Broadband connected employees and labour productivity: a comparative analysis of 14 European countries based on distributed Microdata access

In this study, the association between information and communication technology (ICT) intensity in firms and labour productivity is explored across 14 European countries for the years 2001–2010. ICT intensity is approximated by the proportion of broadband internet-enabled employees, a novel indicator measuring not only adoption but also diffusion within and among firms. Data have been retrieved by means of the distributed microdata approach (DMD) from registers on business, trade and education as well as from surveys on production, ICT usage and innovation activities in firms held at the national statistical offices. This pioneering approach allows access to otherwise confidential linked firm-level information in dimensions not earlier available. Pooled OLS estimations based on approximately 400,000 observations in harmonised and representative datasets show that in a majority of countries there is a significant and positive relationship between the proportion of broadband internet-enabled employees and labour productivity in firms. However, the strength of the relationship varies across countries and industries. Manufacturing firms receive 50% larger estimates than the services firms, while the latter instead experience the positive association more frequently.     

China and Japan: Culture,economics, and geopolitics in the quest for a leading international role

The Western view of China and Japan is often based on a perception that they are both Confucian and, therefore, are more similar than is actually the case. Although both do share some fundamental characteristics of Asian culture, certain unique features of each, particularly at the level of social relationships and cultural landmarks, make them quite different. Analysing what these features are allows us to understand what influence they have on personal choices and on the decisions of leaders on important issues in these countries. The Asian financial crisis of 1997–99 can be taken as a useful acid test for evaluating the different decision‐making capacities of the Chinese and Japanese leaders. Currency devaluation, exchange rate intervention, banking system restructuring, economic reforms, and responses to international pressure were the main areas in which government action took place. Interpreting the decisions made in these areas from a geographical‐cultural perspective provides a solid basis for analysing geopolitical dynamics and the ‘global’ prospects of the two most important nations of the Far East.     

What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.     

Trade-offs and Synergies: Horizontalization and legitimacy in the Swiss wastewater sector

Recent public sector reforms have led to horizontalization, where public service providers have increased autonomy from the state. Such changes lead to queries about democratic responsiveness (input legitimacy), democratic procedures and efficacy (throughput legitimacy) and effectiveness (output legitimacy). The following question thus emerges: how and why does horizontalization affect input, output and throughput legitimacy? This inquiry is addressed by analysing two Swiss wastewater service providers with differing degrees of horizontalization. The analysis indicates that horizontalization leads to more synergies than trade-offs between the legitimacy dimensions. Particularly, input and throughput legitimacy can play a pivotal role in attaining citizens’ acceptance.     

Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work

Institutional maintenance work refers to actors’ deliberate effort to maintain an institution. This paper examines how actors use authentication, i.e., the relational constitution of an artefact as original or as a genuine expression of a particular type, style or person, to accomplish institutional maintenance work. We investigated contemporary adjustments to six listed buildings. These works were undertaken to keep these buildings functional while at the same time protecting their listing; by doing so they contributed to maintain the institution of Architectural Heritage. Our analysis identifies three forms of authentication: material consolidation, crafts mobilization and character enhancement. We elaborate on each of them and explain their institutional underpinnings and outcomes. The paper concludes with an articulation of authentication as a potent form of institutional maintenance work. Taking its starting point in materiality, authentication is a relational practice that helps maintain institutions relying on irreplaceable artefacts for their maintenance.     

Specification Searching and Significance Inflation Across Time,Methods and Disciplines

This paper examines how significance inflation has varied across time, methods and disciplines. Leveraging a unique data set of impact evaluations on 20 kinds of development programmes, I find that results from randomized controlled trials exhibit less significance inflation than results from studies using other methods. Further, randomized controlled trials have exhibited less significance inflation over time, but quasi‐experimental studies have not. There is no robust difference between results from researchers affiliated with economics departments and those from researchers affiliated with other predominantly health‐related departments. Overall, the biases found appear much smaller than those previously observed in other social sciences.     

Alternative approaches for the reformulation of economics

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination -     

Epistemic habits: primary school teachers’ development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in a design-based research project

Generalist primary school teachers often have little or no training in school subjects such as science and technology. Not surprisingly, several studies show that they often experience difficulties when teaching these subjects, in fact some primary teachers even avoid teaching them. The over all aim of this study is to contribute to new theoretical and methodological tools for the study of how teachers develop knowledge for teaching, i.e. pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). And based on this, elaborate on implications for the professional development of primary school teachers. The teachers in the study participated in a design-based research project concerning technology education in Grade 1. We were especially interested in whether the teachers displayed any habits that contributed to the development of their personal PCK. We found three significant patterns in how the teachers, together with the researcher, developed knowledge of how to teach a specific topic in technology. We argue that these patterns tell us something about the teachers’ epistemic habits in relation to the teaching of technology. The existence of these habits could help to explain how teachers with little or no experience of teaching a subject can develop relevant PCK.     

Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football

The monopoly and monopsony power of intercollegiate sports create significant rents, but previous studies of intercollegiate football coaches’ salaries implicitly assume that coaches are paid their marginal revenue products. In a two-stage estimation, we show that coaches share in these rents. The first stage shows that several common measures of coaches’ productivity do not affect an athletic department’s variable revenue. When we include these measures in the second-stage salary equation, their impact on pay reflects bargaining power, not productivity. We also find that several measures of fixed revenue, which are independent of the coach’s performance, increase the coach’s pay.