The interaction between bank solvency and funding costs: A crucial effect in stress tests

This paper presents new evidence on the empirical relationship between bank solvency and funding costs. Building on a newly constructed data set drawing on the supervisory data of 54 large banks from six advanced countries over 2004–2013, we use a simultaneous equation approach with panel data to estimate the contemporaneous interaction between solvency and funding costs. Our results and test statistics show that these two are (a) determined simultaneously and (b) more pronounced than suggested by the existing empirical literature. A 100‐bps increase in regulatory capital ratios is associated with a decrease of bank funding costs of about 113 bps. A 100‐bps increase in funding costs reduces regulatory capital buffers by 48 bps. Applying our estimation results to the 2014 EU‐wide stress test reveals that neglecting the solvency‐funding cost nexus leads to the systematical and significant underestimation of the impact of shocks on bank capital ratios.     

Environmental regulations and innovation activity in UK manufacturing industries

We examine the relationship between environmental regulations and innovation, using data from UK manufacturing industry during 2000-2006. We estimate a dynamic model of innovation behaviour, and explicitly account for the likely endogeneity of our measure of the stringency of environmental regulations (pollution abatement costs). Our results indicate that while on the one hand environmental R&D and investment in environmental capital are stimulated by greater pollution abatement pressures, on the other hand there is not a positive impact of environmental regulation on total R&D or total capital accumulation. We find some evidence that this is because more stringent environmental regulations directly lower the optimal expenditure on non-environmental innovations. In addition, we find that environmental R&D may crowd out non-environmental R&D, although there is no evidence that environmental capital crowds out non-environmental capital.     

资金供给、技术能力与技术转移绩效——国家重点研发计划多群组结构方程模型分析

国家重点研发计划对全产业链的强调使得研究其技术转移尤为必要。参考资源基础理论和动态能力理论，构建“资金供给—技术积累规模—技术转移能力—技术转移绩效”国家重点研发计划技术转移模型。应用结构方程模型进行检验，使用多群组结构方程模型探讨不同研究项目各因素对技术转移绩效的不同影响。结果发现：(1)国家重点研发计划技术转移绩效总体处于较高水平；(2)技术转移能力是国家重点研发计划技术转移绩效最直接、最有力的影响因素，资金供给是技术转移绩效的重要支撑；(3)技术积累规模难以直接影响技术转移绩效，但在技术转移绩效影响机理中发挥重要传导作用，是技术转移的基础性技术资源；(4)不同项目类型影响效应存在显著差异。研究结论可为政府、项目参与单位、首席科学家和普通参与者有效促进科技项目技术转移提供参考依据。     

The relationship between research funding and academic consulting: An empirical investigation in the Spanish context

This paper investigates the relationship between sources of funding for research activity and the engagement of scientists in a specific type of knowledge transfer, that is, academic consulting. We rely on a sample of 2603 individual scientists from five Spanish universities, who have been awarded public funding or have been principal investigators in activities contracted by external agents, over the period 1999–2004. We find that externally contracted research is positively related to the amount of monetary income from consulting contracts, but that international competitive funding has a negative effect. Our results show that this negative effect is positively moderated by the size of contract funding: the effect of international competitive funding becomes positive for moderate and high levels of contract funding. By investigating the relationship between academic consulting and different types of research funding, our paper sheds light on the conditions that favor academic consulting.     

Financial Intermediation and Occupational Choice in Development

This paper presents evidence that the spread between the marginal product of capital and the return on financial assets is much higher in poor than in rich countries. A model with costly intermediation is developed. In this economy, individuals choose at each instant whether to work or to operate a technology. Entrepreneurs finance their business with their own savings and, if necessary, by borrowing from banks. I find that in this framework intermediation costs are not equivalent to a tax on the return of capital. The equivalence fails because costly intermediation affects not only the capital accumulation decision but also the occupational choice decision. I show that intermediation costs have important effects on per capita output and average business size in the economy. I conclude that taxing financial intermediaries can be a very bad policy for development. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E20, E60, O11, O16.     

Ethnic diversity,social sanctions,and public goods in Kenya

This paper examines ethnic diversity and local public goods in rural western Kenya. The identification strategy relies on the stable historically determined patterns of ethnic land settlement. Ethnic diversity is associated with lower primary school funding and worse school facilities, and there is suggestive evidence that it leads to poor water well maintenance. The theoretical model illustrates how inability to impose social sanctions in diverse communities leads to collective action failures, and we find that school committees in diverse areas do impose fewer sanctions on defaulting parents. We relate these results to the literature on social capital and economic development and discuss implications for decentralization in less developed countries.     

Creating network bridges for university technology transfer: The medici fellowship programme

This paper evaluates a fellowship scheme aiming to overcome attitudinal and operational barriers towards university technology transfer. We propose barriers exist because of the focus of many academics exclusively within a peer review research network. We explore the case of the Medici Fellowship programme that was implemented in biomedical departments across five universities located in the midlands of England. Our evidence suggests that such fellowship programmes, through the retraining of academics, may have a positive impact on the commercialisation of research. In particular, the fellows, through the enhancement of their social and human capital, are able to act as agents of attitudinal change in their host departments and are seen to build bridges into external business networks that can provide early stage funding, market and legal information and help identify potential customers for nascent academic entrepreneurs.     

SUNK COSTS OF CAPITAL AND THE FORM OF ENTERPRISE: INVESTOR‐OWNED FIRMS AND WORKER‐OWNED FIRMS*

ABSTRACT ** : This paper examines implications of sunk costs of capital for efficient forms of enterprise. It is assumed that firm owners and outside traders are asymmetrically informed of venture risks, and that there are sunk costs associated with investment in physical and human capital. We then make an efficiency comparison between investor‐owned and worker‐owned firms. We find that the firm is efficient when it is owned by the input supplier (the investor or worker) who incurs large sunk costs. This is because such an input supplier can credibly signal to the other input supplier that he in fact has a safe project. An empirical study based on the Japanese manufacturing industry seems to support the theoretical result.     

中国电子商务企业生存的实证分析

本文通过Logisitc回归模型，对电子商务企业生存的影响因素进行了分析。笔者认为，电子商务企业的生存是受企业自身基因构成决定的，而电子商务企业的基因构成包括了企业家才能、资金、信息资本、人力资本、社会资本和技术资本。同时，企业的基因会随着环境的变化而不断地进行着调整和整合，以适应竞争的需要。实证分析的结果证实了笔者的判断。     

人口结构、人力资本结构与经济增长

经济发展过程伴随着人口结构的改变以及人力资本结构的改变,这种改变又影响着经济增长方式。本文刻画了这两种结构,考察工作家庭与退休家庭、体能资本与知识资本、通用性知识资本与专用性知识资本在经济增长过程中的作用。笔者发现,一个经济社会在其发展的早期阶段,主要是依靠体能资本和专用性知识资本促进经济数量上的增长和赶超,之后主要依靠通用性知识资本实现质量型经济增长。     

FINANCIAL FRICTIONS AND NEW EXPORTER DYNAMICS

This article studies the role of financial frictions as a barrier to international trade. We study new exporter dynamics to identify how these frictions affect export decisions. We introduce a borrowing constraint and working capital requirements into a standard model of international trade, with exports more working capital intensive than domestic sales. Our model can quantitatively account for new exporter dynamics in contrast to a model with sunk export entry costs. We provide additional evidence in support of our mechanism. We find that financial frictions reduce the impact of trade liberalization, suggesting that they constitute an important trade barrier.     

Endogenous Imitation and Technology Absorption in a Model of North–South Trade

Abstract

This paper considers the transfer of technology from the North to the South that occurs through trade in high-technology goods and explicitly models the ‘reverse-engineering’ process that allows the South to assimilate new technologies. A key finding of this study is that the South's rate of growth is dictated by the size of the country's human capital, which determines its absorptive capacity and its ability to assimilate knowledge from the North. We find that while a Southern country that is poor in human capital can only imitate, Southern countries that possess sufficiently large human capital endowments, beyond a certain threshold, signal the onset of innovation. We also find that the North enjoys a higher rate of innovation and growth with trade than without. North's gains are the highest when it trades with a human-capital ‘poor’ South, because imitation increases South's demand for Northern intermediates. But trade with the Southern countries that are human capital rich (and therefore involved in innovation), dampens their demand for Northern imports, adversely affecting North's growth. The model predicts growth convergence between the North and a South that is well passed the threshold for innovation.     

Non‐Scale Endogenous Growth with R&D and Human Capital

This paper examines the conditions under which increasing knowledge, encapsulated in ideas for new technology through R&D and embodied in human capital through education, sustains economic growth. A general model is developed where, consistent with recent literature, growth is non‐scale (not increasing in population size) and endogenous (generated by factors within R&D and education). Recent models feature the counterfactual assumption of constant returns to existing knowledge and restrict the substitutability of inputs within R&D and education. We find that non‐scale endogenous growth is possible under less stringent conditions. The findings reconcile sustained economic growth with evidence of diminishing marginal returns in education and R&D, which suggests an ambiguous role for R&D policy.     

Does foreign technology transfer spur domestic innovation? Evidence from the high-speed rail sector in China

This paper investigates the introduction of high-speed railway (HSR) technology into China to study the local impacts of foreign technology transfer. The large-scale technology transfer project, covering specific technological categories and directly benefiting railway-related firms in various cities, enables us to describe how foreign technology is digested and spurs follow-up innovation in firms apart from directly receiving ones. We find that technology transfer generates significant localized spillovers to nearby firms not only in terms of more patents, but also as higher productivity and revenue growth. Moreover, technological similarity, rather than input-output linkages, plays a dominant role in explaining the knowledge spillover both at the firm level and the aggregate level, which indicates the importance of absorptive capacity in digesting foreign technologies. Overall, our paper sheds new light on the innovation policy of developing countries as well as the global business strategy of multinational corporations (MNCs).     

Intertemporal Emission Permits Trading Under Uncertainty and Irreversibility

This paper analyzes the effect of emission permit banking on clean technology investment and abatement under conditions where the stringency of the future cap is uncertain. We examine the problem of heterogeneous firms minimizing the cost of intertemporal emission control in the presence of stochastic future pollution standards and emission permits that are tradable across firms and through time. A firm can invest in clean capital (an improved pollution abatement technology) to reduce its abatement cost. We consider two possibilities: that investment is reversible or irreversible. Uncertainty is captured within a two period model: only the current period cap is known. We show that if banking is positive and marginal abatement costs are sufficiently convex, there will be more abatement and investment in clean technology under uncertainty than there would be under certainty and no banking. These results are at odds with the common belief that uncertainty on future environmental policy is a barrier to investment in clean capital. Moreover, under uncertainty and irreversibility, we find that there are cases where banking enables firms to invest more in clean capital.     

欧盟研发框架计划项目的组织与管理

欧盟研发框架计划是欧盟主体科技计划。为提高科技资金的使用效率和科技质量,欧委会对项目制订了严格的组织管理办法。欧盟研发框架计划所有项目均实施合同管理,负责计划实施的机构与项目主持单位和个人签订资助协议,其内容涉及项目期限、资金拨付、报告制度以及相关法律等内容,还涉及费用、资金转移、成果使用和获取、成果扩散及产业化等条款。借鉴欧盟研发框架计划项目的管理制度和管理经验,我国在加强科技项目管理方面,应实行规范的合同管理,实施严格的报告制度,充分发挥项目主持人的作用。     

Innovation and knowledge sharing in crowdfunding: how social dynamics affect project success

The aim of this study is to contribute to the existing literature on innovation and knowledge sharing in crowdfunding, by exploring the importance of internal social capital, and how the previous failure of a campaign may lead to the success of a second one from the same project creator. Thus, the research question of the study is: how do social dynamics affect project success in a crowdfunding context? The paper reports an illustrative case study which has been promoted on the Kickstarter platform. The authors analysed data, documentation and physical artefacts, especially regarding the network size during the funding period. The results show that the self-learning which project creators gain from previous failure supports them in relaunching their crowdfunding campaign. However, various revisions take place during the second campaign (e.g. social capital size, product redesign and knowledge sharing) to achieve success.     

The Transfer of Resources and Competencies for Developing Technological Capabilities - The Case of Fujitsu-ICL

In the management literature and the literature on technology transfer, it is widely acknowledged that learning in general, and the leveraging of knowledge throughout firms in particular, is important. However, there appears little systematic evidence of what technology and knowledge is transferred between organizations and how this occurs. The literature also tends to neglect how firms use such technology/knowledge transfer to cultivate appropriate technological capabilities. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by examining the successful exchange of resources and competencies between Fujitsu and ICL, and how it helped to extend the technological capabilities of both firms. It traces the evolution of the relationship from that of a loose technology-sharing agreement to that of sustained project collaboration and partnership. This relationship proved to be enduring, and provides a road map for firms engaged in technology/knowledge transfer to develop their indigenous technological capabilities.     

基于R&D经费筹集来源的工业企业技术创新效率评价

从效率的角度出发,采用基于串联的两阶段DEA模型测算2011-2015年30个地区规模以上工业企业整体效率及其子阶段（技术研发阶段和成果转化阶段）效率,并进一步分析了不同R&D经费筹集来源对工业企业创新不同阶段效率的影响。研究结果发现：规模以上工业企业整体效率2011-2014年呈上升趋势,并在2014年达到峰值,其中,转化效率起到很大推动作用;按区域划分,东部地区平均研发效率明显高于中西部地区,而中部地区工业企业成果转化效率明显高于其它地区;从R&D经费筹集来源看,政府以税收补助的方式更能促进企业技术研发效率提高,而在技术成果转化阶段则企业自有资金能显著促进转化效率提高,政府直接补助对企业总体效率和各阶段子效率都起到负向作用。     

Remittances,transaction costs,and informality

Recorded workers' remittances to developing countries reached $167 billion in 2005, bringing increasing attention to these flows as a potential tool for development. In this paper, we explore the determinants of remittances and their associated transaction costs. We find that recorded remittances depend positively on the stock of migrants and negatively on transfer costs and exchange rate restrictions. In turn, transfer costs are lower when financial systems are more developed and exchange rates less volatile. The negative impact of transactions costs on remittances suggests that migrants either refrain from sending money home or else remit through informal channels when costs are high. We provide evidence from household surveys supportive of a sizeable informal sector.