On the economics of R&D and technological collaborations: Insights and results from the project colline

Research collaborations involve co-production and exchange of knowledge across organisational boundaries. They involve governance of intellectual property rights and partners' use of collectively produced knowledge. The principal findings arise from case studies of consortia governance in biotechnology and software and substantial variety in arrangements is identified. This variety may be explained by the appropriability of knowledge in particular research domains as well as by the nature of the knowledge generated. Consequences of governance rules are explored for European research consortia and for collective standards making activities. The analysis indicates several policy conclusions: government policy has an important role in overcoming market failures in consortia formation; adoption of any uniform intellectual property rights model for consortia would be likely to reduce research productivity; policies aimed at stimulating consortia formation must take account of the nature of knowledge that is to be exchanged.     

Territorial tourism planning in Spain: from boosterism to tourism degrowth?

Abstract

Tourism saturation and unsustainability have been studied in urban political ecology. Both of these problems are inseparable from tourism planning and they have resulted in proposed solutions based on growth containment and even degrowth. These types of measures have been applied to varying degrees in mature coastal destinations in Spain since the 1990s, and they are currently being used for the country's main urban destinations due to problems generated by tourism saturation. This study examines the progressive incorporation of these measures in territorial tourism planning in Spain and it points out that the traditional emphasis on urban-tourism growth is declining and that more restrictive policies are now being implemented. This shift is illustrated through the analysis of three innovative territorial tourism planning instruments in Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and the Autonomous Region of Valencia. These ostensibly progressive processes suffer from crippling contradictions due to their inability to directly confront the capitalist accumulation model underlying the tourism growth they address. Consequently, much stronger measures capable of transcending this accumulation model in pursuit of genuine, and fair degrowth without systemic constraints are needed.     

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Komplizierte Webseiten verhindern im Online-Handel h?ufig schnelle Kaufentscheidungen. Welche Anforderungen stellen Kunden heute an die Informationsdarstellung im E-Commerce, und wie reagieren Online-H?ndler darauf? Lesen Sie dazu ein Interview mit Dominique Locher, Direktor Marketing und Verkauf bei LeShop.ch und Mitglied der Gesch?ftsleitung.     

Technological innovation capabilities,product strategy,and firm performance: The electronics industry in China

This research was conducted with a sample of 215 Chinese companies from the electronics industry. It shows that the different technological innovation capabilities have a positive impact on product innovation, beginning with the linkage capability, and then moving to the production capability, and ending with the investment capability. The research also shows that product innovation has a mediating effect on the relationship between different technological innovation capabilities and firm performance. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A NOTE ON THE FORMAL TREATMENT OF EXPLOITATION IN A MODEL WITH HETEROGENOUS LABOR

The paper presents a formal generalization of Marx's analysis of exploitation and prices in economies in which categories of labor are distinguished according to their unequal ability to create exchange value. Measures of exploitation of categories of labor which are consistent with both the Price of Net Product‐Unallocated Purchasing Power (PNP‐UPP) (New Interpretation) and the traditional interpretation of Marx's theory of value are defined which aggregate consistently over labor categories and sectors. In order to measure rates of exploitation from real economic data some additional assumption about relative rates of exploitation (which Marx often explicitly assumes to be equal) is required.     

Effects of multilateral and preferential trade policy reform in Africa: The case of Uganda

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects on production, trade and economic welfare of current trade policy regimes throughout the world on Uganda relative to other economies. This will be a benchmark against which to examine various multilateral and preferential trade policy scenarios that might emerge over the next decade as part of the WTO's Doha Round and from the expected move later this decade towards Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union. The results suggest modest gains or worse for Uganda, in part because it already has low tariffs and ready preferential access to rich-country markets. Several important caveats to this type of analysis are stressed though, before drawing out some trade and policy implications for Uganda.     

Scopes of intervention and evolutionary paths for argentinian universities transfer offices*

ABSTRACT

The majority of researches on knowledge and technology transfer from universities focused on the topic of processes which can improve the efficiency of the commercialization of R&D results. Furthermore, the different channels of transfer have been studied mainly independent of each other. This article develops a more strategic approach and proposes an integrated view of 16 channels of transfer organized around four core competences and considering their main form of governance. The empirical analysis is based on data gathered through a survey and an interview on a sample of 29 Argentinian National Universities publicly funded. The findings highlight four types of strategies – integral, network, entrepreneurial and undetermined – and two main types of potential evolutionary paths. The ability to differentiate the scopes of the intervention of universities transfer activities has implications for universities as well as for policymakers.     

Banking crises,labor reforms,and unemployment

Using a sample of 97 countries spanning the period 1980–2008, we estimate that banking crises have, on average, a large negative impact on unemployment. This effect, however, largely depends on the flexibility of labor market institutions: while in countries with more flexible labor markets the impact of banking crises is sharper but short-lived, in countries with more rigid labor markets the effect is initially more subdued but highly persistent. These effects are even larger for youth unemployment in the short term, and long-term unemployment in the medium term. Conversely, large upfront, or gradual but significant, comprehensive market reforms have a positive impact on unemployment, albeit only in the medium term.     

Alternative modeling for long term risk

In this paper, we propose an alternative approach to estimate long-term risk. Instead of using the static square root of time method, we use a dynamic approach based on volatility forecasting by non-linear models. We explore the possibility of improving the estimations using different models and distributions. By comparing the estimations of two risk measures, value at risk and expected shortfall, with different models and innovations at short-, median- and long-term horizon, we find that the best model varies with the forecasting horizon and that the generalized Pareto distribution gives the most conservative estimations with all the models at all the horizons. The empirical results show that the square root method underestimates risk at long horizons and our approach is more competitive for risk estimation over a long term.     

Armin Scholl

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