Abstract: There is a vast literature on the advantages of agglomeration due to positive externalities arising within industrial concentrations like clusters or industrial districts. Empirical studies strongly suggest these benefits when the focus is on innovation or transmission of knowledge. If this is the case, then it is reasonable to expect that cluster benefits should result in better financial performance and higher solvency for clustered firms soon or later. However, the limited empirical support for the link between clusters and economic performance provides contradictory results. This paper goes deeper into this matter and aims to measure the resulting effects on the solvency of firms in agglomeration economies. Empirical analysis has been applied to a sample of 609 firms in the Spanish ceramic tile cluster to test for statistically significant differences in the levels of solvency between clustered and isolated firms. Then we analyze whether firm size and phase of the economic cycle ar

• Publication Date: 26-Oct-2014
• DOI: 10.15224/978-1-63248-032-3-113
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Abstract: This paper is focused on the question of the links between institutional quality (in terms of quality of life, quality of governance, and business conditions) and globalization (measured by the components of the KOF globalization index). It is possible to conclude from the results achieved in the study that globalization remains firstly, a very strong and powerful economic phenomenon. Its positive effects on social development, its force to promote better institutions of all kinds, and its assumed ability to raise people from poverty and misery have still remained weak. In most cases emerging countries achieve worse results in various areas of institutional quality than the developed market economies, and so, any improvement in the parameters in the sub-index of economic or social globalization might contribute to improvement of the quality of institutions. Political globalization expressed by the number of embassies and participation in multinational organizations still says nothing a

• Publication Date: 26-Oct-2014
• DOI: 10.15224/978-1-63248-032-3-114
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• Downloads: 0