Exploring the effectiveness of research and innovation policies among European Union countries

In this paper we explore the effectiveness of selected research and innovation policies among EU countries. Using data from the AEGIS database and information from the 2015 Bruegel’s Partnership report on research and innovation polices in EU countries, we compare and contrast the response of knowledge intensive firms to a sample of policies. We find that the impact of the policies in our sample varies not only across countries but also across the age of affected firms in those countries. We conclude our analysis with a call for policy makers to begin to investigate the incidence of the impact of their research and innovation policies as measured not only by the age of firms but also by other dimensions.     

Greece in the European Union: policy lessons from two decades of membership

This paper examines the first two decades of Greece’s experience as a member of the European Union (EU). In evaluating the Greek experience within the EU, we derive three fundamental policy lessons that apply both to similar small peripheral countries now entering the EU and to the EU itself in terms of facilitating their integration in a large economic area. First, small peripheral countries that enter the EU must address the structural deficiencies of their economies before entry in order to minimize the impact of increased competition after the removal of trade protection, and follow domestic policies that maintain and promote their comparative advantage within the EU. Second, the Convergence Criteria have proven to be a successful mechanism for countries with a poor historical policy record to achieve macroeconomic stability, as shown by the case of Greece. Third, common EU policies can be very helpful in facilitating structural reforms in small peripheral economies. However, these policies must be continuously evaluated and improved so that their effectiveness is maximized.     

Insights into Innovation in European Museums

Abstract

Innovation has become a key tool enabling museums to adapt to the major changes that have taken place in recent decades in the milieu in which such organizations operate. However, countries' differing cultural policies, coupled with the particular nature of museums themselves (size, type of collection, organizational structure, system of funding, etc.), have a practical impact on the ability of such organizations to innovate and adapt to the new situation. In this context, our study posits three aspects through which innovation may appear in museums: technological innovation in management, technological innovation in visitor experience and organizational innovation. We also explore the extent to which the nature of cultural policies in different countries, how museums are managed and their size and funding impact each type of innovation. The empirical analysis was conducted for art and history museums in four European countries: France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. We felt that exploring these relations in cultural organizations would be of interest and would make an important contribution to the field.     

Innovation policy analysis and learning: Comparing Ireland and Taiwan

Taiwan and Ireland are regarded as being similar in their geographic positions and economic performances. Both countries moved from being agricultural economies to become major regional players, and are often pointed to as examples of positive national development and innovation. The main purpose of this article is to compare the two island countries’ innovation policies in a national context. The taxonomy of innovation policy proposed by Rothwell and Zegveld [1981, Industrial innovation and public policy. London: Frances Printer Ltd.] was adopted as the analysis framework for this study. The comparison shows that Taiwan's government employs more top-down policy instruments such as providing government research funding and resources to target industries. The Irish government successfully creates an innovation-friendly environment to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to facilitate research and development at the firm level. Finally, this article provides policy implications and recommendations based on what was learned from the comparison of the two countries.     

完善我国研发支出的财税政策

随着经济发展,研发创新活动已经成为各国竞争的重要手段之一。科技创新可以优化一个国家的资源配置,提高国家的综合竞争力。各国政府为了研发创新活动的开展,都在积极探索并制定研发创新的财税政策。本文分析了我国目前研发支出财税政策存在的不足之处,如财税政策的受益范围窄且力度小、财税支持方式不合理及法律法规不健全等问题。接着介绍国外激励研发创新的财税政策,总结出对我国财税政策的启示。最后从扩大财税政策激励范围、丰富财税政策激励方式以及完善我国财税的法律法规等方面提出优化我国研发支出财税政策的建议。     

Housing the Urban Poor in Developing Countries

A bstract . Conventional Shelter policies that focus on slum clearance, public housing, sites-and-Services, upgrading of core dwellings and government assisted self-help are inadequate to meet the growing needs of the urban poor in developing countries for low-cost housing. An examination is made of alternative options including cooperative housing programs and of policies that lower housing construction costs and encourage the participation of the urban poor, the informal sector, and private enterprise in low-cost shelter construction. Such policies include those that modify land use and building regulations , that increase the incomes of the poor so that they can afford privately constructed dwellings or the materials to build their own houses , and that increase the security of land occupation to encourage self-help activities. Governments in developing countries must give more attention to tailoring housing policies to the needs of the urban poor, to developing multiple modes of shelter provision, and to strengthening the housing finance system.     

Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid: A Recipe for Inclusive Growth or Social Exclusion?

Policy makers often see entrepreneurship as a panacea for inclusive growth in underdeveloped ‘Base of the Pyramid’ (BOP) regions, but it may also lead to unanticipated negative outcomes such as crime and social exclusion. Our objective is to improve the understanding of how entrepreneurship policies can lead to socially inclusive growth at the BOP. Drawing on data collected from Brazilian tourism destinations with varying entrepreneurship, innovation, and social inclusion policies, we argue that weak institutions coupled with alert entrepreneurs encourage destructive outcomes, especially if entrepreneurship policies are based solely on economic indicators. Policies addressing both economic and social perspectives may foster more productive entrepreneurial outcomes, albeit at a more constrained economic pace. The study extends the related BOP, entrepreneurship, global value chain, and sustainable tourism literatures by examining the poor as entrepreneurs, the role of local innovation, and how entrepreneurship policies generate different social impacts within poor communities.     

Technology transfer and the restructuring of science and technology in central and eastern Europe

Profound changes which have occurred in central and eastern Europe (CEE) have left science and technology systems in those countries in a dilapidated state. Reform efforts have focused on restructuring and privatising research institutes and promoting technology transfer between domestic institutions and between domestic and foreign institutions.¹ Both of these reform initiatives are aimed at increasing levels of innovation. Emphasis has been put on introducing the market mechanism. This paper looks at these reforms in CEE, particularly in Poland. The following broad points emerge: First, the track record of efforts to promote technology transfer need to be understood and interpreted in conjunction with a fuller understanding of institutional change, innovation and learning. Technology transfer is meant to encourage innovation, but a range of things need to happen if technology transfer initiatives are to work. Gibbons (Gibbons M. et al., 1994) observed, for example, that effective innovation requires new configurations of knowledge (and skills). The coordination activities required to effect these new configurations within and between organisations and institutions impose their own demands on actors engaged in technology transfer, which rapid privatisation or liberalisation policies in CEE do not begin to address. Reform policies which have focused on introducing new economic incentives need to address change at micro and meso levels. Creating new institutional practice depends not only on creating economic incentives but on wider reform processes, such as creating new organisational practices and encouraging the emergence of new sorts of institutions which can facilitate links. Second, the reform process is a social and political one. Changing the emphasis of policy towards technological development requires a change in power relations so that technological development and innovation, rather than success in science, are prioritised. These political battles greatly influence the pace and nature of change, and in CEE the promotion of technology and innovation is taking place in a context of social upheaval. Social consequences of reform in general and in science and technology in particular are difficult and uncomfortable, and change in this area is perhaps not yet a political priority in some CEE countries.     

Technology policy between ‘diversity’ and ‘one best practice’ — A comparison of Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies

Policy makers in all industrialized countries are increasingly orienting their science and technology policy towards foreign patterns. There seems to be ‘one best practice’ which is used by all nations to make their economies fit for global competition.This paper doubts this paradigm. By comparing the South Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies, it is shown that an appropriate technology policy has to take the individual national system of innovation into consideration. Merely initating the examples of countries with different frame conditions is inappropriate.Diversity in science and technology policy has been the precondition for the success of contributions of these policies to economic and technological development in both South Korea and Germany.     

Entrepreneurship policy and systemic conditions: Evidence-based implications and recommendations for emerging countries

Entrepreneurship policies are now widely spread among the general policy agenda in most of the countries. In particular, emerging countries started to focus on startups and young firms as potential engines of economic growth and structural transformation. Therefore, several governments from these countries are devoting significant efforts to develop their entrepreneurial ecosystems and promote the emergence of new dynamic firms. However, data on entrepreneurship in these countries is scarce leaving policymakers without a clear evidence-based platform for designing their policies and programs. This paper tries to contribute to this task in two manners. First, it presents a systemic conceptual approach to guide the design of entrepreneurship policies that explicitly includes the structural factors acting act as barriers in less developed contexts. Secondly, Based on the information from the IDE (Index of Dynamic Entrepreneurship) this study advances into the characterization of six different configurations of systemic conditions – three of which include emerging countries – analyzing their main strengths and weaknesses. Hence, this article provides a new evidence-based platform to identify and discuss the heterogeneity among ecosystems in emerging countries and suggests several policy recommendations for those governments that want to implement new entrepreneurship policies. At the same time, they introduce to the literature new concepts such as ‘systemic balance’ and ‘dual ecosystems’, which serve to characterize most of the observed configurations of systemic conditions for entrepreneurship in less developed regions. All in all, the results of this study would serve to guide policymakers to formulate their policies in a more contextualized framework.     

The antecedents of SME innovativeness in an emerging transition economy

Understanding forces that contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is very important, as these enterprises are vital for both developed and developing economies. Since innovativeness is among the most important means through which such businesses contribute to economic growth, numerous research studies were conducted to determine which factors positively impact SME's innovative efforts. This is an even more important issue for developing economies, where SMEs are often faced with inadequate infrastructure. Since there is a lack of studies on SME innovation in developing economies, often policy in such countries is based on findings from developed countries.In this paper, we explore factors that drive innovation activities in SMEs in a small emerging transition economy (Croatia), and compare it with findings from developed economies. In addition to factors used in most previous studies, we consider market scope, firm's market orientation and presence of strategic, managerial and marketing changes. We find that most factors that were found to be important in developed economies are important in developing economies as well. In addition to that, market scope was discovered to be a very important factor in both product and process innovation. Implementing corporate changes has positive impact on radical product innovation while implementing new organizational structures has positive effect on incremental innovation. When investigating determinants of product innovation, we distinguish new products of low novelty from new products of high novelty, and show that they need to be supported by different policies. To gain additional insight in innovation efforts, we examine obstacles to innovation. We find that firms that report facing obstacles are not less likely to innovate less, which suggests that innovators are able to work around obstacles without damaging effects to innovation. This study is based on a postal survey of 448 SMEs in Croatia, which was performed in 2004.     

R&D subsidies and productivity in eastern European countries

This paper shows that R&D subsidy policies at the European Union (EU) and national levels stimulated labor productivity in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) in the years after their entry to the EU. However, the average impact of national funding on labor productivity was higher for countries in the Western control group than in the CEEC sample. EU R&D subsidies compensated the CEEC in part for the greater innovation impact of Western economies. Although they crowded out some R&D subsidies by local governments at the country level, the EU subsidies crowded in many national and local subsidies at the firm level. Local/regional state innovation aid to enterprises encouraged no increase in labor productivity in all but one of the sample CEEC countries. These impacts are assessed in a sequential structural econometric model estimated using Eurostat’s collection of Community Innovation Surveys covering the years 2006–2014.     

Innovation for Inclusive Business: Intrapreneurial Bricolage in Multinational Corporations

It is often argued that multinational corporations (MNCs) are in a unique position to innovate business models that can help to alleviate poverty. This empirical study into intra‐organizational aspects of pro‐poor business innovation in two MNCs suggests, however, that certain elements of their management frameworks – such as short‐term profit interests, business unit based incentive structures, and uncertainty avoidance – may turn into obstacles that prevent MNCs from reaching their full potential in this respect. We introduce the concept of intrapreneurial bricolage to show how middle manager innovators may promote pro‐poor business models despite these obstacles. We define intrapreneurial bricolage as entrepreneurial activity within a large organization characterized by creative bundling of scarce resources, and illustrate empirically how it helps innovators to overcome organizational constraints and to mobilize internal and external resources. Our findings imply that intrapreneurial bricolage may be of fundamental importance in MNC innovation for inclusive business. In addition to the field of inclusive business, this study has implications for the study of bricolage in large organizations and social intrapreneurship, as well for managerial practice around innovation for inclusive business.     

Policies to benefit from the globalization of corporate R&D: An exploratory study for EU countries

This article explores how the globalization of corporate R&D has led to the emergence of new policy strategies across the EU, involving a more proactive role of governments and a closer connection between innovation policies and FDI promotion policies. The first part presents an analytical framework encompassing the main policy objectives and instruments at stake, which aims at facilitating the design and evaluation of policies geared towards the globalization of corporate R&D. Both the policies to attract inward FDI in R&D and those towards R&D offshoring are addressed, as well as the distinct policy implications of alternative entry modes. The second part provides evidence of the evolution of European policies in response to the globalization of corporate R&D, pointing out a set of country-specific examples and suggesting avenues for policy intervention at the EU level. Although the focus is on the EU, this study may inform policy learning in other developed and developing countries alike.     

The role of equity financing to support entrepreneurship in Asia—The experience of Singapore and Thailand

This paper is concerned with the role of equity financing to support entrepreneurship in Asia with a particular focus on venture capital (VC) financing policies of Singapore and Thailand. Although Singapore and Thailand adopt the government intervention approach in VC financing, the analysis has shown that Singapore is more successful due to effective use of innovation financing policies in the catch-up process to develop its economy and strong network linkages with US Silicon Valley. The case of Thailand has shown poor network linkages with redundant organizations/agencies competing on offering similar innovation financing schemes. The study offers effective innovation financing policy recommendations to support the national economic development. The research provides useful insights and lessons for other economies aimed at strengthening the entrepreneurial financing system.     

HOUSING INFORMALITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: Insights from a Policy Comparison between Accra and Buenos Aires

Informal settlement growth in various countries has led to distinctive actions that enhance low-income populations’ accessibility to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services. This trend indicates the need for comparative studies between countries and cities to understand the factors that lead to policy learning opportunities. We conducted an experimental comparison between Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, to understand, first, how policies on informal settlements have been formed, and secondly, what inquiries should be made to address housing informality in the global South. A comparison shows that these cities/countries have shared moments of neoliberalization and that their poor residents have experienced similar struggles regarding housing availability and the pursuit of extensive governmental interventions. Therefore, their experiences are worth examining. Our comparison indicates that first, Buenos Aires/Argentina has adopted more inclusive policies regarding informal dwellers than Accra/Ghana, and secondly, that diversifying housing solutions are an inevitable dynamic in cities/countries experiencing a surge in housing pressure across classes, races and geographies. In this article we articulate how the governments of these countries have dealt with these challenges and conceptualize the coproduction needs of housing informality in developing countries. We encourage policymakers facing informality in the South to respond to the questions we raise about facilitating policy learning.     

Institutions for Financial Development: What are they and where do they come from?

Abstract.  Among the fundamental causes of long-run economic performance, differences in 'institutions' have received considerable attention in recent years. At the same time, a large body of theoretical and empirical work shows that financial development can have a big effect on economic performance. This raises the more fundamental question as to why some countries have developed financial markets while others do not. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical research on this issue and shows that one of the channels whereby better institutions may have an effect on economic development is through the consolidation of larger and better financial markets. An issue that is left aside in this paper relates to what regulations and policies lead to better functioning capital markets. At some level, one can think of regulations and policies as particular types of institutions. Nonetheless, institutional problems are deeper causes leading to poor economic performance; bad policies might simply be part of the channels through which they influence performance. Thus, addressing the question of what determines the emergence of 'good' institutions – i.e. institutions that promote financial development – seems particularly important. Recent research providing some answers to this question is also reviewed.     

Innovating in the local systems of small medium sized enterprises: the experience of Tuscany

Innovation policies addressed to SMEs in Tuscany (and in Italy as well) have given, so far, a very limited contribution to improving the SMEs performance in terms of competitiveness and technological enhancement. The interpretation the paper attempts to demonstrate is that innovation policies have been designed for a ‘generic’ SME, in a frame of traditional sectors, within administrative areas, whereas successful SMEs are not merely operating in a given sector or area; they are agglomerated in peculiar Spatial Systems of Small Enterprises (SESS). The productive, spacial, social models of functioning of a typical SESS are described in order to:

(i) identify the local mechanism of interdependencies (between firms, labour force and local government), which generates relevant flows of external economies;

(ii) prove that innovation policies have neglected the vital characteristic of the SMEs (their agglomertion in SESSs).

Finally, a new innovation policy for SMEs designed by the Regional Government of Tuscany is presented.     

IS THERE A CONFLICT BETWEEN COMMERCIAL GAIN AND CONCERN FOR THE POOR? EVIDENCE FROM PRIVATE SCHOOLS FOR THE POOR IN INDIA AND NIGERIA

In many developing countries, private unaided schools are serving the poor in large numbers. Some commentators view their presence as undesirable - in particular assuming that there is a conflict between'commercial gain' and 'concern for the poor'. We show one way in which there is no conflict - the private unaided schools offer free or concessionary places to the poorest of the poor. Using data from a random sample of schools in Hyderabad, India, and a smaller sample in Makoko, Nigeria, we show that such places range from 10–20% of all places offered.     

浅析国外推行清洁生产的成功作法和发展趋势

文章对国外推行清洁生产的成功做法和发展趋势作了研究和分析,得出如下结论,清洁生产的推行在很大程度上取决于政策领域和技术领域的创新：我国的清洁生产还处于探索和起步阶段,在清洁生产的实施过程中,国外的成功经验和作法可供我们借鉴．如与建立ISO4000环境管理体系相结合、向第三产业延伸、注重产品生态设计、开展生态工业园区建设等。