Strategic niche management of social innovations: the case of social entrepreneurship

Strategic niche management (SNM), a tool to understand and manage radical socio-technical innovations and facilitate their diffusion, has always departed from a technical artefact. Many radical innovations, however, do not revolve around such an artefact. Social entrepreneurship is a new business model that combines a social goal with a business mentality and is heralded as an important new way to create social value such as sustainability. This study examines if and how SNM can be applied to such a social innovation. It identifies theoretical and practical limitations and proposes solutions. The main conclusion is that SNM can be used to analyse radical social innovation, although it requires rethinking the initial entry point for research and management. Exemplifying quotes are proposed as an alternative. Second, this paper suggests using values to describe niche–regime interaction as a better way to anticipate future niche–regime interactions.     

Some microfoundations of Austrian economics: Böhm-Bawerk's version

This paper investigates Böohm-Bawerk's version of Austrian microeconomics. It draws some comparisons with Carl Menger's programmatic work on the principles of economic theory which originally established a distinctive Austrian tradition. Böhm-Bawerk's microeconomics is also considered against the background of contemporary Walrasian, Edgeworthian and Marshallian thought as well as twentieth-century work on the theory of games. Böhm-Bawerk offers a theory of micro-structural dynamics. His emphasis on intentionality and imagination in value creation, the scope for bargaining and strategic behaviour in his theory of markets and the avowed indeterminacies and equilibrating tendencies in his theory of price formation, are all consistent with other first-generation Austraian contributions. There is nothing especially Walrasian or Marshallian about Böhm-Bawer's. microeconomics     

Benefits Of Communications Infrastructure Capital In U.S. Economy

In this paper we empirically estimate the contribution of the communications infrastructure to the growth of output and productivity at the dis-aggregate industry and at the aggregate economy levels. The estimated value of the marginal benefits or the shadow price of the communications infrastructure capital is positive in each of 34 industries representing the major industrial sectors of the U.S. economy. This effect captures network externality benefits and can be interpreted as a willingness to pay by each industry for communications infrastructure capital services over and above their direct payments for communications services. These results suggest that an increase in communications infrastructure capital services reduces cost in all the industries and as a consequence that of the entire economy. The relatively high value of estimated total marginal benefits for the aggregate economy indicates a high social rate of return to the investments in communications infrastructure.     

Structural Change And Innovation In U.S. Telecommunications

This paper reexamines broadly. from the standpoint of innovation, the arguments for vertical integration in the U.S. telecommunications industry in light of structural change since the breakup of the Bell System. While basic and applied research became the casualty of the 1984 breakup and the 1995 AT&T split, there is no evidence that the pace of innovative activity and productivity has slowed. Evidence from R&D and patent data suggests some acceleration of innovative activity. However. the service segment of the industry ceased to be the center of technological innovation. The source of future innovation seems to lie in the telecommunications and Internet equipment firms and independent software firms. The emergence of the competitive stand-alone software industry, combined with a trend towards open operating systems and customer demand for greater flexibility, and growing substitution of technology alliances for in-house R&D appear to have undermined the case for vertical integration in the telecommunications industry. From the standpoint of business strategy, the question of whether a firm like AT&T, notwithstanding its huge investments in cable facilities, can develop distinctive and sustainable capabilities through horizontal expansion and ubiquity and one-stopshopping marketing alone remains open.     

The Relationship Between Firm Size and Innovation Activity: A Double Decision Approach†

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between firm size and innovation activity using Spanish data at firm level corresponding to the manufacturing sector for the period 1990-93. This exercise is different to previous applications because we allow for different size effects in the decision to innovate and the innovation count equation, in the context of a double-hurdle approach. Several tests confirm the hurdle negbin model. We find that firm size is a relevant factor, although size effects are different in both decisions. A robust result from the different specifications estimated is the rejection of the Gilbert and Newbery hypotheses. We find out that the behaviour of firm size is neither linear in the decision nor in thc count equation. We also provide additional, and sometimes different, evidence to previous Spanish studies on R&D.     

Is Asia Decoupling from the United States (Again)?

The recovery from the recent global financial crisis exhibited a decline in the synchronization of Asian output with the rest of the world. However, a simple model based on output gaps demonstrates that the decline in business cycle synchronization during the recovery from the global financial crisis was exceptionally steep by historical standards. We posit two potential reasons for this exceptionally steep decline. First, financial markets during this recovery improved from particularly distressed conditions relative to previous downturns. Second, monetary policy during the recovery from the crisis was constrained in developed economies by the zero bound, but less so in Asia. To test these potential explanations, we examine the implications of an increase in corporate bond spreads similar to that which took place during the recent European financial crisis in a three‐region open‐economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Our results confirm that global business cycle synchronization is reduced when zero‐bound constraints across the world differ. However, we find that the impact of reduced financial contagion actually goes modestly against our predictions.     

FISCAL POLICY AND ASSET PRICES

We analyse the impact of fiscal policy on asset prices using a panel vector auto‐regressive (PVAR) approach and quarterly data for ten industrialized countries. We find that positive fiscal shocks lead to a temporary fall in stock prices and a gradual and persistent decrease in housing prices. The empirical findings also point to: (i) a contractionary effect of fiscal policy on output in line with the existence of crowding‐out effects and the deterioration of credit conditions; (ii) a weakening of the effectiveness of fiscal policy in recent times; (iii) a more persistent response of asset prices for countries with a lower degree of openness; (iv) a larger impact of fiscal policy on asset prices for small countries; (v) a close link between the responsiveness of asset prices to fiscal policy and the government’s size; (vi) an increase of the sensitivity of asset prices to fiscal policy shocks following the process of financial deregulation and mortgage liberalization; and (vii) significant fiscal multiplier effects in the context of severe housing busts. Finally, the evidence suggests that changes in equity prices may help governments towards consolidation of public finances.     

Oil Price Shocks and Volatility in Australian Stock Returns

This paper examines the effect of oil shocks on return and volatility in the sectors of Australian stock market and finds significant effects for most sectors. For the overall market index, an increase in oil price return significantly reduces return, and an increase in oil price return volatility significantly reduces volatility. An advantage of looking at sector returns rather than a general index of stock returns is that sectors may well differ markedly in how they respond to oil price shocks. The energy and material sectors (as expected) and the financial sector (surprisingly) are out of step (in different ways) with results for the other sectors and for the overall index. A rise in oil price increases returns in the energy and material sectors and an increase in oil price return volatility increases stock return volatility in the financial sector. Explanation for the negative (positive) association between oil return (oil return volatility) and returns (volatility of returns) in the financial sector must be based on the association via lending to and/or holdings of corporate bonds issued by firms with significant exposure to oil price fluctuations and their speculative positions in oil‐related instruments.     

Bounded rationality,expectations, and child labour

This paper develops a model with overlapping generations, where the household's optimal fertility, child labour, and education decisions depend on the parents’ expectations or beliefs about the return to education. It is shown that there exists a range of parental income where the fertility rate is high and children participate in the labour market and receive an incomplete education if a parent believes the return to education is low. The act of participating in the labour market reduces the child's ability to accumulate human capital; thus, the action of sending a child into the labour market is sufficient to ensure that the parents’ initially pessimistic expectations are fulfilled. It is then shown that a one‐time policy intervention, such as banning child labour and mandatory education, can be enough to move a country from the positive child labour equilibrium to an equilibrium with no child labour.