Powerful fund-raising letters--from A to Z. Part 2

Despite all the new technology and media we have available today, the letter remains one of the best ways to solicit funds from a wide audience. It's personal, direct, and cost-effective.     

Entrepreneurial innovativeness and growth ambitions in thick vs. thin regional innovation systems

Research in economic geography has paid increasing attention to regional innovation systems (RISs) as a potential vehicle for growth and development. Yet despite an increasing amount of research studying RISs in particular and economic regions in general, we have limited knowledge about their influence on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. We respond to this knowledge gap and study if entrepreneurs’ localization in thick vs. thin RISs affects their innovativeness and growth ambitions. Thick RISs are predominately urbanized spaces that include organizations of higher-level education, R&D intensive milieus, and an ample industry sector, while thin RISs to a lesser degree encompass these features. Empirically, we analyse 870–917 entrepreneurial firms in Agder of Southern Norway. Based on trade and labour markets, as defined by the EU’s classification of local administrative units (LAU1), we identify two thick and six thin RISs in Agder. Econometric analyses show that entrepreneurs located in thick RISs are more innovative than entrepreneurs located in thin RISs, but there are no significant differences concerning entrepreneurs’ growth ambitions. In light of our findings, we discuss the potential agency role played by entrepreneurial firms at a micro level on path dependent features of RISs at a macro level.     

Lock-in and unobserved preferences in server operating systems: A case of Linux vs. Windows

This paper investigates to what extent the persistence of Microsoft Windows in the market for server operating systems is due to lock-in or unobserved preferences. While the hypothesis of lock-in plays an important role in the antitrust policy debate for the operating systems market, it has not been extensively documented empirically. To account for unobserved preferences, we use a panel data identification approach based on time-variant group fixed effects, and estimate the dynamic discrete choice panel data model developed by Arellano and Carrasco (2003). Using detailed establishment-level data, we find that once we account for unobserved preferences, the estimated magnitudes of lock-in are considerably smaller than those from the conventional approaches, suggesting that unobserved preferences play a major role in the persistence of Windows. Further robustness checks are consistent with our findings.     

An approach to estimating work effort for enterprise systems software projects

A major factor in the decision to develop enterprise software applications is the size of the project, which determines the amount of work necessary, which in turn will give decision makers some idea about the time required and the estimated cost. Two of the major approaches for such estimation—the Use Case Points (UCP) and COSMIC-FFP methods – are compared in this paper. The accuracy and reliability of each method are evaluated through the measurement of 50 use case studies. These were collected from the Customer Relationship Management systems development project of a major enterprise service institution. The results show that the UCP method is more accurate and reliable than the COSMIC-FFP in determining work effort.     

Political Ambivalence vs. Economic Rectitude

Pressures from bureaucracy and voters alide for disbursements from the 'public' purse carry much more political force than the desire to reduce government expenditure. Cecil Parkinson, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1963, Considers the interests in the formulation of spending plans and argues that the politicion willpuf political feasibility before economic desiderato.     

选美与股市

“股市和选美之间的关系是什么?在选美比赛里,个人长相很重要,别人的意见更重要。在股票市场上,不仅仅能拥有它的现金流,更重要的是拥有卖出的权利。我们在投资时同样需要知道其他人对股票的预期。”     

手机:暗战恋战乱战

回顾中国整个手机市场的发展历程,大致可以分为摩托罗拉时代、三足鼎立时代和百花齐放时代等三个主要时代.……     

6西格玛管理系列讲座(十一)6西格玛管理与其他管理方法和管理体系

在推动6西格玛管理实施的过程中,在如何处理6西格玛管理与其他管理体系和管理方法的关系方面,人们普遍存在一些困惑或疑问。其中疑问最多或最大的有以下几点:     

Structural vs. atheoretic approaches to econometrics

In this paper I attempt to lay out the sources of conflict between the so-called “structural” and “experimentalist” camps in econometrics. Critics of the structural approach often assert that it produces results that rely on too many assumptions to be credible, and that the experimentalist approach provides an alternative that relies on fewer assumptions. Here, I argue that this is a false dichotomy. All econometric work relies heavily on a priori assumptions. The main difference between structural and experimental (or “atheoretic”) approaches is not in the number of assumptions but the extent to which they are made explicit.     

土地制度改革与城市化发展

土地承包责任制带动了农村的发展,乡镇企业带动了农村非农经济的发展。中国农村的改革过程与土地制度变革密不可分。随着改革进程的推进,土地制度变革涉及宏观经济的内容越来越多,最直接的就是财政体制改革     

Product Innovation Incentives: Monopoly vs. Competition

In contrast to Arrow's result for process innovations, we show that the gain from a product innovation can be larger to a secure monopolist than to a rivalrous firm that would face competition from independent sellers of the old product. A monopolist incurs profit diversion from its old good but may gain more than a rivalrous firm on the new good by coordinating the prices. In a Hotelling framework, we find simple conditions for the monopolist's gain to be larger. We also explain why the ranking of innovation incentives differs under vertical product differentiation.     

Open Society: Hayek vs. Popper?

Does an open open society require a free market? Dr Naomi Moldoisky of the University of Melbourne reinforces Hayek's insistence that free societies must rest on free markets.