Globalization of techmological innovation

This paper focuses on strategies and opportunities for European and global development offered bythe globalization of technological innovation (GTI). The author clarifies the concept of GTI by examining eight main aspects of this phenomenon. Focus then turns to Europe as it moves towards integration under the Single European Act. The question of Europe's global position is addressed, and the opportunities prospects and issues raised by GTI for European societies are analysed. The strategic implications of GTI for Durope are examined, and three main options for European (and global) development are presented.     

“负担”变“机遇”——欧盟通过“创新伙伴关系”积极应对老龄化

人口老龄化是全球趋势,也是欧洲面临的最严峻挑战之一,将对欧盟国家政治、经济、社会和卫生体系等领域带来综合性挑战。为此,欧盟提出将"创新"作为重要综合抓手,努力将老龄化带来的潜在"社会负担"转化为"银色机遇",即将老龄化产业转化为新的经济增长点。2011年,欧委会在"创新联盟"框架下启动"欧洲积极和健康的老龄化创新伙伴关系计划",旨在通过"思维创新"重新审视和优化医疗及护理活动的政治、社会、组织和筹资,提供体系的流程和安排,并通过"科技创新"充分调动和挖掘老龄化相关市场需求和产业发展动力。欧洲的成功经验和做法,对我国应对老龄化挑战有积极的借鉴意义。     

欧盟工业生物技术研发现状及发展趋势分析

欧盟是现代工业制造业的发源地,长期保持着工业技术的世界领先水平。欧委会根据全球高新技术日新月异的快速发展及其重要性,以及欧盟相对处于世界领先地位的技术优先领域,扬长避短确定了欧盟工业可持续发展的六大关键势能技术(KETs)。工业生物技术,作为欧盟优先确定的六大关键势能技术之一,欧盟己制定具体的优惠政策和行动举措给予重点扶持,旨在提升欧盟先进制造业的世界竞争力,促进经济增长和扩大就业。通过综合研究分析欧盟工业生物技术及产业的发展现状、研发创新、面临的挑战和未来发展趋势,旨在为我国战略性新兴技术产业的可持续发展,提供有益的路径和经验借鉴。     

Did Baltic stock markets offer diversification benefits during the recent financial turmoil? Novel evidence from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test

Motivated by financial liberalization investors seek for new investment opportunities through international portfolio diversification. To this end we explore any asymmetric causal relationship between developed European stock markets (Germany, France and UK) and emerging Baltic markets namely; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Our analysis focuses on the period before and after countries’ EU accession and pre- and post the global financial crisis. For this purpose, both the standard parametric test for causality and a novel nonparametric test for causality-in-quantiles are employed. The results of both the parametric and nonparametric Granger causality test support a causal relationship in mean that runs from all of the major markets to the Baltic markets across both samples. The results imply the existence of significant nonlinear return and volatility spillover from European markets to Baltic markets. Policy implications for international investors are also discussed.     

The role of global financial conditions for credit supply in EMU periphery countries

The article analyses the role of global financial conditions for credit supply and growth performance in individual member states of the European Monetary Union (EMU). In line with the risk-taking channel of monetary policy, we find that in the short run, the Fed and European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate policy compensate for changes in global risk assessment thereby supporting net private credit flows to the European periphery. However, in later periods, a worsened risk sentiment weighs on credit flows to these countries. In contrast, EMU core countries are generally less affected by global financial shocks. This asymmetric influence of global conditions on EMU member states are smoothed by the uniform access of commercial banks to the Eurosystem’s open market operations in conjunction with the redistribution of liquidity via the TARGET mechanism.     

The effects of Information Technology on absorptive capacity and organisational performance

Information Technology (IT) offers many opportunities for firms to succeed. The aim of this paper is to present a model to reflect how technical IT skills and the use of IT in interdependent tasks may influence the development of organisational absorptive capacity, both potential and realised, which also affects organisational performance. Since knowledge constitutes one of the main resources for organisations to gain competitive advantages and helps firms to improve their organisational performance, absorptive capacity is a key factor in success. This model was tested empirically using a sample of 160 European technological firms. The results of our analysis suggest that the mastery of technical IT skills and the use of IT in interdependent tasks positively affect potential and realised absorptive capacities, which in turn enhances organisational performance. The study concludes by presenting some theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research lines.     

欧洲荒野景观再野化的发展与启示

欧洲荒野景观再野化是全球荒野保护运动中的创新典范，建立在人与自然和谐共存的自然生态观上，构建出引人瞩目的具有21世纪特色的保护思路。其经历了从目标驱动为主导到恢复再野化发展的保护理念转变，该过程将保护运动升级到整个生态系统，并提出“基于自然的解决方案”，显示出欧洲国家对土地利用的创新思考。在分析欧洲荒野保护发展历程后，以“欧洲再野化”(Rewilding Europe)项目为切入点，介绍其发展理念，梳理其主体建构、合作机制及政策导向，以期丰富国际荒野保护的研究，并为中国构建荒野保护理念及体系提供参考。     

Markov chain modeling of the global technological lifetime of copper

Markov chain modeling is applied to the global anthropogenic copper cycle for the year 2000. The lifetime of copper varies from product to product and region to region, as well as through time. Assumptions of average lifetimes are therefore subject to a high degree of uncertainty. A large state transition table is created that encompasses the life-cycle stages of copper (mining, smelting, refining, fabrication, use, waste management, scrap, and final disposal), five end-uses (buildings, transportation, consumer products, electrical equipment, and machinery) in eight world regions, including trade at every stage. The system requires closure by mass balance, so all possible routes of copper trade and recycling are considered. Transitions between each pair of states are calculated using previous material flow analysis data. The main result is that an atom of copper is used 1.9 times by human society before it enters final disposal. Scaling by the lifetime of copper in each life-cycle stage in each region gives a total average technological lifetime of copper of 60 years. A sensitivity analysis is applied to the model in order to test the robustness of the results. Several scenarios are also considered: increasing the recycling rate in each region to 70%, applying European or North American in-use lifetimes to all regions, and increasing the share of the world copper cathode and scrap markets taken in by Asia to 50%. Several limitations of the Markov chain approach are discussed, as are the further research opportunities it affords.     

Reform of European Merger Policy

The paper highlights the main drivers for merger policy reform in the European Union, including the consequences of the recent appeal court reverses. It discusses some of the substantive and procedural issues that the reform package should address, and outlines the reforms in progress. The author concludes that much of the reform package will be beneficial, but some important opportunities have been missed in this inevitably patchwork process.     

Foresight within ERA-NETs: Experiences from the preparation of an international research program

In this paper, we address challenges of organizing future-oriented consultation processes within European coordination tools for ‘Open Method of Coordination’ – such as ERA-NETs – which are promoted by the European Commission towards the establishment of the European Research Area. Specifically, we report experiences from a recent consultation process that was organized within WoodWisdom-Net (ERA-NET) with the aim of creating an international research agenda, based on the recognition of long-term challenges of the European forest sector and the attendant identification of gaps and new opportunities in wood material science and engineering. This consultation process involved eighteen funding organizations from eight European countries, as well as over 400 participants who represented relevant stakeholder groups, most notably leading researchers and industrialists. Methodologically, the process was based on the Internet-based solicitation and assessment of research issues, the deployment of Robust Portfolio Modeling (RPM) in the identification of promising research issues, and facilitated workshops where the results of Internet-based activities where discussed, validated and synthesized. In addition, extensive network analyses were conducted to support the identification of possible collaboration networks and the development of joint calls for proposals. Drawing on the results from the WoodWisdom-Net consultation process, we discuss the broader potential of Internet-based decision support tools and participatory workshops in promoting foresight activities within ERA-NETs and European coordination tools.     

欧盟光子学技术的发展现状与研发趋势

欧盟是现代工业制造业的发源地,长期保持着工业技术的世界领先水平。光子学技术,作为欧盟优先确定的六大关键势能技术(KETs)之一,欧盟已制定具体的优惠政策和行动举措给予重点扶持,旨在提升欧盟先进制造业的世界竞争力,促进经济增长和扩大就业。欧盟光子学技术在可持续发展经济、医疗保健、知识型社会建设、公共安全和环境保护以及先进工业制造等领域发挥了重要作用。通过综合研究欧盟光子学技术及其产业的发展现状、研发创新面临的挑战和未来发展趋势,旨在为我国战略性新兴技术产业的可持续发展,提供有益的路径和经验。     

Business Cycle Synchronization between Euro Area and Central and Eastern European Countries

We analyze the degree of co‐movements in real macroeconomic aggregates across selected euro area and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries applying a multi‐factor model. Our results suggest that the evolution of the global European factor matches well the narrative of main economic events between 1995 and 2011, capturing among others the recession during the recent global financial and economic crisis. This factor plays a central role in explaining real output growth variability in euro area and is negligible in CEE countries. Furthermore, using Markov switching models and concordance indices, we shed light on an increase in business cycle synchronization, with the degree of concordance between country‐specific and European business cycles being high.     

Do ICT Influence Economic Growth and Human Development in European Union Countries?

This study analyzes the influence of the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on economic growth and human development in the countries that make up the European Union 27. The remarkable interest that the European Commission has shown in the Information Society (IS) and the introduction of ICT inspired us to analyze to what extent ICT had established themselves in these countries. More specifically, countries are grouped in accordance with some of the main IS indicators published by Eurostat to ascertain whether or not there are different groups of countries with different levels of development and where ICT have been implemented to different degrees. We determine whether they have achieved different levels of economic and human development. This enables us to confirm (or reject) the main theories that suggest ICT have a strong influence on economic and human development. Results show the existence of four clearly distinct groups of countries which register significant differences.     

Determinants of Chinese direct investments in the European Union

This article analyses the determinants of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) activities in the European Union (EU). Evidence is based on panel Poisson models drawing on two investment monitors at the individual project level. Greenfield investments (GI) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are distinguished. The findings indicate that market size and bilateral trade are the main factors for Chinese investment in the EU. In contrast, business-friendly institutions do not foster FDI. Probably, Chinese investors are risk averse, and prefer regions with less competitive markets. The striking difference between GIs and M&As is related to unit labour costs. Higher costs make the host country less attractive for the establishment of new firms, but do not affect the involvement in existing firms. The sectoral dispersion of Chinese FDI in the EU did not change much since the global financial crisis. Most relevant shifts have occurred in research and development (R&D), where low-income EU countries have become increasingly attractive.     

Global value chains in Africa and development of opportunities by poor landholders

Abstract

In an effort to help address severe levels of poverty, multinational firms are increasingly seeking to include African smallholders in their global value chains (GVCs). Despite efforts of multinationals to provide such opportunities, the number of successful inclusions remains limited. We draw from the entrepreneurship domain to approach this important issue from an opportunity perspective. At the heart of our effort to develop a greater theoretical understanding is the insight that opportunities can both be discovered and created by smallholders. The key implication of this insight is that multinationals will gain more from their efforts to include small landholders in their GVCs if they adapt their value chain systems in ways that also accommodate joint creation of opportunities with smallholders rather than expect that all smallholders adapt to the systems developed by the large global firms for their large suppliers.     

Networked research: European policy intervention in ICTs

We use social network analysis to evaluate ‘behavioural’ additionality aspects of public programmes supporting research and development (R&D). The paper appraises empirically the partnership and knowledge networks created around the R&D activities of the Information Society Priority of the Sixth Research Framework Programme of the European Community. These emergent, scale-free networks are found to play an important role in generating and, especially, in diffusing knowledge by attracting key industry actors and by strengthening overall network connectivity through public support. Public policy should try to facilitate the development of more European organisations that can be characterised as global network hubs, on the one hand, and to draw larger numbers of the most dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into these programmes, on the other, to avoid technological lock-ins and mitigate the resistance or network reorientation toward more productive research areas.     

Financial crises,debt overhang,and firm growth in transition economies

ABSTRACT

We examine the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the European debt crisis of 2011 on the relationship between capital structure, investments, and performance for Eastern European companies. While the existing literature documents how firms’ investments are sensitive to the availability of internal funds and to debt holdings, we further investigate whether this investment sensitivity also translates in different levels of performance, and document that capital structure indeed has both a direct and an indirect effect, mediated by the capital expenditure channel. We show that firms with higher financial flexibility experience higher investments and returns on capital. Over-levered firms instead suffer from a debt overhang condition, forcing them to curb investments, and consequently experiencing lower performance. Overall, we provide evidence on the importance of capital structure and financial flexibility on investments and performance, showing the real consequences of the debt overhang condition on firm value creation. Firms should therefore aim at maintaining adequate financial flexibility in order to be able to pursue future profitable investment opportunities, and avoid the under-investment problem arising from a debt overhang situation.     

Valuing Global Ecosystem Services: What Do European Experts Say? Applying the Delphi Method to Contingent Valuation of the Amazon Rainforest

Valuing global public goods like the Amazon rainforest by stated preference surveys of a representative sample of the global population would be very costly and time consuming. We explore the use of the Delphi Method in contingent valuation (CV) by asking a panel of 49 European environmental valuation experts in two rounds what they think would be the result if a European CV survey of Amazon Rainforest protection plans was conducted. The experts’ best guess for the mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) by European households for preserving the current Amazon Rainforest, and thus avoiding a predicted loss in forest area by 2050 from currently 85% to 60% of the original forest in the 1970s, was 28 € per household annually as an additional income tax. Aggregated over all European households this amounts to about 8.4 billion € annually. This preliminary estimate indicate that WTP of distant beneficiaries is substantial, and could justify preservation of global ecosystem services where aggregated benefits of the local population often do not exceed the opportunity costs of preservation in terms of lost income from commercial activities. The income elasticity of WTP with respect to per-capita income in the European countries is 0.5–0.6. Recognizing the limitations and assumptions of the Delphi CV method, it could still be a time saving and cost-effective benefit transfer tool for providing international donors with much needed order-of-magnitude estimates of the non-use value of ecosystem services of global significance.     

对21世纪中国新型工业化道路的探索

传统产业的辉煌已经成为全球经济发展里程碑。发达国家的管理和科技革命带动了21世纪新经济时代的到来,并推动了经济全球化的发展。以发达国家高新技术产业为核心的世界经济格局,使发展中国家面临着巨大的压力;同时,也迎来了发展机遇。中国作为最大的发展中国家,一方面需要充实和改造传统经济成分;另一方面,又要探索高新技术产业的发展道路,以扭转产品或服务在价值分配中的不平衡状态。     

Fed and ECB monetary policy spillovers to Emerging Market Economies

This paper presents evidence that the international spillovers of both Fed and ECB conventional monetary policies to Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) are global. The result comes from the panel Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (BVAR) model estimated for EMEs in which we control i.a. for foreign central banks’ policy shocks. Furthermore, in the separate BVAR model for Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries we show that the ECB is the main foreign central bank for these economies — after controlling for its shocks, their Fed counterparts play a very moderate role in driving GDP and prices in CEE.