Technological platforms

The concept of a platform describes a set of system components that is strongly interdependent with most other system components, and that also co-determines the architecture of the system’s outcome. This concept underlies all kinds of technology-based products, collaborations that produce multi-product systems, and transactions between distinct sets of market participants. In this paper, I provide an overview of the growing scientific literature on technological platforms, and also identify three distinct, but related, literature streams: (1) product platforms; (2) industry platforms; and (3) two-sided markets. In doing so, I focus on empirical studies and mathematical models. For each stream, I then go on to describe the type of platform that the stream relates to, review the stream’s major studies (sorted by key strategic issues), and summarize and synthesize the overall findings before linking them to organizational theory and highlighting some potential gaps for future examination. In closing, I move to a comparison across streams and identify some currently unexplored aspects of the platform concept.     

Structural transformation and its relevance for economic growth in Sub‐Saharan Africa

In this paper, we analyze the role of structural transformation in view of the remarkable growth performance of Sub‐Saharan African countries since the late 1990s. Our analysis covers 41 African countries over the period 1980 to 2014 and accounts for structural transformation by employing the analytical frameworks of (1) growth decomposition and (2) growth regression. Even though the low‐productive agricultural sector continues to employ most of the African workforce, our results reveal that structural transformation has taken place and that it has contributed significantly to African growth in the period 1980‐2014.     

Industrial Policy and the East German Productivity Puzzle

Catching-up of East German productivity to West German levels has completely faded out since the mid-1990s. The remaining productivity gap cannot be attributed to an inferior capital endowment or qualification deficiencies of the East German labor force. Instead, it appears to be the result of an inappropriate design of industrial policy which concentrated on the subsidization of physical capital and largely ignored the advance of human capital- and service-intensive industrial structures. East Germany will have to face another wave of painful structural adjustment when capital-intensive industries are no longer protected from competition by public subsidies.     

Demonstrating the instrumentality of motivation oriented approaches for the explanation of academic spin-off formation—an application based on the Chinese case

Much of the current empirical literature on academic spin-off formation focuses either on relevant framework conditions or on the potential academic entrepreneurs’ opportunity-seeking process. The interdependency of these two important factors, in contrast, remains understudied, even though it is theoretically well established in general entrepreneurship literature. Against this background this article makes the case for an integrated consideration of motivation and framework conditions. It demonstrates how this approach can convincingly explain changes in prevalent modes of spin-off creation in developing and transforming economies. To do so, data from 68 academic spin-off enterprises from China are investigated.     

Structural Characteristics of the Economy of Mozambique: A SAM-based Analysis

Key features of the Mozambican economy are synthesized in this paper based on a new 1995 social accounting matrix. Particular attention is paid to the critical role of home consumption and large marketing margins. The fundamental importance of agricultural development emerges clearly from the analysis in which the multiplier for value added by capital is re-examined. Agriculture has large sectoral multipliers and is generally more effective in the use of scarce capital than industry and services. Commodities with attractive features for the promotion of agriculture in the short to medium term include maize, rice, as well as small-scale livestock and forestry.     

Write‐Down Timeliness, Line‐of‐Business Disclosures and Investors' Interpretations of Segment Divestiture Announcements

Abstract:   This paper examines investors' anticipation and subsequent interpretations of asset write‐downs accompanying segment divestitures. Examining long‐window returns cumulated over the two years preceding the year of divestiture, we hypothesize and find that investors anticipate write‐downs of segment operating assets before divestiture and recognition occurs, with anticipation conditional on the timeliness of the write‐down and prior disclosure of the segments' operating results under segment reporting rules. Short‐window returns cumulated over the three days surrounding the announcement of the divestiture confirm that investor interpretations of asset write‐downs are similarly contingent on write‐down timeliness and prior disclosure.     

Vorratslager für Seltene Erden: Eine Aufgabe für die Wirtschaftspolitik?

Im Zentrum der aktuellen Debatte um die chinesische Exportverknappung bei den Metallen der Seltenen Erden steht die Sorge einer strategischen Abh?ngigkeit mit daraus entstehenden Wettbewerbsnachteilen für die europ?ische Wirtschaft. Entsprechend werden Forderungen nach einer industriepolitischen Antwort laut. Die dabei diskutierten Rohstoffvorratslager k?nnen dazu beitragen, extreme Preissteigerungen abzufedern und Zeit für eine Reaktion des Angebots au?erhalb Chinas zu gewinnen. Allerdings sollte sich die Wirtschaftspolitik auf die Koordination bei der Einrichtung solcher Vorratslager konzentrieren und die Finanzierung der Industrie überlassen.