Reshaping the schooling system: The role of immigration

This paper studies how the schooling system may be impacted by the number and skill type of immigrants. When the number of low-skilled immigrants is large, the education regime tends to become segregated. Wealthy locals are more likely to choose private schools and vote for a lower tax rate to finance public education. In contrast, high-skilled immigrants tend to reinforce the public system. The optimal immigration policy is highly skill-biased. The admission of high-skilled immigrants expedites redistribution toward the less-skilled local households through both a stronger fiscal support for public education and a reduction in the skill wage premium.     

The Impact of Collaborative Agreement on Firms' Performances: The Case of the IT Industry in the 1990s1

In the information technology (IT) industry, which confronted a major transition phase during the 1990s, partnerships became a strategic component of the new ‘divided technical leadership’ that emerged from the industry's vertical disintegration. This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of 1676 partnerships on the financial performance (revenue and profit) of 14 large firms and 725 of their partners. On average, there is a positive impact of collaborative agreements on large incumbents and their partners' financial performance. These results vary according to the type, form and content of the agreement and according to the partner's field of activity. Incumbents get the most benefit from broad informal alliances while smaller and more hierarchical forms of partnerships (consortia, joint-ventures) do profit to their partners. For large incumbents, partnerships are more effective with partners from the services industry than with partners from the IT industry.     

Exploring the role of human resources in technology out-licensing:an empirical analysis of biotech newtechnology-based firms

Out-licensing is a technology exploitation option to generate revenues without investing in downstream complementary assets. Despite its increasing strategic relevance, the strong complexity of out-licensing activity determines a substantial discrepancy in firms’ ability to extract monetary benefits from this practice. Searching for determinants of out-licensing performance, the paper focuses in particular on the role of licensing managers. Based on a multiple case study analysis involving 26 out-licensing deals executed in seven Italian biotech NTBFs, the study shows that expert scientific skills, extensive licensing practice and prior employment in multinationals, but not an intense social network, characterise successful licensing managers, while high delegation and powerful intrinsic rewards enable individual capacities of licensing managers to translate into actual economic value.     

Stiglitz on Globalization and Development with an Eye to Keynes

Abstract

Joseph Stiglitz has laid out many of the issues central to the debate on globalization in a compelling story in a recent influential book. Globalization has become a contentious issue because the economic policies advocated for and, at times, almost imposed upon developing countries by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization are based on misconceptions about how market systems work. Market fundamentalism underlies the entire policy framework of the Washington Consensus. The limits of this approach are nowhere clearer than in the examples presented by developing and transition economies. Many policy missteps could have been avoided by adopting the main insights of traditional Keynesian theory, the basic lessons of which remain valid, even if it has been largely excised from the IMF's recipe book. The results of 20 years of market fundamentalism make it clear that globalization and development are distinct issues and that the former does not necessarily entail the latter. In order to understand how they are connected we need to supplement macroeconomic analysis with studies of how international economic integration comes about.     

Culture,Attitudes, and Media Patterns in China,Taiwan, and the U.S.: Balancing Standardization and Localization Decisions

ABSTRACT

A study was undertaken to examine cultural orientations, attitudes toward advertising, and media use patterns across China, Taiwan, and the United States. China and Taiwan share similar cultural backgrounds, yet their economies and advertising industries have evolved quite differently due to different social and political settings. The United States was included to provide a point of comparison. Understanding media patterns, cultural orientations, and attitudes can help better ascertain the potential for using standardized strategies by international advertisers across different markets. Industry and consumer trends in evolving markets can also be monitored. Consumers in China and Taiwan were found to be more similar than different. For example, consumers in both markets were less individualistic and more collectivistic than their counterparts in the U.S. They also exhibited more favorable attitudes toward advertising than American consumers. Furthermore, Chinese and Taiwanese respondents spent significantly more time with print media than American respondents. Implications of the findings for balancing standardization and localization decisions are discussed.     

The effects of universities' proximity to industrial districts on university–industry collaboration

There is increasing awareness that university–industry collaboration provides an important knowledge transfer channel and, thus, is a powerful driver of innovation. Universities are increasingly being asked to play incisive roles in the process of regional economic development. This paper assesses the extent to which university–industry collaboration, expressed in terms of private funding for university consulting research activities, is affected by the geographic proximity of an academic institution to an Industrial District (ID). Although the economic literature insists on the positive effects of proximity for these collaborations, empirical work on Italian ID so far shows no particular effects. This paper provides new insights into the effects of academic proximity to ID on university–industry collaboration, by presenting robust evidence that proximity to districts promotes the establishment of collaboration agreements. This sheds new light on the need for targeted policies to support local productive systems. The empirical evidence is based on an analysis of qualitative information and an econometric analysis of financial data for the whole population of Italian university departments engaged in research in the Engineering and Physical Sciences.     

Why Do Some Multinational Firms Respond Better Than Others to the Hostility of Host Governments? Proximal Embedding and the Side Effects of Local Partnerships

Using a multiple-case study of alleged expropriations reported before the World Bank, we examine how multinational companies (MNC) react to the escalating hostility of host governments. Our study reveals how different choices regarding the interaction with local nonmarket stakeholders – which we refer to as proximal vs. mediated embedding – shape how managers respond to these disputes by affecting their ability to collect, process and interpret information, and to act upon it in a way that effectively mobilizes local and international support. In contrast to the prevailing view that local partners in international joint ventures shelter MNCs from abuse from political authorities, our findings show that primary reliance on local partners to manage the local nonmarket environment can actually reinforce a liability of outsidership and even create a ‘liability of insidership’, to the extent that relying on local partners prevents the MNC from establishing quality connections with a broad range of nonmarket stakeholders, reducing its alertness and responsiveness to hostile acts from host governments.     

Effect of Approved Destination Status on Mainland Chinese Travel Abroad

Approved Destination Status (ADS) agreements facilitate international leisure travel by Chinese citizens, allowing authorized travel agencies to offer group tour arrangements, including visa applications. The number of destinations with ADS agreements increased from 2 in 1983 to 114 in 2012. Using panel data for Chinese visitor arrivals in 58 countries from 1985 to 2005, we estimate a semi‐parametric matched difference‐in‐differences model of the impact of ADS on overseas departures from mainland China. Treatment with ADS increased Chinese visitor arrivals in the 3‐year period following ADS designation by more than 10 percent annually, with results varying substantially across countries.     

Linking learning with governance in networks and clusters: key issues for analysis and policy

In this paper we analyse the relationship between governance and learning in clusters and networks. In particular, we see these two key elements as interdependent, suggesting that, under particular circumstances, such interdependence may drive clusters and networks towards a dynamic development trajectory. A pure ‘governance perspective’ makes the development of any locality dependent on the system of powers which exists within the locality or across the global value chain. In parallel, a pure ‘competence-based approach’ focuses mainly on the capabilities of actors to learn and undertake activities. In contrast, we open the prospects for an interdependent relation that may change the actual competences of actors as well as the governance settings and dynamics in networks and clusters. When supported by public policies, the learning process may have the potential to modify the governance environment. Simultaneously, the learning process is intrinsically influenced by economic power, which may seriously affect the development prospects of clusters and networks. This is why an intertwined consideration of both aspects is necessary to promote specific approaches to learning and to design appropriate policies. In this paper we offer two preliminary case studies to clarify some of these dynamics: the first taken from the computers cluster in Costa Rica and the second from an Italian bio-pharmaceutical firm and its production network. The first case study refers to the software cluster that was created from scratch in Costa Rica thanks to an enlightened government policy in coordination with new local enterprises and an important foreign direct investor; while the second reflects on the ability of an individual company to create a network of relationships with large transnational companies in order to acquire new competences without falling into a subordinate position with respect to its larger partners.