ARE ALL ECONOMIC FACTS GREATLY EXAGGERATED? THEORY COMPETITION AND SELECTIVITY

Abstract ..There is growing concern and mounting evidence of selectivity in empirical economics. Most empirical economic literatures have a truncated distribution of results. The aim of this paper is to explore the link between publication selectivity and theory contests. This link is confirmed through the analysis of 87 distinct empirical economics literatures, involving more than three and a half thousand separate empirical studies, using objective measures of both selectivity and contests. Our meta–meta‐analysis shows that publication selection is widespread, but not universal. It distorts scientific inference with potentially adverse effects on policy making, but competition and debate between rival theories reduces this selectivity and thereby improves economic inference.     

‘Hidden’ expatriates: international mobility in the United Arab Emirates as a challenge to current understanding of expatriation

Expatriates are often assumed to have enhanced terms and conditions and, because that makes them expensive, to be in key managerial or technical specialist roles. Employees who come from abroad and are in more manual or even menial roles are usually referred to as ‘migrants’. However, there are millions of people around the world who are not migrants, their intended sojourn in a foreign country is seen by them and their employers as temporary, but their employment contracts are far from advantageous compared with those of locals. These ‘hidden’ expatriates are brought into focus in the emerging Arab Gulf States. In some of these countries, the population consists mainly of expatriates, with the local population a small minority: These expatriates include many in lower‐management or manual or menial jobs. We demarcate these expatriates from organisationally assigned expatriates, self‐initiated expatriates and migrants. We use qualitative data from such expatriates in the United Arab Emirates to explore the issues this raises for governments, employers and the expatriates – and for our understanding of the phenomenon of expatriation.     

The Development and Diffusion of Radical Technological Innovation: The Role of Bus Demonstration Projects in Commercializing Fuel Cell Technology

North American, European and Japanese governments have legislated to control Greenhouse Gas emissions and have promoted alternative technology as part of strategies to address climate change. Governments worldwide have sought to encourage adoption of alternative automotive technology by funding demonstrations and in-service trials. Among other initiatives the automotive industry has explored applications of a radical technological innovation—fuel cells—to power a range of vehicles from forklifts to buses. This paper examines the rationale and actions of various stakeholders to facilitate adoption of fuel cell technology in vehicles through a specific market segment—that of fuel cell buses (FCBs)—and explores the progress of FCB projects in North America, Europe and Japan. It examines the role of demonstration projects and highlights the complexity of the relationship between government and developers, and the multifarious and conflicting objectives of industry players that inhibit progress.     

Niche Entry as a Route to Mainstream Innovation: Learning from the Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell in Stationary Power

The paper charts the efforts to establish a successful niche position for the phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) in stationary power generation, as a precursor to wider technological system and regime change. Market entry depends on matching price/performance characteristics to a niche, and improving performance through increasing returns, the most important and immediate of which are ‘learning effects’. The paper identifies five types of learning effect: (i) migrating the technology to other niches and into the mainstream; (ii) opening the way for other technologies that may have greater scope for migration; (iii) transferring learning within the pioneering company to other technologies or products; (iv) transferring experience to others in the industry; and (v) enabling users to learn. Although PAFC may be perceived as a failure in some respects, a wider perspective suggests it has made a positive and useful contribution to learning.     

Decision-making in investment in overseas R&D

According to the literature, multinational firms are motivated to locate R&D activity overseas for mainly three reasons, namely: to adapt to local markets; access lower cost R&D capacity; or access unique research capability. Ireland at the beginning of the century appeared, from this finding, badly placed to attract R&D in foreign direct investment (FDI), as it had by global comparisons neither a large domestic market, a low cost economy nor a strong R&D profile. In spite of this, Ireland has succeeded in attracting significant investment in R&D projects. The cases of investment in Ireland analysed here reveal that the nature of the decision-making process itself has been a decisive factor in the outcome, and that less quantifiable factors such as cultural closeness, history, and personal relationships have played a stronger role in the outcome than would be expected from the literature.     

Book review

Built by Japan: Competitive Straegies of the Japanese Construction Industry, Fumio Hasegawa & Shimizu Group FS New York, John Wiley & amp; Sons, 1988, 204 pp., US$25.00.

Technological Change at Work Ian McLouglin & Jon Clark Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1988, 202 pp., Pb £9.00, Hb £25.00.

Enterprising Innovation: An Alternative Approach Veronica Mole & Dave Elliott London, Frances Pinter, 1987, pp. 180.

Flexible Automation: The Global Diffusion of New Technology in the Engineering Industry Charles Edquist Jacobsson Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988, Hb £35.00.

Expert Systems: Strategic Implications and Applications A. Beerel Chichester, Ellis Horwood Ltd, 1988, 173 pp., £22.50.     

Industrial incentives,domestic resource costs and resource allocation in Madagascar

This paper uses 104 episodes from the Hufbauer et al. (1985, 1990) dataset to examine the correlates of classes of outcomes of economic sanctions. The parsimonious equations presented identify the characteristics of sanctions episodes conducive to success rather than marginal success, and the characteristics productive of failure rather than marginal failure. Failure is most likely if there is significant third party assistance to the target, and if the pre-existing trade linkage between sender and target is small. Success is most easily achieved when the objective is not classified as 'modest', and when pre-sanction relations between sender and target are cordial or neutral. The equations presented overcome data and methodological flaws of earlier studies, exhibit reasonable predictive accuracy, and satisfy a battery of tests of statistical significance, hypothesized coefficient sign, goodness of fit, high likelihood and informational efficiency.     

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.