Non‐Reciprocal Trade Preferences and the Role of Compliance Costs in the Agricultural Sector: Exports to the EU

We investigate whether non‐reciprocal preferential regimes granted by the European Union have an impact on agricultural export flows from beneficiary countries while accounting for the costs of compliance that may prevent exporters from taking full advantage of potential benefits. Compliance costs are heterogeneous and difficult to measure. We proxy their influence and specify a model that allows for a different preferential margin impact according to the proxy costs. Adopting the gravity framework and using a sample of 554 lines of agricultural products for 131 developing countries in 2002, we find that the costs of compliance play a role in making the schemes work: the lower the costs, the greater the impact of the preferential margins. Moreover, the estimated margin effect differs between different regimes.     

Technical efficiency and use of information and communication technology in Spanish firms

The literature concerned with the relationship between performance and information and communications technology (ICT) is usually focused on the ICT investments. This paper shows that it is the level of use of ICT within organisations, with preference as regards the expenses of ICT, which is responsible for the effect on performance. A general sample of 2255 Spanish companies has been used. Firms’ performance is measured as technical efficiency, which is determined by a data envelopment analysis (DEA), in which special attention is paid to the problem of the outliers. Finally, the analysis of the level of use of ICT is focused on a key area of the organisations, the supply chain, which affects the technical efficiency of the firms analysed. Results show that there is evidence of a positive effect of the use of ICT on technical efficiency. This effect is especially notable at intensive use levels in activities related to operations/manufacturing, purchasing or sales.     

Going up and down: rethinking the empirics of growth in the developing and newly industrialized world

Growth dynamics are remarkably heterogeneous, in particular when one focuses on developing countries. Economic miracles and failures are embedded within extended phases of either growth or decline. In this paper, we analyze the growth patterns of developing and newly industrialized countries on the basis of structural breaks and growth regimes experienced. Emphasizing the presence of broken trends, we focus on the difference between expansionary and recessionary regimes of medium length, and we show that models of takeoffs and exponential growth are inadequate to characterize the majority of observed growth dynamics. Then, we move to a systematic classification of different patterns and we isolate an additional stylized fact characterizing the process of growth and development. In particular, our results show that expansionary regimes are associated with convergence and positive correlation between growth and (short run) volatility. By contrast, in recessionary regimes, poorer countries face deeper failures and a negative correlation between growth and volatility is found, indicating that output fluctuates less around the trend during strong rather than mild recessions. Catching-up phenomena are infrequent but more likely to occur across categories of growth patterns rather than within. Finally, we discover that regimes of growth and recession show similar average length (about 16 years). Although recessions are, on average, remarkably pronounced (14% loss of GDP per capita), the magnitude of growth is much larger during expansions. In sum, our results underline that stable positive growth is hardly achieved in developing countries, which rather alternate long phases of expansions with equally long phases of recession. Moreover, cross-sectional empirical regularities are found to differ between regimes of positive and negative growth.     

Experimental evidence on tax salience and tax incidence

Although a basic theoretical principle in public economics assumes that individuals optimize fully with respect to the introduction of a tax, a growing body of research is proving that several heuristics are in place when people take decisions. We re‐examine the well known liability side equivalence principle in the light of the concept of salience. While these two topics have been extensively investigated in isolation, this paper innovates on the previous literature in that it focuses on their joint effects. Is tax incidence dependent on whether the subjects face a salient rather than a nonsalient tax? Does the salience of a tax exert a different effect depending on who is legally committed to bear the tax burden? We address these questions through a laboratory experiment in which one unit of a fictitious good is being traded through a double‐auction market institution. Based on a panel data analysis, our contribution shows that point of collection matters and determines the economic incidence of tax. Additionally, we find that the joint effect of salience and statutory incidence does not alter the informative efficiency, but has a positive effect on buyers’ allocational efficiency when the tax is levied on sellers.     

Is Private Saving in Latin America and the Caribbean Different?

Private saving and economic growth are intimately linked, and low saving rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have often been held responsible for disappointing growth in the region. Thus, identifying factors that spur saving is critical. This paper surveys previous empirical studies on LAC, highlighting contradictions, omissions and in some cases inconclusiveness of findings. Relying on a large dataset and a nested econometric framework, it analyzes private saving patterns and explores the role of its determinants in LAC, across LAC sub‐regions and compared with other regions. While the results highlight great heterogeneity in private saving rates within LAC and compared with the rest of the world, saving determinants are broadly the same notwithstanding some differences in sensitivity and contributions' sizes, and include its lag, income, demographics and public saving.     

Does different NPD project’s characteristics lead to the establishment of different NPD networks? A knowledge perspective

In today’s highly competitive and globalised marketplace, firms need more and more to develop new knowledge and capabilities to leave behind their competitors, thus gaining market share. Knowledge is fundamental for success because a firm that knows more, often develops more sustainable competitive advantage. Networks, like those oriented to New Product Development, seem to be valuable means of learning, as firms could not achieve alone the same results, or at least not as quickly. Through this integrative systematic review, we are interested in understanding whether different New Product Development projects correspond to different New Product Development networks in terms of knowledge exchanged among the partners involved. Our results highlight the presence of four types of New Product Development networks deriving from the combination of the degree of innovation characterising the project and its mode of development. Implications and future research are also proposed.     

Institutional Antecedents of Partnering for Social Change: How Institutional Logics Shape Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

Using 10 years of publication data (1999–2008) from 10 leading business ethics journals, we examine global patterns of business ethics research and contributing institutions and scholars. Although U.S. academic institutions continue to lead in the contributions toward business ethics research, Asian and European institutions have made significant progress. Our study shows that business ethics research output is closely linked to the missions of the institutions driven by their values or religious belief. An additional analysis of the productivity of each highly ranked institution suggests that business ethics research is highly concentrated in a limited number of eminent scholars within each institution.     

Twin Deficits in the European Countries

Public debt is a burden on future electors and taxpayers. In the absence of constitutional constraints, the incumbent government may show the cost of some public expenditures or tax reductions toward the future by financing them via new debt. However, according to the Ricardian theorem of public debt, the burden of debt is always anticipated via increased saving. If this theorem were true, a budget deficit would not affect the current account of the balance of payment. This paper analyzes the relationship between trade deficit and budget deficit. Using yearly data for the period between 1970 and 2010 in 33 European countries, we find evidence supporting the hypothesis that a chronic and robust budget deficit generates a trade deficit. The dynamic estimates show that a 1 % decrease in the government budget surplus/GDP ratio tends to deteriorate the current account/GDP ratio of 0.37 %, confirming previous studies with a different empirical basis. Dividing the sample period into two sub-periods (1970–1991 and 1992–2010), empirical findings show that current and past values of government budget influence trade balance in the first sub-period, whilst past values of government budget affect trade balance in the most recent years. Moreover, the estimated effect of government budget on current account balance is positive and equal to 0.48 and 0.30, respectively. For the high deficit countries, a long-run relationship between these variables has been found, showing that one percentage point increase in budget surplus/GDP ratio is associated with an improvement in the current account balance of roughly 0.15 percentage point. The estimated long-run government budget elasticity is negative and statistically significant, while the estimated speed of adjustment is equal to 0.33. Finally, Granger causality tests show mixed results.     

Systemic technology policies: Issues and instruments

In this Introduction, we review the arguments that underpinned the workshop on which the special section is grounded and provide a structured sequence for the contents of the seven selected papers that comprise the section.     

Innovation and Development: The Evidence From Innovation Surveys

In this article we investigate the existing evidence on innovation produced by innovation surveys in developing and emerging countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We review the relevant literature, discuss methodological issues, and analyze the results for the countries with the most comparable surveys, considering the well-established findings of innovation surveys for Europe as a benchmark. From the evidence we considered, regional patterns are identified and some stylized facts on innovation and development are proposed, pointing out the specificity of innovation processes in economies engaged in industrialization and catching up.