Technological specialization in industrial countries: Patterns and dynamics

Technological Specialization in Industrial Countries: Patterns and Dynamics. — This paper employs distribution dynamics and patent data to study the empirical dynamics of technological specialization in industrial countries. Large countries spread innovation activities across a wider range of technologies, and their specialization level in a field displays lower probability to move around its initial level (country size effects). Mobility is high and asymmetric: it is difficult to improve specialization in very disadvantaged technologies, while high comparative advantages revert towards lower specialization levels. These findings undermine the theory of technological accumulation and path dependence, its implication of persistence in trade specialization patterns and the effectiveness of targeted industrial and technology policies.     

Estimating Income and Price Elasticities of Trade in a Cointegration Framework

This paper presents further evidence on the empirical regularity known as the "45-degree rule." Income and price elasticities of trade are estimated for 21 countries in a cointegration framework. More specifically, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) modeling approach and the DOLS procedure are adopted to estimate the long-run structure. The empirical results confirm the existence of a systematic relationship between growth rates and income elasticity estimates: faster growing economies have high income elasticities of demand for their exports but lower import elasticities, which implies that faster growth can be observed without any marked secular trend in real exchange rates.     

Organizational learning: Proposal of an integrative scale and research instrument

This study describes the development and validation of an instrument to measure organizational learning. Starting out from a comprehensive analysis of the main organizational learning models in the specialized literature, the organizational learning scale in this study consists of 18 items forming five dimensions: the ontological levels of learning, modes of knowledge conversion, learning sub-processes, types of learning, and feedback and feed-forward flows of learning. A survey to large Spanish companies provides data from 167 companies. Confirmatory factor analysis tests the construct measurement model and validates the scale. The results of the study indicate that the scale satisfies the criteria for reliability, and validity. The exploratory factor analysis permits the identification of four factors which make theoretical sense: information systems, the existence of a framework for consensus, procedures for the institutionalization and broadening of knowledge, and forms of management and the genesis of knowledge. The new construct promises to be more comprehensive, integrative and eclectic than previous constructs, achieving its broad scope by incorporating a number of the main theoretical perspectives on the matter. For practitioners, the scale could form the basis of an auditing tool, as well as being a useful target for organizational change initiatives.     

Efficiency evaluation of Greek equity funds

This study assesses the relative performance of Greek equity funds employing a non-parametric method, namely Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Specifically, we evaluate the funds’ total productivity change using the DEA-based Malmquist Index. Our results reveal significant losses in funds’ productivity for the period of 2003–2009, which calls for the attention of domestic policy makers and market regulators. Significant implications for the investors’ fund selection process arise from our analysis since we are able to identify potential sources of operational inefficiencies. Employing a panel logit model we document a significant negative relationship between the probability of being efficient and funds’ size, a finding which may be related to the microstructure of the domestic stock market. Furthermore, we provide evidence against the notion of funds’ mean-variance efficiency.     

Capacity Constraints and Hedge Fund Strategy Returns

Hedge funds have generated significant absolute returns (alpha) in the decade between 1995 and 2004. However, the level of alpha has declined substantially over this period. We investigate whether capacity constraints at the level of hedge fund strategies have been responsible for this decline. For four out of eight hedge fund strategies, capital inflows have statistically preceded negative movements in alpha, consistent with this hypothesis. We also find evidence that hedge fund fees have increased over the same period. Our results provide support for the Berk and Green (2004) rational model of active portfolio management.