Firms’ R&D Activity and Intensity and the University–Enterprise Partnerships

The interaction between universities and industry in areas concerned with science and technology is part of the broader national infrastructure involving other higher education institutions, public and private research organizations, and companies that are engaged in the generation, transfer, and use of knowledge, information, and technology. This interaction has become more formal, frequent, and planned since the 1970s, and has aroused a growing interest in governments and policy makers, from both developed and developing countries, who still regard it as an under-utilized scientific technological resource. However, it is important to point out that universities and firms are different social entities, presenting different nature and objectives, that, inevitably, affect and limit their interaction. This article aims to shed some light on one of these dissimilarities—that related to the firms’ R&D activity and intensity, that may influence their linkages with the academic world.     

Competition Among Universities and the Emergence of the Élite Institution

We consider an environment where two education institutions compete by selecting the proportion of their funding devoted to teaching and research and the criteria for admission for their students, and where students choose whether and where to attend university. We study the relationship between the cost incurred by students for attending a university located away from their home town and the equilibrium configuration that emerges in the game played by the universities. Symmetric equilibria, where universities choose the same admission standard, only exist when the mobility cost is high; when the mobility cost is very low, there is no pure strategy equilibrium. For intermediate values of the mobility cost, only asymmetric equilibria may exist; the final section of the paper provides an example where asymmetric equilibria do indeed exist for a plausible and robust set of parameters.     

Market forces and competition in university systems: theoretical reflections and empirical evidence from Italy

This paper deals with the reforming processes in higher education (HE) from centralised systems towards more competitive ones. In particular, I discuss these issues referring to the Italian case, and the market‐like mechanisms introduced in it during 1990s and early 2000s. The focus of the paper is in analysing the effects of the increasing competition on teaching performance of universities. For this purpose, I develop a theoretical model, moving from the framework of yardstick competition (YC), to describe the functioning of a competition model based on comparing performance of institutions. Then, I apply this model using data from the Italian university system. The results suggest that an increasingly competitive environment effectively improves the universities’ performance, which is also influenced by other factors, namely the characteristics of the institutions themselves and of their students, and by the resources available. As the exploratory nature of the study, these findings must be validated through future research.     

Productivity and Policy in Higher Education

Understanding and improving the performance of public higher education institutions is a matter of growing interest to university and government leaders. To this end, this article surveys dimensions of recent approaches to productivity measurement in higher education, illustrating trends, limitations and developments, and exemplifies these with reference to Australian universities. The article closes by discussing policy considerations that would help augment the design of policy, making comment on the implications for performance‐incentivised funding of higher education.     

我国高校财务管理问题与对策研究

进入21世纪以来,随着高等教育改革的不断深入,我国高校办学规模逐步扩大,办学条件得到明显改善,随之而来的是对教育经费需求的大量增加。而国家财政对教育拨款有限,高校只能以银行贷款来弥补教学经费的不足,这导致债务利息成为高校的沉重负担,高校财务风险管理的是否有效已经严重影响高校发展。     

Is external research assessment associated with convergence or divergence of research quality across universities and disciplines? Evidence from the PBRF process in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Performance-based research evaluations have been adopted in several countries both to measure research quality in higher education institutions and as a basis for the allocation of funding across institutions. Much attention has been given to evaluating whether such schemes have increased the quality and quantity of research. This paper examines whether the introduction of the New Zealand Performance-Based Research Fund process produced convergence or divergence in measured research quality across universities and disciplines between the 2003 and 2012 assessments. Two convergence measures are obtained. One, referred to as β-convergence, relates to the relationship between changes in average quality and the initial quality level. The second concept, referred to as σ-convergence, relates to the changes in the dispersion in average research quality over time. Average quality scores by discipline and university were obtained from individual researcher data, revealing substantial β- and σ-convergence in research quality over the period. The hypothesis of uniform rates of convergence across almost all universities and disciplines is supported. The results provide insights into the incentives created by performance-based funding schemes.     

Local monopsony and free riders

In an industry with upstream economies of scale in the distribution of differentiated products to retailers which have monopoly power within separate local market areas, the retailers have an incentive to exert monopsony power due to the divergence between average and marginal costs in the distribution of those inputs. The retailers increase their ability to exert monopsony power by forming coalitions (that is, chains) across local markets. Sufficiently large retail chains may force input price below the seller's average cost, thus ‘free riding’ on the level of product variety supported by other retailers. Vertical integration, cartels, or other cooperative behavior, however, can be means to control the level of product variety, and may increase both industry profits and economic welfare. Policy applications to the cable television, motion picture, and pharmaceutical industries are discussed.     

基于扎根理论的高校科研人才能力评价分析

利用扎根理论方法对中国世界一流大学建设高校的10位教师进行案例访谈,收集各高校科研人才考核评价标准,形成详细完整的资料,运用Nvivo12软件进行开放式编码、主轴编码和选择性编码,提取相关概念和范畴。在前期编码基础上,引入复杂系统管理思想,构建包括基本职业素养、教育教学能力、教研科研能力、技术研发能力和专业实践能力的高校科研人才能力分析框架。研究可以更好地激发科研人才创新活力,为促进高校科研人才能力提升提供理论支撑。     

Declining State Funding and Efficiency Effects on Public Higher Education: Government Really Does Matter

A stochastic cost frontier with inefficiency effects is estimated to investigate the impacts of decreases in state funding support on the operating efficiency of public colleges and universities in the U.S. Panel data for 378 institutions spanning 10 academic years, 2004 through 2013, captures the efficiency effects of declines in state funding from 32 % to 23 %. There are several improvements over early work of like kind that was, however, confined to four academic years, 2005 through 2008, and could not account for the accelerated effects of state funding decreases that followed the financial crisis. Inefficiency effects are extended to include both private giving as a substitute revenue source and federally funded Pell Grants. Empirical results are robust and support the notion that government does matter. Decreases in state funding create inefficiency in producing public higher education. Results also suggest the same for private giving and Pell Grant support, although the former was statistically weak at best. On the cost side, the results, not surprisingly, indicate that university administrators held costs down with hiring increases in non-tenure track faculty and staff relative to tenure track and tenured faculty.     

Irreversible investment with uncertainty and strategic behavior

The paper provides a model of technology adoption in the case where adopting alone is more expensive than adopting when others have already done so (network effect). In addition, if each agent gains at the expense of his rivals, he may also have an incentive for ‘preemptive adoption’. We deal with these two issues in a dynamic programing framework, where adoption is seen as a strategic switching time decision problem for agents facing an ongoing stochastic operating benefit plus sunken investment costs. The model defines the option value of investing for a continuous time stochastic game. In the case of network benefits alone, agents follow a stationary bandwagon strategy, representing the effect caused by a war of attrition. Yet, as network benefits reduce adoption costs after an agent has switched, rivals may follow suit. In the opposite case, where going first gives the innovator a higher payoff the bandwagon rule is turned over and the option value of investing first may be lower than that of going second. This gives rise to sequential adoption.     

ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION AND EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

We introduce asymmetric information about consumers’ transportation costs (i.e., the degree of product differentiation) in the model of Hotelling. When transportation costs are high, both firms have lower profits with asymmetric information than with perfect information. Contrarily, if transportation costs are low, both firms may prefer the asymmetric information scenario (the informed firm always prefers the informational advantage, while the uninformed firm may or may not prefer to remain uninformed). Information exchange is ex‐ante advantageous for both firms, but ex‐post damaging if transportation costs turn out to be low. If the information is unverifiable, the informed firm does not represent a reliable source of information, since it always prefers to announce that transportation costs are high and there is no contract that induces truthful revelation.     

Do funding sources matter?: The impact of university-industry collaboration funding sources on innovation performance of universities

ABSTRACT

The nature of funding sources for university-industry collaboration (UIC) has gradually changed, which may motivate universities to pursue different goals. Therefore, a question arises concerning whether and how funding sources influence the innovation performance of universities. This study explicates this relationship by using organisational control theory. Results of structural equation modelling using partial least squares based on a sample of 146 Taiwanese universities revealed that both governmental and industrial funding facilitated UIC management mechanisms and regulation implementation, which subsequently influenced the innovation performance of universities. Moreover, governmental funding has a greater impact on implementing UIC regulations and industrial funding has a greater impact on building UIC management mechanisms. The results also revealed that only industrial funding exerts a positive influence on the innovation climate of a university. Policy implications are discussed at the end of this paper.     

经济时代的大学生素质教育

市场经济条件下的高校扩招,高等教育由精英化教育走向大众化教育,导致上大学门槛降低。高校办学条件的提高与扩招速度相比,显然是不能相提并论的,上学成本大幅度增加,导致大学生存在过强的功利主义观、过弱的人文素质的状况。高校要走内涵发展之路,调整课程体系与结构,提高教育教学质量,坚持育人为本,鼓励大学生参加社会实践活动,提高综合素质。     

Regulation of Stock Externalities with Correlated Abatement Costs

We study a dynamic regulation model where firms’ actions contribute to a stock externality. The regulator and firms have asymmetric information about serially correlated abatement costs. With price-based policies such as taxes, or if firms trade quotas efficiently, the regulator learns about the evolution of both the stock and costs. This ability to learn about costs is important in determining the ranking of taxes and quotas, and in determining the value of a feedback rather than an open-loop policy. For a range of parameter values commonly used in global warming studies, taxes dominate quotas, regardless of whether the regulator uses an open-loop or a feedback policy, and regardless of the extent of cost correlation.Early versions of this paper were presented at the Fifth California Workshop on Environmental and Resource Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, May 5–6, 2000, and at the annual meeting of the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 1–3, 2000. We thank these conference participants, and two anonymous referees of this journal for their comments, without implicating them in any remaining errors. The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the Asian Development Bank.     

Punishment paths and cartel size

Using a ‘Dominant-group-fringe’ model, we show that the choice of a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) punishment path in the event that unilateral defection occurs depends upon the common discount parameter, and that when the discount parameter is given the punishment path may depend upon the size of the dominant group. The choice of punishment path is thus endogenous. A striking result is that only for sufficiently small dominant groups in sufficiently small industries are there cases where costs affect these choices. Consequently, costs are irrelevant to the choice of punishment in industries with a large number of firms.     

Simple sequencing problems with interdependent costs

In this paper we analyze simple sequencing problems under incomplete information and interdependent costs. We prove the necessity of concave cost function for implementability of such problems. Implementability means that one can achieve aggregate cost minimization in ex-post equilibrium. We also show that simple sequencing problems are implementable if and only if the mechanism is a ‘generalized VCG mechanism.’ We then consider first best implementability, that is implementability with budget balancing transfer. We prove that for implementable n agent simple sequencing problems, with polynomial cost function of order (n−2) or less, one can achieve first best implementability. Finally, for the class of implementable simple sequencing problems with “sufficiently well behaved” cost function, this is the only first best class.     

Incentives for motivated agents under an administrative constraint

Consider an agent who has an expertise in producing a non-marketable good. This good is valued by a single principal, and there is a verifiable measure of the agent’s performance. Crucially, the agent is intrinsically motivated due to ‘warm glow altruism’. In addition, the agent’s budget, which is controlled by the principal, must not be less than the monetary performance-cost faced by the agent. This gives rise to a limited-liability constraint. It also restricts the agent’s ability to under-report costs. In such environment, we determine the link between the agent’s budget and performance. Our results come in contrast to the received solution of the principal-agent problem and to most in the literature on mission-motivated organisations and public services provision.     

German Monetary Union: An historical counterfactual analysis

This paper views German Monetary Union as a sequence of large asymmetric shocks to the European economies. As such it can be analysed with a large, new-Keynesian macro-econometric model of the relevant economies such as NiGEM. The ‘news’ in the sequence of shocks is assessed by analysing contemporary, NiGEM based, forecasts, and important events are then ‘peeled-off’ in reverse order. The resulting counterfactual history analyses the effects of the collapse of the Soviet economy on the EC and Scandinavian economies, and it is argued that the recession in countries such as Finland was not primarily caused by trade effects. The costs of support programmes for East Germany are then removed, creating a negative fiscal shock. Finally the paper analyses the overall effects of the set of shocks. In each part of the counterfactual history, individuals from forward looking expectations and the authorities operate fiscal solvency rules and target monetary aggregates.     

Commitment to regulatory bureaucracy

A model is considered in which ‘regulatory bureaucracy’ is in the best interest of consumers as well as the regulated firm. Making it more costly for the regulator to discern the firm's true costs can help motivate the firm to act in the interest of consumers. But this is only true if the regulator cannot make binding precommitments concerning the use of his policy instruments. Endowed with the ability to precommit, prices below marginal cost, investment in excess of efficient levels, and the absence of regulatory bureaucracy will characterize the optimal regulatory policy.