of the region largely influenced the hazard rates of more established firms. Firms founded before the crisis were significantly less likely to exit in the aftermath of the crisis, in comparison with firms founded just before or during the crisis, whereas more mature firms seem to be more sensitive to the economic cycle.

This paper compares the merits of regional and firm based approaches for analysing the effect of agglomeration economies on firm deaths in Ireland. We aggregate a comprehensive data set on Irish firm deaths to Electoral Division (ED) level, the lowest geographical scale available. Estimates of the effect of agglomeration on firm deaths from a regional analysis at ED level using a cross-sectional spatial-autoregressive spatial error model are compared with firm-level estimates from a contemporary log-log model with spatially weighted agglomeration regressors. While estimates of the effects of agglomeration using these alternative methods is much discussed in existing literature rarely are the approaches or results compared. We show that contrasting results are found using the same data set dependent upon the unit of analysis used. Diversity lowers regional and firm deaths while specialisation raises regional deaths but lowers firm deaths. Greater urbanisation does not have a significant effect on firm hazard rates or equivalent regional estimates. While regional estimates provide evidence on the existence and nature of spatial dependence (negative in this case), firm estimates do not provide evidence that agglomeration in neighbouring regions is the source of this spatial dependence. No empirical analysis to our knowledge directly compares regional and firm based approaches for analysing the effect of spatial agglomeration economies on firm deaths.

Today, firms are faced with a number of environmental challenges, such as global warming, pollution control and declining natural resources. While there is increasing pressure to deliver environmentally friendly products and services, little is known about what drives the many different types of environmental innovation, or how such pursuits' impact firm performance. Using a sample of 2181 firms, this paper examines the factors that drive nine different types of eco-innovation in Ireland, and assesses how such innovations impact firm performance. We find that, while demand-side, supply-side and regulatory drivers impact on the likelihood of a firm engaging in eco-innovation, the relative magnitudes of these impacts vary across the types of eco-innovation considered. Moreover, we find that only two of the nine types of eco-innovation positively impact firm performance. The results point to regulation and customer pressure as viable mechanisms through which firms can be encouraged to eco-innovate. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

PurposeRecent reports argue that eco‐innovation is the key to realising growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors which drive eco‐innovation and test if eco‐innovating firms perform better than non‐eco‐innovating firms. The paper provides insights into the role government regulation can play in directing and stimulating eco‐innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe approach utilised by this paper is empirical in nature. Using a sample of 2,181 firms, gathered as part of the Irish Community Survey 2006‐2008, the authors estimate a modified innovation production function in order to assess the impact of regulation, consumer expectations and voluntary agreements on the performance of eco‐innovation, subsequently a knowledge augmented production function is estimated to assess the impact of eco‐innovation on firm performance.FindingsThe findings suggest that regulation and customer perception can explain a firm's decision to engage in eco‐innovation. Eco‐innovation is also found to be more important than non‐eco‐innovation in determining firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the limited availability of accounting data this paper uses turnover per worker as the measure of firm performance. As a result, it is not possible to assess the impact of eco‐innovation on firm costs.Social implicationsThe finding that regulation drives eco‐innovation, and that there is no trade‐off between eco‐innovation and higher profit margins for innovating firms, suggests that regulators and policy makers can stimulate growth and create a greener society.Originality/valueThis paper provides an empirical analysis of the Porter and van der Linde's theory of environmental regulation and firm performance using novel real world data from over 2,000 Irish businesses.

The ability to predict business cycle activity is an invaluable skill for governments and policy makers alike, especially before an economy enters a downturn. We analyse causality relationships between key leading economic indicators and economic growth for three countries from 1970 to 2010. We find that while many indicators do not help explain current movements in GDP growth, lags of these indicators do. In addition, the direction of the change and the size of the change in the lagged economic indicators are very important in many cases. This is particularly true for housing indicators.

A major issue in financial economics is the behaviour of stock returns over long as opposed to short horizons. This paper looks at the relationship between continuously compounded nominal returns and inflation over both short and long horizons. Using over two centuries of annual data for Ireland, this paper finds support for the Generalized Fisher Hypothesis; namely that real stock returns are independent of expected inflation over the long run, and a positive relationship between ex post long-horizon nominal stock returns and inflation.