COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Dietrich Earnhart of the University of Kansas traveled to the Czech Republic for two weeks to collaborate with Lubomir Lizal. Dr. Lizal is employed by the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education (CERGE) at Charles University in Prague. The objective of Dr. Earnhart’s visit was to synthesize available information about ownership of Czech businesses and how it affects the industrial emissions they produce. He began with the Czechia and Aspekt databases, examining the data recorded about profits, value added, revenues, ownership, and ownership structure of Czech businesses. He compared this to the data on industrial emissions available on the REZZO-1 database. Drs. Earnhart and Lizal analyzed data that dealt with Czech enterprises during the years 1995 to 1999. It is important to note that the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, part of the Czech Ministry of Environment, maintains the REZZO-1 database, and it was only willing to provide limited information. During Dr. Earnhart’s visit, he met with officials from both groups in the hopes of acquiring information on abatement technologies (technologies that reduce the amount of industrial emissions) and on production processes and fuel consumption at specific sites. These attempts were unsuccessful for the time being; however, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute was willing to provide information at the three-digit Standard Industrial Classification code level.

Drs. Earnhart and Lizal looked at different types of private ownership. Categories examined included insiders (e.g., management) and outsiders (e.g., foreign investor), concentrated ownership (e.g., strategic investor) and diffuse ownership (e.g., investment fund) using basic investor categories, and concentrated and diffuse ownership using levels of concentrations within the same investor category (e.g., investment fund). They then defined three types of abatement technologies: treatment technologies, more efficient production process, and fuel switching. Control variables, such as industrial sector or production level, were also taken into account.

Dr. Earnhart’s study estimated a functional relationship between the corporate performance indicators and ownership type, while controlling for other explanatory variables. The relationship for all the pooled data was estimated using fixed-effects models and random-effects models (employing maximum-likelihood estimation). Ordinary-least-squares regression analysis, multinomial logit models, and a two-stage Heckman process were also utilized to describe the analysis. Dr. Earnhart spoke positively of the facilities available at the CERGE, and he hopes to visit Prague again next spring.