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.     

Are inefficient entrepreneurs driven out of the market?

This paper challenges the widespread belief that competitive markets favor entrepreneurs who operate efficient technologies. In the context of a dynamically incomplete markets model, I show that, ceteris paribus, entrepreneurs operating efficient technologies can be driven out of a competitive market by entrepreneurs operating inefficient technologies.     

Does formality improve micro-firm performance? Evidence from the Brazilian SIMPLES program

This paper exploits an extensive Brazilian micro-enterprise survey and the 1996 introduction of a business tax reduction and simplification scheme (SIMPLES) to examine three questions. First, do high tax rates and complex tax regulations really constitute a barrier to the formalization of micro-firms? Second, does formalization improve firm performance measured along several dimensions, including revenues, employment and capital stock? Third, what are the channels through which this occurs? We find that SIMPLES led to a significant increase in formality in several dimensions. Moreover, newly created firms that opt for operating formally show higher levels of revenue and profits, employ more workers and are more capital intensive (only for those firms that have employees). The channel through which this occurs is not access to credit or contracts with larger firms. Rather, it appears that the lower cost of contracting labor leads to adopting production techniques that involve a permanent location and a larger paid labor force.     

Estimating a socially optimal water price for irrigation versus an environmentally optimal water price through the use of Geographical Information Systems and Social Accounting Matrices

This article develops a method for establishing water prices and their effects in order to provide policy makers an environmentally and socially optimal range of regional prices for irrigation water. Two prices are determined. The “environmentally optimal price” of water is defined as the one that internalizes the environmental costs generated by agricultural consumption. The “social optimally price” of water is defined as the one that maximizes levies on water for agriculture without affecting the regional economy. The environmentally optimal price is calculated with an economic model built over a Geographical Information System (GIS) that allows the economic quantification and valuation of the environmental cost of water in different basins. The optimal price is calculated with a demand curve for irrigation water introduced into a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) to observe if the regional economy can accept higher prices without affecting the regional GDP. Potential water prices are established, ranging from prices that minimize the negative impact in the regional economy to those that totally internalize the environmental cost of water.     

Fiat money and the value of binding portfolio constraints

We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the individual optimality of a consumption-portfolio plan in an infinite horizon economy where agents are uniformly impatient and fiat money is the only asset available for intertemporal transfers of wealth. Next, we show that fiat money has a positive equilibrium price if and only if for some agent the zero short sale constraint is binding and has a positive shadow price (now or in the future). As there is always an agent that is long, it follows that marginal rates of intertemporal substitution never coincide across agents. That is, monetary equilibria are never full Pareto efficient. We also give a counter-example illustrating the occurrence of monetary bubbles under incomplete markets in the absence of uniform impatience.     

Wealth transfers and the role of collateral when lifetimes are uncertain

We develop a general equilibrium model of wealth transfers in the presence of uncertain lifetimes and default. Without introducing exogenous debt constraints, agents are allowed to make collateral-backed promises at any state of their life span.     

Accounting for single and aggregated forest incomes: Application to public cork oak forests in Jerez (Spain) and Iteimia (Tunisia)

This study presents an applied improvement in the agroforestry accounting system (AAS) approach to two public cork oak forests in the Mediterranean region: Jerez (Spain) and Iteimia (Tunisia). Both forests have similar environments but differ in land property rights, labour markets and countries (developed and developing economy, respectively).The income analysis considers the differences between forest ownership, and household and landowner economic rationalities. In the case of Jerez, the public landowner has a right to exclude others from using the forest resources; community employment and natural resource conservation criteria determine Jerez's management. In the Iteimia case, the public landowner has regulated free-use rights for livestock grazing, firewood and crops so that local households can meet their needs and improve their income. Households operate by maximizing their income from the full employment of their own family workforce.The results show that Jerez's management generates negative commercial capital income for the public landowner, despite receiving significant public subsidies, while it maintains high internal forestry investment that generates additional local employment. Conversely, Iteimia produces positive commercial capital income for the public landowner and high household self-employed labour income per hectare.     

Identifying,Enabling and Managing Dynamic Capabilities in the Public Sector*

abstract In this paper, we examine how a public sector organization developed a new strategic approach based on the identification and use of an internal dynamic capability (learning through experimenting). In response to the need for continual performance improvement in spite of reduced financial resources, this organization engaged in three overlapping phases as they shifted to this strategic approach. First, managers identified appropriate latent dynamic capabilities. Next, they used their leadership skills and built on established levels of trust to enable the use of these dynamic capabilities. Finally, they managed the tension between unrestricted development of local initiatives and organizational needs for guidance and control.     

Do people who care about others cooperate more? Experimental evidence from relative incentive pay

We experimentally study ways in which social preferences affect individual and group performance under indefinitely repeated relative incentives. We also identify the mediating role that communication and leadership play in generating these effects. We find other-regarding individuals tend to depress efforts by 15% on average. However, selfish individuals are nearly three times more likely to lead players to coordinate on minimal efforts when communication is possible. Hence, the other-regarding composition of a group has complex consequences for organizational performance.     

Not quite the best response: truth-telling,strategy-proof matching,and the manipulation of others

Following the advice of economists, school choice programs around the world have lately been adopting strategy-proof mechanisms. However, experimental evidence presents a high variation of truth-telling rates for strategy-proof mechanisms. We crash test the connection between the strategy-proofness of the mechanism and truth-telling. We employ a within-subjects design by making subjects take two simultaneous decisions: one with no strategic uncertainty and one with some uncertainty and partial information about the strategies of other players. We find that providing information about the out-of-equilibrium strategies played by others has a negative and significant effect on truth-telling rates. That is, most participants in our within-subjects design try and fail to best-respond to changes in the environment. We also find that more sophisticated subjects are more likely to play the dominant strategy (truth-telling) across all the treatments. These results have potentially important implications for the design of markets based on strategy-proof matching mechanisms.