Plant location and strategic environmental policy with inter-sectoral linkages

In recent debates on trade liberalisation the concern has often been expressed that with more competitive international trade governments will be worried that by setting tougher environmental policies than their trading rivals they will put domestic producers at a competitive disadvantage, and in the extreme case this could lead to firms relocating production in other countries. The response by governments to such concerns will be to weaken environmental policies (‘eco-dumping’). In competitive markets such concerns are ill founded, but there is a small amount of literature which has analysed whether governments will indeed have incentives for eco-dumping in the more relevant case of markets where there are significant scale economies; even here there is no presumption that the outcome will involve eco-dumping.In this paper we extend the analysis of strategic environmental policy and plant location decisions by analysing the location decision of firms in different sectors which are linked through an input-output structure of intermediate production. The reason why we introduce inter-sectoral linkages between firms is that they introduce an additional factor, relative to those already analysed in the literature, in the plant location decision, which is the incentive for firms in different sectors to agglomerate in a single location. This has a number of important effects. First, there is now the possibility of multiple equilibria in location decisions of firms. Following from this there is the possibility of catastrophic effects where a small increase in an environmental tax can trigger the collapse of an industrial base in a country; however there is also the possibility that a country which raises its environmental tax could attract more firms to locate in that country, because of the way the tax affects incentives for agglomeration. Finally, and again related to the previous effects, there is the possibility of a hysteresis effect where raising an environmental tax in one country can cause firms to relocate to another country, but subsequently lowering that tax will not induce firms to relocate back into the original country.We consider a simple model with two countries, two industries, an upstream and a downstream sector, and two firms per industry. The analysis proceeds through a three-stage game: in the first stage the governments of the two countries set their environmental policies; in the second stage the firms in both industries choose how many plants to locate and where; in the third stage firms choose their output levels, with the demand for the upstream firms being determined endogenously by the production decisions of the downstream firms. We assume that there are no limits to production capacity, so that firms do not build more than one plant in any country. However, firms may build plants in different countries because of positive transport costs. Although the model appears very simple, it cannot be solved analytically, so all the conclusions must be drawn from numerical simulations.     

Technological innovation and complexity theory

Complexity theory has become influential in recent models in social science. In the context of innovations and new technologies, most applications have focused on technology adoption and technology diffusion, whereas the topic of the innovation process has received less attention. This paper discusses three families of complexity models of technological innovation: fitness landscape models, network models and percolation models. The models are capable of analysing complex interaction structures (between components of technologies, between agents engaged in collective invention) while avoiding ‘over-parameterisation’. The paper ends with discussing the methodological challenges and critiques regarding the application of complexity theory that remain.     

Simultaneity between strategic variables: Production,innovation, and product differentiation

This paper aims to analyze the existence of simultaneous effects among the variables production, product differentiation, and innovation. Microeconomic data from a sample of 2,160 firms are used as a base. Empirical results show that a positive correlation exists from innovation to product differentiation, thus showing that it is in the process of production itself, through technical improvements, where product differentiation is determined. On the other hand, no positive effect exists from product differentiation to innovation, i.e., once technical improvements have been established, firms exchange the barriers to entry created by brand image for the real barriers established by innovation itself. Lastly, the importance of the firm size in explaining the other endogenous variables analyzed is confirmed. This paper has received financial support from the Valencian Institut of Economic Research (IVIE). The study was carried out within the framework of research program SEC94-1357 of the Comisón Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT).     

Technological diversity,knowledge flow and capacity,and industrial innovation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effect of technological diversity, knowledge flow and capacity on industrial innovation performance. We suggest that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between technological diversity and industrial innovation performance. Moreover, knowledge flow and knowledge capacity are hypothesised as negatively moderating the effect of technological diversity on industrial innovation performance. We use negative binomial regression to test the hypotheses in a panel data of 360 industry-year cases and the findings support our prediction. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

产品创新对组织绩效关系之研究

越来越多的企业利用不断推出新产品获得市场与消费者的青睐,以建立长期竞争优势。企业若能成功推出新产品,除能以独一无二的新产品提高产品与市场的价值之外,更能提升企业整体竞争力。然而,在现今竞争激烈导致产品生命周期急遽缩短的趋势下,使得产品创新在企业日常营运角色中的重要性日渐增加,企业若能掌握产品推出时机,并且藉由创新延长产品生命周期,就有机会维持企业在座业中的领导地位。本研究以3M作为个案研究之对象,探讨渐进式创新、技术突破、市场突破以及激追式创新等四种不同的产品创新类型对组织绩效的影响,期能藉由实际个案与相关数据显示产品创新与组织绩效间之关联性。研究结果显示,无论属于何种产品创新类型,对组织绩效都有正向的影响。若能激发激进式产品创新的产生,更能透过新产品或新技术创造新的产品践,亦能强化组织的竞争优势,成为组织竞争优势的根源。3M超过百年的发展历史以及不断创新的历程与经验,使它成为商业历史发展的裹程碑外,更成为现今各企业的典范与楷模。     

Technological innovation and diffusion of wind power in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the diffusion of wind power in Japan by focusing on the value chain and the interaction between technology and markets and to contribute towards recommendations on technology policy and management. This paper proposes a framework for analyzing the early stage diffusion of wind power systems by combining the use of several approaches considering wind power system as a complex technological system. Firstly, the business system approach is used as an analytical framework by focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and development criteria. As a second approach, the technological trajectory was analyzed based on the concept of technological disequilibrium and the evolutionary patterns of innovation of wind power generation systems were analyzed and the relationship between innovations at the sub-system, modular, and system level was identified. We apply the framework to investigate why wind power diffusion has not picked up momentum in Japan.The results include the following: (1) Technological imbalances within the product system were solved by technological innovation (2) The wind power business in Japan is insufficiently effective due to organizational disequilibrium (3) The technology system has begun to evolve in the direction of micro grid systems. (4) It is important to consider the demand-pull measures for wind power generation so that Japanese institution can have a “time slot” for ”learning by doing” to catch up and accelerate diffusion of wind power generation, including institutional reform of RPS law. Also further technological development related to stabilizing unstable wind energy is required.     

Technological innovation and the long wave theory revisited

The pattern of basic innovation clustering associated with Kondratieff long wave downswings raises questions when we consider the 4th downswing. There is increasing concern expressed that we may be facing “innovation starvation” or “innovation stagnation”. Among the questions: Is the internet a cluster of one? Or should the smartphone, ipad, Facebook, icloud, etc. be considered basic rather than improvement innovations as well because of their huge societal impact? Is the long wave pattern exhibited for the past two hundred years continuing or is it breaking down?     

国际投资促进:组织机构建设与方法创新

在经济全球化浪潮中,外国直接投资（FDI）对于世界众多国家经济发展中诸如资本供应、技术进步、扩大贸易、促进竞争等方面的积极作用得到越来越广泛的认同。也正因如此,各国纷纷对外资放宽限制、增加优惠,彼此之间争夺FDI的竞争愈演愈烈。在此背景下,投资促进（InvestmentP     

Technological innovation and market turbulence: The dot-com experience

This paper explains market turbulence, such as the recent dot-com boom/bust cycle, as equilibrium industry dynamics driven by the synergy between new and existing technologies. When a major technological innovation arrives, a wave of new firms implement the innovation and enter the market. However, if the innovation complements existing technology, some new entrants later will be forced out as more and more incumbent firms succeed in adopting the innovation. It is argued that the diffusion of Internet technology among traditional brick-and-mortar firms was indeed the driving force behind the rise and fall of dot-coms as well as the sustained growth of e-commerce. Systematic empirical evidence from retail and banking industries supports the theoretical findings.     

企业技术创新能力研究的现状与思考

本文通过对中国期刊网近十年相关文献的调研,揭示制约企业技术创新能力的主要因素,并给出了相应的对策建议。     

Happiness, freedom and control

How do people value freedom of choice? Drawing on economics and psychology the paper provides an hypothesis and empirical evidence on how individuals may value freedom of choice and derive utility from it. It is argued that the degree of perceived control that individuals have over choice – a construct known as the locus of control in psychology – regulates how we value freedom of choice. People who believe that the outcome of their actions depends on internal factors such as effort and skills (the ‘internals’) have a greater appreciation of freedom of choice than people who believe that the outcome of their actions depends on external factors such as fate or destiny (the ‘externals’). We find some evidence in support of this hypothesis using a combination of all rounds of the World and European Values Surveys. A variable that measures freedom of choice and the locus of control is found to predict life satisfaction better than any other known factor such as health, employment, income, marriage or religion, across countries and within countries. We show that this variable is not a proxy of happiness and measures well both freedom of choice and the locus of control. ‘Internals’ are found to appreciate freedom of choice more than ‘externals’ and to be happier. These findings have important implications for individual utility, social welfare and public policies.     

国家创新政策在全球经济中的互动模式探究

通过分析三种经典的国家创新政策互动模式及四种新型模式,探讨全球化背景下国家创新政策如何利用彼此之间的互动模式,提高政策作用效果、扩大政策影响。结果表明,不同模式的预测结论不尽相同。目前,国际上仍缺少从中斡旋的专业机构,而各国之间的战略互动又鲜有涉及创新政策,致使国家间创新政策难以协同发挥作用。因此,需要从全球战略互动角度,重新审视国家创新政策。     

中国银行保险模式创新与转型的战略选择

构建银行和保险的战略组合,充分发挥二者的有机配置的整体效应,实现二者的双赢,是实施银保合作的目标。根据中国的国情,在银行保险的四种经营模式中,合资企业和金融集团是较为高级的、涉及资本融合的两种模式,也是银行保险较为发达的国家通常采用的模式。     

Contracts, search, and organizational diversity

In this paper we develop a search model that allows for Pareto-ranked multiple equilibria and investigate its implications on organizational diversity. The novel feature of the model is that multiple equilibria are obtained by the self-contained feedback mechanism between optimal contracting choices and the reservation value, which is in sharp contrast to existing literature that emphasizes the increasing returns to scale in the matching function. Our results provide some new insights on why there may exist significant differences in the internal organization of firms across countries, and even in the same country and industry.     

Technological similarity in national styles of innovation in a historical perspective

The paper examines some issues related to different styles of innovation in some advenced countries. The statistical work carried out is an attempt to answer the questerion: to what extent do countries' styles of innovation differ and how often do similarities arise? The issue of similarity/dissimilarity of countries' styles of innovation is investigated in the last 100 years for a group of selected countries. The evidence provided is based on a US patent database held at the University of Reading and countries' styles of innovation are measured with the use of the RTA index in four historical periods. The conclusions of the paper are consistent with the theory of national systems of innovation. Countries show very different styles of innovation and, what is more important, this difference is stable over time. However, a selected combination of similar countries occurs in every period, thus underlining the existence of regional groups. These regional groups are the only pairs of countries showing technological similarity historically.     

外国直接投资、技术许可与技术创新

本文以经济全球化条件下 ,以包括中国在内的发展中国家努力向发达国家通过FDI(国外直接投资 )和LICENSING(技术许可 )的渠道进行技术引进以达到自主技术创新从而推动本国经济持续增长的目标为背景 ,建立了一个技术引进与经济增长的扩展模型。本文的主要结论是 :对于包括中国在内的发展中国家 (LDC)而言 ,技术许可比FDI所带来的技术外溢更有效 ,LDC或者依赖FDI,或者依靠技术许可作为其技术引进的主要来源。没有相应管制时倾向于依赖FDI。考虑制定何种政策以达到社会福利的最优化时 ,人力资本的水平起到了决定性作用。     

Political instability,political freedom and inflation

Using a dynamic panel data approach, we estimate the impact of the political and institutional factors on inflation. Estimation results show that a lower degree of political instability generates lower inflation only for developed and low-inflation countries. However, when political freedom is taken into account, political instability appears to be influential on inflation also for developing countries and turns out to be significant only for high-inflation countries. Such findings emphasize the inflation-reducing effects of political stability depending on democratic political structure.     

Citizen-candidates,lobbies, and strategic campaigning

We study a spatial model of political competition in which potential candidates need a fixed amount of money from lobbies to enter an election. We show that the set of pure strategy Nash equilibria in which lobbies finance candidates whose policies they prefer among the set of entrants coincides with the set of Nash equilibria with weakly less than two entering candidates. Fixing lobbies’ preferences, if the total amount of money held by lobbies is finite, there exists some minimal distance between the two candidates’ positions. This minimal distance is a bound for all such Nash equilibria and is independent of the distribution of voters’ preferences. I would like to thank John Duggan, Al Slivinski, and William Thomson for useful comments and suggestions. Dan Kovenock and two anonymous referees also provided detailed comments and pointed out several errors. All errors are my own.     

Wealth inequality,democracy and economic freedom

Using a novel panel data set from the Credit Suisse on the top wealth shares for 46 sample countries spanning 2000–2014, this paper empirically investigates to what extent wealth inequality influences economic freedom and whether this relationship is affected by the level of democracy. Economic freedom is measured by the Fraser Institute's economic freedom summary index as well as its five major sub-indices, such as government size, property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade, and regulations. Wealth inequality is measured by the top wealth shares. Trade union density is used as an instrument for wealth inequality. Empirical results suggest that the rising wealth inequality significantly hampers overall economic freedom, property rights protection, freedom to trade, soundness of money and regulatory environment. Furthermore, this negative effect of wealth inequality is reinforced at a lower level of democracy. These findings are robust to alternative measures of wealth inequality, economic freedom, treatment for endogeneity, and model specification.