The Determinants of Corruption: Cross‐Country‐Panel‐Data Analysis

This study explores the determinants of corruption, utilizing the Hausman and Taylor's technique to estimate a random effects model that incorporates both the effects of corruption determinants that vary over time and those that are time‐invariant, and using a larger panel dataset and a comprehensive set of corruption determinants. The first interesting result is that perception of strong support for rule of law is strongly correlated with reduced corruption, suggesting that a better quality of law enforcement reduces corruption. Rich countries have lower corruption, and the perception of free expression and accountability strongly decreases corruption, indicating that providing greater opportunities for citizens to participate in selecting their government, more freedom of expression, and free media are effective ways of curbing corruption. Conversely, natural resource abundance, country population size, country's dominant religious tradition, ethnic fractionalization, and political stability are unimportant determinants of corruption, while previous research has suggested they are important.     

Strong Presidential Approval or Disapproval Influencing the Expected Benefits of Voting and the Voter Participation Rate

This empirical study seeks to broaden the interpretation of the rational voter model so as to identify and better understand key determinants of the expected benefits from voting and hence key determinants of the aggregate voter participation rate in the US. Using annual data for all years in the 1960–1997 study period, this study finds that the voter participation rate has been positively impacted by strong public approval or strong public disapproval of the incumbent President, a finding unique to this literature and study period. In addition, the aggregate voter participation rate has been positively impacted by such factors as the Gulf War, which is generally regarded as having been popular among the US electorate, and a rising unemployment rate. This study also finds the voter participation rate to have been negatively impacted by the publics dissatisfaction with government, as well as by the Watergate scandal.The author is indebted to Cassandra Copeland for helpful information, comments, and guidance.     

New Products and Corruption: Evidence from Indian Firms

It has been shown that corruption has a negative effect on firm growth, but what about its impact on product innovation? I find that corruption, functioning as a bribe tax, diminishes the probability of new products being introduced. I use a World Bank Enterprise Survey conducted in India in 2005, with 1,600 firms answering both whether they introduced a new product to the firm, and whether and how much was paid in bribes. Controlling for innovation determinants and firm characteristics, sector‐state bribery averages have a negative and significant impact on product innovation.     

Corporate Governance in Africa: The Record and Policies for Good Corporate Governance

We survey, using international criteria, the institutional record for quality corporate governance in Africa. The record leads us to the conclusion that corporate governance in Africa is enriched by expanding the framework of analysis beyond the conventional criteria (homo economicus) to incorporate moral sentiments– the influence of norms and values. Such considerations, we argue, can improve our understanding of boardroom dynamics and the characteristics of the decision management and decision control they engender in ‘Business Africa’.     

Technological specialization in industrial countries: Patterns and dynamics

Technological Specialization in Industrial Countries: Patterns and Dynamics. — This paper employs distribution dynamics and patent data to study the empirical dynamics of technological specialization in industrial countries. Large countries spread innovation activities across a wider range of technologies, and their specialization level in a field displays lower probability to move around its initial level (country size effects). Mobility is high and asymmetric: it is difficult to improve specialization in very disadvantaged technologies, while high comparative advantages revert towards lower specialization levels. These findings undermine the theory of technological accumulation and path dependence, its implication of persistence in trade specialization patterns and the effectiveness of targeted industrial and technology policies.     

学术腐败的成因及其治理

学术腐败是当今学术领域所普遍存在的现象。导致学术腐败的原因主要是学术驾驭思想、文化失根、欲望的欲望化,而不是外在的规章制度。因此,当前的主要任务是指引现代人如何成为一个全面发展的个人,指引人们实现欲望、工具与智慧之间的游戏,而不是从法律规范和伦理道德的角度寻找出路。     

Democracy and Durability: Empirical Analysis and a Causality Test

The current literature has failed to differentiate between the collapse of democratic and authoritarian rules or whether democratic regimes collapse for the same reasons as do authoritarian regimes. Therefore, the current literature is silent on whether democracies are more fragile or less susceptible to economic and political breakdowns. Using a multitude of political instability variables, this paper explores empirically, whether political freedom and civil liberty (a proxy for democracy) has any effect on the stability of the political order. The empirical results of the paper confirm the hypothesis that democracy is conducive to political stability; the higher the level of political freedom and civil liberty, the more stable countries are. The paper also presented a Granger-causality test of political instability and the level of political freedom and civil liberty. The test results indicate that the level of political freedom and civil liberty Granger-cause the level of political instability, while the level of political instability does not Granger-cause the level of political freedom and civil liberty. The test results indicate that Granger-causality runs one-way from political freedom and civil liberty to political instability and not the other way. A further comprehensive research is needed on the multi-layered and the complex relationship among democracy and the resilience of the political order.I would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments that improved the quality of the paper. I would also like to thank the Research Council of Niagara University for their financial support.     

Productivity Growth: Technological Progress and Technical Efficiency

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

公司治理理论:反思与启示

企业内各要素专有性的大小是其参与公司治理的基础,也是分享剩余索取权的依据。公司治理机制并不是由所谓的“股东至上”发展到利益相关者,从“股东至上”到利益相关者之间没有什么逻辑关系。公司治理的模式也不存在从单边治理向多边治理的转换过程。公司治理的关键是寻找长期利益共同体以及使关键性要素进入长期利益共同体。人力资本是企业价值创造的决定性力量,但只有在物质资本有效监督和充分激励的前提下,这种决定性作用才由可能变为现实。我国国有企业由于不存在长期利益共同体,关键性要素也不在长期利益共同体内,或者说,没有资本监督和激励劳动,这是公司治理低效的原因所在。国有企业目前进行的激励制度改革,虽然在一定程度上可以改善公司治理的低效率,但不可能解决公司治理的根本问题。     

INVENTION AND INNOVATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN NON‐FERROUS MINING INDUSTRY: WHOSE TECHNOLOGY?

Metalliferous mining was of major importance to the Australian economy throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The industry depended heavily on technology transfer for efficient and economical operations. The country's isolated mining fields tended to rely on adaptation rather than on invention, with toughness, portability and ease of repair and use being the prime criteria for the adoption of new machinery. This article argues that both the internationalism of the mining industry and the nature of its technology transfer blur the lines between invention, innovation and adaptation. Mining machinery, techniques and people were all highly mobile. Hence, attributing national origins to mining technology often seems irrelevant.     

The determinants of export performance: A firm-level study of Italian manufacturing

The Determinants of Export Performance: A Firm-Level Study of Italian Manufacturing. — This paper analyzes some determinants of a firm’s probability of exporting and export intensity and presents the findings of an empirical study carried out on a large sample of Italian firms. On the basis of Probit and Tobit estimates, it emerges that these determinants change according to the size of firms. In particular, only for small firms is the relationship between size and export performance positive. The export activity of small and medium-sized firms decreases with the share of sales due to subcontracting. Larger firms, instead, benefit more from being affiliated with business groups and performing innovative activities of a different nature.     

Temporal causality and the dynamic interactions among macroeconomic activity within a multivariate cointegrated system: Evidence from Singapore and Korea

Temporal Causality and the Dynamic Interactions among Macroeconomic Activity within a Multivariate Cointegrated System: Evidence from Singapore and Korea. — The main purpose of this paper is to discern the dynamic causal relationship (in the Granger (temporal) sense) among real output, money, interest rate, inflation and exchange rate in the context of two small open economies, such as Singapore and Korea. The Granger-causal chain implied by the authors’ evidence that real output more often the authors’ predominantly leads (rather than lags) money supply followed by other three endogenous variables, is consistent more with the recent Real Business Cycle theory than with the other two major macroeconomic paradigms such as the Keynesian and the Monetarist.     

技术差距、技术溢出与中国的技术进步:基于中美行业贸易数据的实证分析

文章利用1998~2007年的中美制造业四位数行业数据,对中美技术差距对进出口贸易技术溢出效应的影响进行了实证研究。结果显示,中美之间的贸易确实促进了中国的技术进步,中国正加速对美国的技术追赶;回归结果同时显示,随着中国技术水平逐渐逼近美国,贸易带来的技术溢出具有天花板效应,以贸易来促进国内技术进步的难度在加大。进一步的分析表明,相比较出口而言,随着中美两国技术水平的接近,进口溢出引致的技术进步会更快遭遇递减局面。文章的分析结果表明,随着中国国内产品技术水平的提高与中美技术差距的缩小,传统的以贸易促进步策略越来越难以奏效,此时加大科技投入,激励并促进中国国内的自主研发是提高国内技术水平与技术进步的根本之策。     

'HOME IS NOT SO VERY FAR AWAY': CALIFORNIAN ENGINEERS IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1868–1915

This article describes the fate of Californian engineering and technology in South Africa during the years around the Jameson Raid. In theory, progress promised many things: commercial development, scientific and social enlightenment, free markets and rule of law. But in South Africa, these tools of progress came together in ways that differed from Californian engineers' own frontier experience. While mining flourished agriculture remained undeveloped. And both, far from producing the society imagined by Californians, furthered imperial goals.     

Converging on the learning curve: Theory and application to German regional data

Converging on the Learning Curve: Theory and Application to German Regional Data. — Studies finding convergence between regions are usually based on the assumptions of decreasing returns to overall capital and ubiquitous exogenous technical progress. In contrast, we derive convergence from a model with endogenous knowledge creation and knowledge spillovers which interact with the regional formation of human capital. The model allows for conditional convergence due to interregional knowledge dissemination which is an important determinant of the regional learning curve. In empirical estimates for 327 German regions, it is found that the characteristics of the knowledge and the human capital sectors have largely the impacts on convergence which are predicted by the model.