Workshop on 'Capacity Constraints as a Trigger for High-growth: Evidence and Policy Implications'

On November 24 Alex Coad, Professor at Waseda Business School, will speak on 'Capacity constraints as a trigger for high-growth: Evidence and policy implications'.

Abstract:

High-Growth Enterprises (HGEs) have a large economic impact, but are notoriously hard to predict. Previous research has linked HGE episodes to the configuration of lumpy indivisible resources inside firms, such that high capacity utilisation levels might stimulate future growth. We theorize that firms reaching critically high capacity utilisation levels reach a ‘trigger point’ involving either broad-based investment in further growth, or shrinking back to previous levels. We analyse EIBIS survey data (matched to ORBIS) which features a question on time-varying capacity utilisation. Overcapacity is a transitory state. Firms enter into overcapacity after a period of rapid growth of sales and profits, and the years surrounding overcapacity have higher employment growth rates. Firms operating at overcapacity make incremental investments (e.g. capacity expansion, process improvements, and modern machinery) rather than investing in R&D and new product development. We find support for the ‘fork in the road’ hypothesis: for some firms, overcapacity is associated with launching into subsequent sales growth, while for other firms, overcapacity is negatively related to sales growth.

About the speaker:

Alex Coad is Professor at Waseda Business School, and is interested in the areas of firm growth, entrepreneurship, and innovation policy. Alex has published over 80 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Economica, Journal of Business Venturing, Research Policy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Industrial and Corporate Change, and European Economic Review. According to google-scholar, Alex has over 8000 citations and an H-index of 43. Alex is an editor at the journals 'Research Policy' (Financial Times Top 50 list of journals for Business Schools) and 'Small Business Economics', and associate editor for 'Industrial and Corporate Change' (Oxford University Press). Previously Alex obtained a PhD from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Sant'Anna School, Pisa, Italy, and held academic positions at the Max Planck Institute (Jena, DE), Aalborg University (Denmark), SPRU (Univ. Sussex, UK), and CENTRUM Graduate Business School (Lima, Peru), and also being an Economic Analyst at the European Commission (IRI group, JRC-IPTS, Sevilla). In December 2016, Alex received the 2016 Nelson Prize at University of California Berkeley.

Time: 9:00 AM (Moscow time)

Language: English

The workshop will be held via Zoom. You can download the Zoom app or watch the workshop directly in your browser.

Please register to attend.

To join the workshop, click here.

You can also enter the conference not by the link, but by entering the meeting ID 948 8498 9607 and passcode 673883 in the appropriate fields.

For any questions please contact Alexander Stepanov a.stepanov@hse.ru.