Patenting and the supply of inventive ideas in colonial Australia: evidence from Victorian patent data

One of the least studied aspects of Australian economic history is technological change. This article addresses the subject by using patent statistics from nineteenth–century Victoria to examine the determinants of the supply of inventive ideas in the late colonial era. Such an examination indicates that, while both demand– and supply–side features clearly had roles to play in influencing the volume of ideas that emerged, it was the expansion and diversification of Australian markets in the latter half of the century that was most important. These findings also suggest that development and introduction of new technological ideas in pre–Federation Australia were predominantly economic activities shaped by local considerations.     

National policies and local economic initiatives: Evaluating the effectiveness of UK coal and steel closure area re-industrialisation measures

With the collapse that took place in coal, steel and engineering, job creation subsidiaries of certain nationalised industries were set up such as British Coal (Enterprise) Ltd and British Steel Corporation (Industry) Ltd. What have they achieved and what lessons are to be learned?     

Colonies,copper, and the market for inventive activity in England and Wales, 1680–1730

Between 1680 and 1730 the English and Welsh copper industry rose from the dead and by the mid‐eighteenth century it had become Europe's leading copper producer. The revival followed the extension of sugar cultivation in England's colonies and the creation of a strong new demand for copper, which was reflected in rising exports and rising prices. Buoyant demand created a favourable market for the inventive activity needed to cut costs in the native industry, which encouraged investment in a systematic programme of research and development and culminated in important breakthroughs in smelting and mining technologies which transformed the non‐ferrous metal industries. The story provides an insight into how the economic context shaped the way useful knowledge was produced and consumed. Colonial expansion not only provided England with additional resources overseas but also encouraged the reallocation of human and financial capital to make better use of slack resources at home. Empire and technical change intersected with positive consequences for economic growth.     

Feeding the British: convergence and market efficiency in the nineteenth-century grain trade

This paper traces the evolution of the international market for wheat, from an emerging market structure after the repeal of the corn laws to a mature market characterized by efficient arbitrage after the introduction of the transatlantic telegraph and the growth of trade. Efficiency is documented using traditional price gap accounting as well as error correction modelling. Markets which traded directly with each other as well as markets which did not trade with each other were integrated. The traditional bilateral focus in market integration studies has been extended to a multivariate approach, which generates new insights into the pattern of diffusion of price shocks in the international economy. Shocks in the major importing nation, Britain, dominated in the emerging market phase, while shocks in the major exporting economy, the United States, dominated international price movements at the end of the nineteenth century.     

Technology, wages, and skill shortages: evidence from UK micro data

Why have skill shortages continue to persist despite increasesin training and the skill levels of the workforce? We arguethat technical progress has raised the demand for skilled labourto match the observed increase in supply. We provide econometricevidence in support of this hypothesis, showing that skill shortagesare higher for establishments that use advanced technology inthe production process. We also provide econometric evidencethat hiring difficulties are inversely related to the relativewage, as theory would suggest. Our results have clear implicationsfor policy. If technological progress continues to be skillbiased, policies that address skills deficiencies will onlybe successful if they produce a continual, rather than a temporary,increase in levels of skills among the workforce.     

Multinational activity and CEO compensation: Preliminary evidence from large UK firms

Multinational Activity and CEO Compensation: Preliminary Evidence from Large UK Firms. — Since the early 1980s the rate of growth in executive remuneration has consistently outpaced that of average earnings. This phenomenon has been widely assumed to be part of an internationalization of the executive labor market. This paper starts from the premise that the multinational enterprise will be a major agent in such a market and presents some preliminary tests for the impact of multinational activity in general, and specific regional effects in particular, on CEO remuneration using a sample of large UK firms. Surprisingly, we find no evidence to support our conjecture that CEO pay will be positively related to firm involvement in the United States. However, multinational activity does generate a significant premium over purely domestic activity.     

The effect of foreign competition on UK employment and wages: Evidence from firm-level panel data

The Effect of Foreign Competition on UK Employment and Wages: Evidence from Firm-Level Panel Data. —This paper contributes to the sparse empirical literature on the effects of foreign competition on domestic employment and wages. The authors estimate a structural labour demand equation on UK firm-level panel data between 1982 and 1989 and several wage equations. When they restrict the sample to the manufacturing sector only, they find for the unionized firms that foreign competition has a negative effect on both wages and on employment. However, when UK manufacturing firms face only a few rivals, foreign competition has a positive effect on wages, but no effect on employment.     

Reconsidering patents and economic development: A case study of the Turkish pharmaceutical industry

The role that patents play in Third World economic development has been a subject of growing debate during the last two decades. The empirical evidence, however, has been insufficient to allow a closer evaluation of the contending arguments.The objective of this article is to reconsider the main issues of the debate on patents on the basis of the relatively long experience of non-patentability, that is since 1961, in the Turkish pharmaceutical industry. It is argued here that there is no simple and straightforward relationship between patents and Third World industrialization, either in the way that the supporters of the systems have perceived or on the grounds that the critics have raised their objections.     

上市公司代理成本与资本结构实证分析:基于浙江省上市公司数据

文章在综述国外相关代理成本理论的基础上,利用2012年浙江省上市公司数据,实证分析了公司资本结构、公司规模、公司成长性、股权集中度和管理层持股比例与代理成本之间的关系,发现存在资本结构使得代理成本最小,且公司规模越大,成长性越高,代理成本越小。     

'On the side of the Angels': community involvement in the governance of neighbourhood renewal

Community involvement in regeneration is far from easy, and is difficult to define. The New Deal for Communities programme has directly involved residents in the governance of neighbourhood renewal with some success. However, community capacity has proved to be limited, adequate representation is difficult to achieve and there has been friction with local government. Community empowerment has to be enabled and supported by getting the structures and processes right, and supporting community representatives.     

North and South: A Regional Model of the UK

Open Economies Review - We set up a two-region model to study the policy challenge of bringing the North’s income up to the level of the South in the UK. The model focuses on labour costs as...