Bridging the gap in creative economy and ICT research: a regional analysis in Europe

ABSTRACT

Following Florida’s seminal work on the ‘creative class’ there is a great deal of interest concerning whether creativity, as an input, is important for regional growth. Answering this question requires developing a production framework that can distinguish creativity from other inputs. With data from Europe, this paper integrates the concept of information and communications technology (ICT) and the creative class into a theoretical production function. Findings reveal that not only is there a positive and interactive relationship between creative workers and ICT, but the combination of creative workers and ICT leads to higher levels of GVA growth. Moreover, creative workers were found to have a larger impact on growth in comparison with traditional human capital measures (i.e. graduates). Thus, findings from this research suggest that the creative class should not only pay attention to socio-economic preferences of individuals, but it must include wider social resources, such as ICT.     

Bilateral and regional trade elasticities of the EU

The traditional way of assessing the impact of currency depreciation and income on the trade balance has been to estimate the elasticity of trade volume to relative prices and income. The previous studies examine the problems associated with using aggregate data. The recent studies rely on bilateral data, yet another problem is that data for export and import prices are not available. Thus, this study proposes an alternative way of assessing the impact of currency depreciation by using the real exchange rate and the impact of income on bilateral trade. The models are applied between the EU and its major trading partners. Furthermore, the analysis includes the six major trading regions along side the eight major trading countries for 1980–2007, on the quarterly basis. This article uses the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach advocated by Pesaran and Pesaran (1997). Our results indicate a higher importance of income compared to the real exchange rate in defined bilateral export and import demand functions. In addition, the applied CUSUM and CUSUMSQ stability tests confirm the stability of estimated coefficients in most cases.     

EU regional policy and tax competition

The European Union (EU) provides coordination and financing of trans-European transport infrastructures, i.e. roads and railways, which link the EU member states and reduce the cost of transport and mobility. This raises the question of whether EU involvement in this area is justified by inefficiencies of national infrastructure policies. Moreover, an often expressed concern is that policies enhancing mobility may boost tax competition. We analyze these questions using a model where countries compete for the location of profitable firms. We show that a coordination of investment in transport cost reducing infrastructures within union countries enhances welfare and mitigates tax competition. In contrast, with regard to union-periphery infrastructure, the union has an interest in a coordinated reduction of investment expenditures. Here, the effects on tax competition are ambiguous. Our results provide a rationale for EU-level regional policy that supports the development of intra-union infrastructure.     

欧盟建设技术创新联盟的做法和经验

推进产学研相结合,关键是要建立产学研一体化的有效运行机制。欧盟拥有良好的教育和研究体系,是世界研发创新的重要一极。为促进创新,欧盟创立了欧洲创新与技术研究院,旨在以知识创新共同体为核心,有效整合大学、科研机构和企业的研发创新资源。对欧洲创新与技术研究院的组织形式和运作模式进行了研究和分析,该研究院在培育科技创新与创业复合型人才及促进成果转化等方面进行了创新化探索,取得了良好的效果。     

Money-output Granger causality revisited: an empirical analysis of EU countries

In this paper, the evidence collected in the large literature on testing for Granger-causality from money to output is revisited. Using a broad data base of 14 EU countries plus Canada, the US and Japan, and quarterly data from the mid 1960s to mid 1990s, a number of hypotheses from this literature is evaluated. It is found that very few general conclusions can be sustained. For instance, in most countries it is not the case that the use of data in levels creates a bias in favour of finding Granger-causality effects of money on output compared to using differences. Neither does the significance of money lags decline when increasing the number of variables included in the model. What appears to be robust, though, is that allowing for asymmetries clearly increases the likelihood of finding significant causality effects. Based on the Granger-causality test results, a number of country groups are obtained using cluster analysis, which are characterized by a similarly behaviour with respect to the money-output relation.     

2012年欧盟科技创新与研发进展

在当前欧洲主权债务危机形势下,为尽快摆脱危机,寻求新的经济增长点,欧盟国家在采取严格财政紧缩政策、加快经济结构调整的同时,将研发与创新作为摆脱危机的有效手段和重要战略措施.创新联盟作为欧洲2020战略的旗舰倡议之一,在原材料、农业和老龄医疗卫生领域推行创新伙伴关系,为推动创新与研发而发挥了积极作用.欧洲研究区能否预期建成,目前还无法预料.欧洲研究区创建中面临国际人才交流、研究设施与知识共享、科研体制、研究经费等方面资源整合上的诸多障碍.     

Innovation and ICT in service firms: towards a multidimensional approach for impact assessment

This article focuses on the multimodal character of innovation in services firms as the analytical framework by which to assess the role of different sources and agents, ICT in particular, in enabling various impacts of innovation. The peculiarities of service innovation require a wider approach than that observed for goods innovation, which is less focused on non-technological aspects. An ad hoc survey was carried out in the region of Madrid to test a microeconometric and multidimensional approach at the firm level. Specific impacts of innovation are examined by carrying out an ordered probit model with sample selection. Results indicate a certain correspondence between the multidimensional nature of service innovation and a preliminary impact assessment. The paper notes that ICT and clients–providers interactions are both important, acting to facilitate different types of service innovation.

Unemployment disparities and regional wage flexibility: comparing EU members and EU-accession countries

This paper provides empirical evidence on regional labor market flexibility in Europe and, in particular, in the EU-accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Whereas substantial regional disparities in unemployment are found for pre-accession EU member countries as well as for accession countries, an empirical analysis taking account of spatial effects shows that regional wage flexibility is significantly higher for accession countries. Moreover, unemployment disparities are found to be less persistent in the accession countries.

欧盟鼓励中小企业创新的政策与措施

本文分析了欧盟促进中小企业发展与创新的政策和措施。“首先想到小的”已成为欧盟制定政策的原则。本文指出,《欧洲小企业法》总结了多年来欧盟积极鼓励中小企业发展的一些好做法,是欧盟第一个促进中小企业发展的综合性政策框架,该文件提出了促进中小企业发展的十项原则。介绍了欧盟支持中小企业创新的主要措施,并提出了成立政策性金融中介机构、扶持中小企业创新要有针对性以及加强政策集成等政策建议。     

欧盟依靠科技创新发展新型城镇化的举措

科技创新在欧盟城镇化历史进程中发挥了重要支撑作用。随着城镇化的不断深入,欧盟也出现了人口膨胀、交通拥堵、环境恶化、人口老龄化等一系列问题。面对城镇化带来的社会挑战,欧盟依托科技创新,采取措施提高城镇化质量,包括：实施智能城市与社会创新伙伴计划,实施智慧型区域创新专业化战略,发展创新集群等。在分析欧盟发展新型城镇化的科技创新举措的基础上,提出了发展我国新型城镇化的政策建议,包括：依靠科技创新提高城镇化质量,加强城镇化的制度创新,加强中国和欧盟的城镇化创新合作。     

Vertical Innovation and Catching-Up: Implications of EU Integration for CEECs-5

We analyze the role of vertical innovation in trade patterns for developing economies trading with technologically advanced countries. A model is presented where the international diffusion of knowledge, promoted by economic integration, is the source of a technological catching up and leads to a convergence in the quality of traded goods, with a positive effect on exports. We then turn our attention on the evolution of trade between the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs-5) and their European Union partner countries, assessing whether economic integration has increase the quality of the goods produced. For the period 1995–2005, we find evidence of the increasing role of intra-industry trade and vertical differentiation and a process of specialization in higher quality products, especially in the medium- and high-skill sectors.

Going NUTS: The effect of EU Structural Funds on regional performance

The European Union (EU) provides grants to disadvantaged regions of member states to allow them to catch up with the EU average. Under the Objective 1 scheme, NUTS2 regions with a per capita GDP level below 75% of the EU average qualify for structural funds transfers from the central EU budget. This rule gives rise to a regression-discontinuity design that exploits the discrete jump in the probability of EU transfer receipt at the 75% threshold for identification of causal effects of Objective 1 treatment on outcome such as economic growth of EU regions. We find positive per capita GDP growth effects of Objective 1 transfers, but no employment growth effects.     

Regional wages and market potential in the enlarged EU: an empirical investigation

This article empirically analyses the link between market potential and regional wages in the enlarged EU. We contribute to the existing literature in several ways: (1) we analyse the link between market potential and wages for the EU27 and (2) deconstruct total market potential into several geographical components and analyse their respective contributions to explaining the geographical wage structure. We correct for existing spatial autocorrelation and endogeneity by using an instrumental variable generalized spatial two-stage least squares (IV GS2SLS).     

Social capital, ICT use and company performance: Findings from the Medicon Valley Biotech Cluster

This study explores how some uses of ICTs, as well as having social capital and other means of access to knowledge resources, are related to company performance in a knowledge-intensive business cluster. Data were collected through a survey of companies in the Medicon Valley biotech region located in Denmark and Southern Sweden. Responding companies included established producers of biotechnology-related products as well as small biotechnology start-up firms emphasizing research and development. The results suggest that when ICT use was aimed at accessing and enhancing human and intellectual capital, such as use of online databases for recruitment, intranets to enhance employee access to information and education, and collaborative tools to connect with off-premise researchers, companies reported better performance outcomes. Social capital in the form of connections to people who can provide access to information and opportunity predicted company performance, particularly for small start-up companies. The pattern of results complements prior work that establishes the importance of social capital in regional business clusters by demonstrating how certain ICT uses complement personal relationships to enhance the likelihood of success among companies in the region.     

EU participation and the external trade of Greece: an appraisal of the evidence

This paper investigates the trade effects caused by the accession of Greece to the EU. A large part of the analysis is in terms of trade flows disaggregated by the 21 categories of the Greek Tariff Schedule. These series are original data sets which have been constructed by the author to be used here for the first time. The main message is that after 1981 events took a turn closer to the pessimistic pre-accession predictions. Our findings indicate that during the post-integration period the external trade of Greece has been reoriented towards the EU countries and Greece lost part of its comparative advantage in those sectors in which such an advantage exists. We also suggest that as far as imports are concerned, EU participation has caused gross trade creation for imports from the EU countries and gross trade diversion for imports from the Rest of the World. As far as exports are concerned, the results indicate that EU participation has caused only a modest increase in Greek exports to the EU market.     

世界农业生物产业技术创新路径的比较与启示——基于美国、欧盟的考察

生物产业创新路径选择正确与否不仅影响着该产业发展的快慢,还关系到一国的生物安全。文章在简单述评美国和欧盟农业生物产业技术创新状况的基础上,从创新途径和创新模式两个方面对美欧农业生物产业技术创新路径进行了考察,并从创新动因、支撑条件及实现途径等方面对二者进行了比较,最后探讨了美欧农业生物产业技术创新路径对中国的启示。     

Modelling the dynamics of EU economic sentiment indicators: an interaction-based approach

This article estimates a simple univariate model of expectation or opinion formation in continuous time adapting a ‘canonical’ stochastic model of collective opinion dynamics (Weidlich and Haag, 1983 Weidlich, W, and Haag, G, 1983. Concepts and Models of a Quantitative Sociology. Berlin: Springer; 1983.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Lux, 1995 Lux, T, 1995. Herd behavior, bubbles and crashes, The Economic Journal 105 (1995), pp. 881–96.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2009a Lux, T, 2009a. Rational forecasts or social opinion dynamics? Identification of interaction effects in a business climate survey, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 72 (2009a), pp. 638–55.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This framework is applied to a selected data set on survey-based expectations from the rich EU business and consumer survey database for 12 European countries. The model parameters are estimated through Maximum Likelihood (ML) and numerical solution of the transient probability density functions for the resulting stochastic process. The model's success is assessed with respect to its out-of-sample forecasting performance relative to univariate Time Series (TS) models of the Autoregressive Moving Average model, ARMA(p,?q) and Autoregressive Fractionally Integrated Moving Average, ARFIMA(p,?d,?q) varieties. These tests speak for a slight superiority of the canonical opinion dynamics model over the alternatives in the majority of cases.     

中国ICT行业创新网络弹性——基于专利数据的实证研究

基于复杂网络弹性的视角,运用专利数据分析了中国ICT行业创新网络的弹性。结论如下:整体来看,中国ICT行业的创新网络具有无标度网络结构特征,少数网络主体间存在技术知识的非对称性依赖,局部网络锁定效应降低了创新网络弹性,网络关系瓦解导致创新网络弹性下降;随着行业创新主体的不断增加,创新网络的均衡性和异质性增强,创新网络弹性整体呈上升趋势,中国ICT行业的创新网络抵抗外部不确定性因素冲击的适应性增强。     

Fractional cointegration analysis of EU convergence

Traditional cointegration tests do not provide strong evidence of convergence between EU countries. In this study, fractional cointegration analysis is used to test for convergence between EU members. Fractional cointegration between inflation and between long-term interest rates is found. The results indicate that there is nominal convergence, but that the equilibrium errors display long memory. Fractional cointegration analysis gives no evidence of real convergence in output.