Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity

This study considers the impact of diversification in types of technological alliances, resulting in alliance portfolio diversity, on various dimensions of a firm's performance, as they relate to exploration and exploitation. Using a large panel of innovative firms in the Netherlands, this study shows that partner type diversity in a firm's alliance portfolio has an inverted U-shaped relationship with productivity and radical innovative performance and a positive relationship with incremental innovative performance. Moreover, the results suggest that a lower level of diversity is needed to achieve an optimal level of productivity compared to radical innovative performance, whereas for incremental innovative performance a higher level of portfolio diversity appears to give the best performance.     

Rising Wage Inequality, Returns to Education and Labour Market Institutions: Evidence from Ireland

Institutional factors and increased supply of skilled labour have been advanced in an effort to explain why some countries have experienced smaller increases in earnings dispersion and in returns to education than the USA and the UK. Ireland has had a highly centralized wage bargaining structure and the supply of skilled labour has increased sharply in recent years; hence, relatively little change in earnings dispersion might be expected. We compare the distribution of earnings in Ireland in 1987 and 1994 and find a surprisingly large growth in earnings dispersion. In addition, using a decomposition technique, we find that much of this is accounted for by increasing returns to measured.     

Border effects for domestic and international Canadian passenger air travel

An augmented gravity model of passenger air travel between five Canadian airports and destinations within and without of Canada reveals a substantial border effect. After controlling for GDP, populations and distance, the number of seats offered on domestic routes is about six times the number on international flights. This result is consistent with the border effects found in studies of international merchandise trade.     

别说了,把话筒交给消费者吧——成功的用户自创内容（user-generated-content）活动

大家最近有去唱过卡拉OK吗？其实从唱K中获得的欢乐与用户自创内容活动颇有相似之处。在卡拉OK娱乐场所,流行歌曲和伴奏音乐固然是至关重要的。没有它们,就没办法唱歌!     

Virtual Reality and Innovation Potential

This article examines how companies can harness virtual reality (VR) technology to help make themselves more innovative. VR has some unique characteristics which, taken together, can help companies to develop three features common to many innovative organisations: a capacity to experiment in depth; involvement of all in the innovation process; and an ability to capture ideas generated in the innovation process. However, some obstacles need to be overcome before VR fulfils this potential.     

Estimating the Impact of Anti-dumping and Anti-cartel Actions Using Intervention Analysis

Intervention analysis is proposed as a method for estimating the effects of anti-dumping actions in the presence of a domestic cartel. Data requirements and modelling effort compare favourably with traditional structural model approaches. The method is applied to an anti-dumping action brought to the European Commission and in which the European producers of the product were fined after an anti-cartel action by the Commission covering an overlapping period. Interven tion analysis is applied to distinguish the effects of the anti-dumping action from those of changes in cartel behaviour     

Unlocking the transformative potential of branchless banking in Indonesia

Branchless banking has the potential to significantly enhance financial inclusion among Indonesia’s large and geographically disparate unbanked population and to connect Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises to the global economy. Why has the branchless-banking revolution not yet materialised? Constrained by regulation, deployments have failed to attract a critical mass of users. Indonesia’s fragmented telecommunications sector has made it difficult for providers to emulate the success stories in other countries, in which dominant providers are competing for the market with a proprietary platform. In Indonesia, it is likely that a considerable degree of interoperability will be required for providers to unleash network effects and attract users. Indonesia’s providers are experimenting in this space. Recognising branchless banking’s potential to accelerate financial inclusion, Bank Indonesia appears committed to improving the regulatory framework. This article identifies the components of an enabling regulatory environment. Success in Indonesia would provide a model for a more widespread uptake of transformative branchless banking.     

Assessing the classification of work-relatedness of fatal incidents: a comparison between Australia,New Zealand and the United States

As part of a larger study comparing work-related fatal injury of workers in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, an assessment was made of the similarities and differences between the three countries in identifying fatal incidents as work-related or not. The researchers in each country independently classified 333 brief scenarios, describing a variety of fatal incidents, into one of nine categories related to work: worker, bystander, commuter, volunteer, student, suicide, other, unknown and none of the above. Complete agreement with the classification was moderate (62%), but agreement when classifying scenarios as working, not working or unknown was much higher (full agreement for 80% of scenarios; Kappa =0.71). Only 5% of scenarios were classified differently by all three countries. Other main findings of the study were that there is variation between countries in the interpretation of what is and what is not work-related, and variation in the amount or type of information required to make a definitive classification. Common circumstances described in the scenarios for which there was some disagreement in classification included domestic violence incidents at work, volunteer workers, business trips, social functions connected to work, hobby farmers and some possible bystander incidents that occurred on farms or on the road. The results suggest that, even without the use of standard definitions, comparisons between the datasets of the countries involved in this study can be made with reasonable confidence. However, they also emphasise the importance of minimising ambiguity in the definitions used, and of understanding the manner in which the definitions are applied, when comparing results between studies.