Innovation, progress, entrepreneurship and cultural aspects

In the case of economic progress, some of the literature has considered economic growth and economic progress to be the same thing. However, there is a relevant difference between the two concepts. As Holcombe states, economic growth considers the quantity of products and economic progress the quality of products. Innovation has been considered as a key factor to promote economic progress. A culture would have a direct and an indirect effect on innovation through entrepreneurship. The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between culture and innovation. To carry out this study, an empirical estimation has been developed for the case of 11 countries.     

THe dynamics of agricultural contribution to economic growth

More than twenty-five years ago, Simon Kuznets formulated some procedures to measure the contribution of the agricultural sector to economic growth and development. This article provides a view of the experience of various countries at different stages of economic development to examine how they fare individually in terms of Kuznets’s suggestions. A major objective is the exploration of relationships between the levels of income and agricultural product and labor contribution to economic growth. It was found, as Kuznets perceived, that the contribution declines as the level of income rises.     

The Business Cycle Associated with Exchange Rate-Based Stabilizations

This article examines the effects of disinflation on economicactivity in countries characterized by chronic inflation. Suchcountries have a long history of inflation at rates exceedingthose in industrial countries as well as labor and capital marketsthat have adjusted to function in an inflationary environment.A sample of disinflation programs in several Latin Americancountries and in Israel demonstrates that stabilization effortsin countries with chronic inflation often do not induce theusual Phillips curve tradeoff in the medium run. Specifically,stabilization programs that use the exchange rate as the mainnominal anchor are often associated with a business cycle thatbegins with a boom and ends with a recession. Stabilizationprograms that use money supply as the nominal anchor generallyinduce the expected Phillips curve result: lower inflation isaccompanied by a recession after the program is implemented.     

THE BANK MERGER WAVE: The Economic Causes and Social Consequences of Financial Consolidation,Gary A. Dymski. Armonk,NY: M.E. Sharpe

Review of Industrial Organization -     

Relationship between organizations, institutions, entrepreneurship and economic growth process

The main goal of this paper is to show that organizations and institutions play a relevant role in the economic growth process, both directly and indirectly. Human capital plays a direct role by facilitating the introduction and use of new technologies. A more indirect role is play by entrepreneurial activity in three ways: 1) supplying monetary funds; 2) creating an adequate social climate and 3) encouraging trust in the society. The hypotheses introduced are tested using the data on eleven countries.     

The Largest Trans-nationals of Developing Economies

Industrial concentration is broadly defined as a few firms controlling a substantial share of assets or sales of the market. In the multinational industrial sector, this paper shows that the largest 50 and 100 in the developing economies control substantial amounts of assets and sales, both foreign and total. Two well known indexes of concentration were used, the Herfindahl and Theil’s entropy, to check the levels of concentration between 1994 and 2003 for the top 50 and between 2004 and 2006 for the top 100. It was found that although the sizes of the multinationals in assets and sales increased during the period, the relative concentration remained somewhat static.     

Drivers of non-profit activity: a cross-country analysis

This paper contributes to the existing debate on the determinants of non-profit activity. The main theories have been centered in (1) the study of the individual behavior of people (donors, non-profit entrepreneurs), (2) one single factor or (3) one single country. To quantify this approach, data for 38 countries have been used, extracted from World Values Survey, United Nations Development Program and Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A structural modeling approach based in partial least squares (PLS) has been applied. The results provide evidence of the strength of environmental factors such as trust, economic development and social care public expenditures in non-profit activity. The model doesn’t confirm the existence of a positive relationship between entrepreneurship and non-profit activity. Nevertheless, the authors consider that the supply side theories and the idea of spatial production of entrepreneurship are quite consistent and find some signs evidencing a positive relationship between these variables.     

Socio-Economic Gaps within the EU: A Comparison

This research investigates socio-economic gaps between countries of the European Union (EU). The countries, for comparison purposes, are grouped into five sets to find out if the different groupings differ in means and variances. The overall conclusion is that the 15 core combinations outperform the rest when comparisons are made on the basis of 45 socio-economic variables. However, the newly added countries in the enlargement appear to be fairly homogeneous when compared in accordance with the 45 variables. Of special interest is whether the inclusion of Turkey among the newly admitted would have changed the pattern of homogeneity among them. The answer to this question is a guarded yes.