From priority-setting to articulation of demand: Foresight for research and innovation policy and strategy

The paper addresses the application of foresight to research and innovation policy and strategy. It seeks to show an evolution away from a traditional focus on broad-based technological priority setting to a much more focussed and adapted set of applications. The inherent limitations of prioritisation processes are discussed. The more limited aim of articulating specific fields is noted. Recent trends in research and innovation policy have opened new opportunities for the application of foresight. Systemic and demand-side policies require a shared vision on the part of purchasers and suppliers. The role of foresight in such contexts needs both to be enhanced and better understood.An increasing structural focus for foresight exercises is associated not only with broader R&I system reform but also with an engagement with new-wave innovation policies. The success of demand-side measures such as cluster policies and the use of procurement or regulation to stimulate innovation is dependent upon the formation of a common vision between the supply and demand sides, opening the possibility for the application of foresight approaches. We note the emergence of a combination of corrective, disruptive and creative roles.     

科技创新是经济发展最根本的动力

人均收入成倍增长的动力是技术创新 从经济长期发展的角度来讲,科技创新确实是一个国家经济发展最根本的动力。根据国际知名的经济学家安德森·麦蒂森的研究,18世纪前,全世界最发达的西部地区的人均收入增长只有0．05％,按此换算,1400年人均收入才能够增加1倍。     

Priorities for future innovation: Russian S&T Foresight 2030

Under the transition to a market economy Russian science, technology and innovation (STI) has changed dramatically. After the crisis of late 1990s, the government declared science and technology (S&T) as one of national priorities and started increasingly investing in this sector but it has not led to the tangible output like a bigger volume of high-tech exports or a higher share of international publications. A number of policy instruments have been introduced to increase the efficiency of STI policies. One of them is S&T Foresight.The activities aimed at identification of national S&T priorities and series of Foresight studies have helped to understand which areas are most promising for sustaining existing competitive advantages and building new ones via gradual shift from the resource-based economy towards the technology-oriented one.The paper presents the design and organisation of a large-scale Russian S&T Foresight exercise as a fully-fledged instrument of the national STI policy and discusses the achieved results and their use for policies at different levels.     

The role of institutional investors in corporate and entrepreneurial finance

Institutional investors, collectively the majority shareholders of most publicly traded corporations, play important roles in almost all aspects of corporate finance. This special issue puts together sixteen papers covering a wide range of topics, such as M&As, capital structure, bonds and loans, corporate governance, IPOs, VCs, SEOs, broker/underwriter relationships, behavioral finance, corporate disclosure, and regulation. These special issue papers demonstrate that institutional investors, a traditional focus of investments research, are worthy of continued and further academic inquiry in many corporate finance topics. In terms of directions for future research, we believe that the availability of new datasets (or existing datasets not yet widely used in corporate finance) and the application of new or unique research methodologies could bear fruit for researchers, as demonstrated by some papers in this special issue. In terms of datasets, the success of Abel Noser institutional trading data serves as a good example.     

UK policy coordination: the importance of institutional design

This paper considers the principles that underpin the design of the UK's macroeconomic framework, with particular emphasis on the importance of good institutional design in ensuring effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy when an independent Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has operational responsibility for setting interest rates. The theoretical literature on policy coordination finds that the cost of central bank independence is less monetary‐fiscal coordination. We argue that once account is taken of the institutional arrangements, this conclusion does not hold for the UK. In fact, the UK macroeconomic policy framework represents a significant improvement in policy coordination through mechanisms that allow for greater transparency and accountability in policy‐making. Among the measures discussed in the paper is the role of the Treasury Representative on the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee.     

Prospects for a national innovation policy in the USA

This article examines efforts in the USA to initiate and implement a national innovation policy, and from this future prospects are inferred. It is argued that unless a crisis atmosphere prevails for a considerable period the USA will develop and implement neither an innovation policy nor a ‘comprehensive-type’ industrial policy. The reasons for this are deeply rooted in US political values and institutions.     

The effects of political, economic and institutional development on international banks

For the most part, the international banking system operated in a predictable manner seeking to maximize profitability and extend the reach, if not the grasp, of the individual banking institutions. Now, in the summer of 1983, we face a series of related economic and financial problems for which there is no simple solution and certainly no single solution. What must evolve is a series of governmental and banking policies and pratices which will first address the short-term problems but in a manner which will be consistent with long-term objectives. The banking system and individual banks must be given full assistance to deal with liquidity problems. The supervisory authorities must also insure that the banking system as a whole remains solvent. But where bad management decisions have destroyed the net worth of a bank — no matter how large — the supervisory authorities must permit such an institution to be reorganized. Banks are only part of the private sector if they are vulnerable, as every other company in the private sector is, to the fear of bankruptcy.     

The influence of the institutional context on corporate illegality

This paper examines the relationship between the institutional environment and sustained corporate illegality. We find that cognitive assumptions generate expectations that can, under specific circumstances, induce organizations to amplify illegal actions and that serve to lessen regulatory scrutiny. We also find that, once initiated, illegal actions can become hidden because of institutionalized practices that enable their concealment and that weaken the prospect of detection. These processes and effects are particularly noticeable in networks of professional regulators who become mutually over-confident and over-influenced by each other to the extent that their independent critical assessments and judgements are compromised. Mechanisms of mimetic herding and social humiliation compromise independence of judgement. Networks of interacting professionals are thus vulnerable to a collectively induced lowering of regulatory vigilance.     

经济增长放缓背景下的中国商业新机遇

经济下行:对中国商业的影响不可忽视 普华永道于2015年12月24日发布了2015亚太经合组织CEO调研报告之来自中国的观点——《中国踏上发展新道路:机遇在召唤》,报告呈现了2015年的调研结果,内容涉及商业信心、企业投资、服务需求预估、风险情境、促进互联互通和包容性增长因素的排名等指数.该报告显示,尽管中国国内生产总值增长预计放缓,但多数在华工商界领导人依然对商业机遇持乐观态度.     

How control systems influence product innovation processes: examining the role of entrepreneurial orientation

This paper yields insights into the channels through which management accounting and control systems (MACS) exert an influence on product innovation by examining the extent to which different forms of control (i.e. value systems (VS), diagnostic control systems and interactive control systems (ICS)) are directly associated with the distinct phases of innovation processes. Using survey data collected from 118 medium and large Spanish companies, we find that (1) VS and ICS have significant main effects on the creativity, co-ordination and knowledge integration, and filtering (sub-)phases of innovation processes and (2) the significance and direction of these influences vary depending on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of firms. By highlighting the relevance of EO in shaping the influence of MACS on product innovation processes, this study calls for caution in generalising the expected effects of MACS on innovation.     

CSR in the bond market: Pricing stakeholders and the moderating role of the institutional context

This study examines the impact of corporate social performance (CSP) on the spreads and credit ratings of corporate bonds on a global scale. The relationship is examined within the national legal and institutional environment and with regard to specific stakeholder practices. We construct and use a unique longitudinal, international dataset with a total of 5280 bond issues dating from 2003 to 2018 and spanning 40 countries worldwide.We provide evidence that more responsible firms benefit from lower bond spreads and improved bond ratings, while a higher degree of CSR-related controversies penalizes firms on both dimensions. Various, but not all, stakeholder relationships appear to generate a significant impact on spreads and bond ratings, with shareholders remaining crucial in both civil and common law countries, opposite to literature findings so far. Corporate governance is corroborated as a primary concern also in the debt market for common law economies, while societal stakeholders assume significance for civil law systems. Finally, findings highlight that stronger regulation and government involvement do not further promote the role of CSP in the debt market. On the other hand, free public criticism and media scrutiny generate a more pronounced effect of CSP on bond pricing providing support for the rewards associated with voluntary and proactive CSR.     

Continuity,contingency and context: Bringing the historian's cognitive toolkit into university futures and public policy development

This paper explores the affinities between the cognitive approaches of historical study and those of strategic foresight, specifically, scenario planning, drawing out their capacity to problematise perceived certainties and challenge deterministic beliefs. It suggests that “thinking with history” has the potential to enhance strategic understanding and decision-making. Two high-level decision-making contexts – university executives and Government Departments – are then discussed with regards to the barriers to such strategic thinking. The paper draws on a wider research project exploring the role for historical thinking in public policy development.     

技术创新携手金融创新，提速绿色发展--2016（第七届）清洁发展国际融资论坛暨2016（第六届）“十大绿色创新企业”颁奖典礼纪实

绿色发展是中共十八届五中全会确立的“创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享”五大发展理念之一。“十三五”规划纲要提出,必须坚持节约资源和保护环境的基本国策,坚持可持续发展,坚定走生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展道路,加快建设资源节约型、环境友好型社会,形成人与自然和谐发展现代化建设新格局,推进美丽中国建设,为全球生态安全做出新贡献。在如火如荼的暑伏之际,2016（第七届）清洁发展国际融资论坛暨2016（第六届）“十大绿色创新企业”颁奖典礼在北京产权交易所隆重举行,新老各界朋友和专家为了共同的目标“让绿色金融支持绿色清洁生产”,再次欢聚一堂,共同探讨如何创新各种融资方式,带动更多社会资本参与绿色投资,支持绿色清洁生产、推进传统制造业绿色改造、推动建立绿色低碳循环发展产业体系,确保中国经济可持续发展。     

Foresight and long-term policy-making: An analysis of anticipatory boundary work in policy organizations in The Netherlands

Public policy is founded on analysis and knowledge. However, knowledge – and especially knowledge about the future – is not a self-evident element of public policy-making. This paper conceptualizes the problematic relationship between anticipatory policy-making and anticipatory knowledge. Our study identifies possible key-variables in the linkage between foresight and policy, such as positioning, timing interfaces, professional background, instrument usage, procedures and leadership. We describe the organization and flow of policy and futures knowledge. Furthermore, we generalize these findings toward a theory concluding how ‘goodness of fit’ between knowledge about the future and policy can be achieved, so that the likelihood of informed future-oriented policies might increase.     

Dividends and economic policy uncertainty: International evidence

We provide the first international evidence on the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on dividend policy. Using data from 19 countries, we find that a high level of EPU is positively associated with dividend payout. This evidence is robust to using alternative dividend payout measures, to controlling for other sources of uncertainty, and to addressing endogeneity. We further find that the effect of EPU on dividend policy is moderated by firms' free cash flows and governance quality, and by the quality of country-level indicators of shareholder protection, disclosure, enforcement, and creditor protection. Collectively, our novel evidence suggests that dividends help mitigate agency problems during high-EPU periods.     

The road to economic recovery: Pandemics and innovation

In this paper, we investigate the economic consequences of pandemics from an idea-based theory of economic growth. We assume that pandemics pose a threat to research productivity and analyse the long-term consequences of pandemic shocks to innovation output. We demonstrate that following a pandemic, innovation output is disrupted for approximately seven years. The effect of pandemic shocks on innovation output varies between countries, and sector to sector regarding economic activity. Pandemic shocks lead to a short-term drop in the number of patent applications. Crucially, the duration of a pandemic has a strong effect on innovation output. Overall, the effects of this most recent pandemic on future innovation output, and subsequently on growth, are expected to be felt long into the future. This paper supports the policies designed to reduce the effect of the “Great Lockdown” on research productivity. Policies that target the more innovative firms are moving in the right direction in terms of reducing the time it will take for innovation to recover from the effects of COVID19.     

信息科技推动银行创新与发展

2009年是兴业银行科技工作获得突破与取得丰硕成果的一年。2010年张江数据中心不仅将承担兴业银行重要系统的运营职能,还将负责同业托管系统的运行和灾备,为兴业银行长远的业务发展、银银合作奠定良好的基础。