The innovator's media dilemma: How journalists cover incumbents' adoption of discontinuous technologies

We offer a new vantage to the literature on the role of infomediaries in incumbent firms' struggles to adopt discontinuous technologies: the perspective of news media. Specifically, we combine the discontinuous technology literature with studies on news media journalism to theorize that journalists cover an incumbent's new product introductions differently, depending on whether a given new product builds on a discontinuous technology or on the respective established, continuous technology. First, discontinuous-technology-based product introductions receive a greater volume of coverage than continuous-technology-based product introductions because journalists prefer covering issues that are novel, deviate from the conventional, and potentially strongly impact society. Second, the coverage of discontinuous-technology-based product introductions is more divergent in tenor than the coverage of continuous-technology-based product introductions, as journalists seek to present opposing and thus more engaging opinions. Our analyses of unique archival data from two samples of product introductions in the automotive and photography industries, respectively, support our hypotheses. We also find intriguing indications that news media coverage of new products introductions using hybrid technologies is significantly context-dependent. Overall, our study points to so-far undescribed, media-related dilemmas for incumbent firms that aim to adopt discontinuous technologies.     

HIGH-SKILLED MIGRATION AND THE EXERTION OF EFFORT BY THE LOCAL POPULATION

The optimal design of immigration policy is a topical issue, both in the policy debate and the economic literature. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from a firm level dataset collected in 2000 on the demand for high-skilled workers, including foreign workers, in Europe and its determinants. Our major findings are that the fraction of high-skilled workers recruited from the international labour market is very small, and that foreign and domestic workers are very similar in terms of their formal education (measured by specialization subject) and their job characteristics. We suggest an efficiency wage model to explain why firms recruit foreign workers in small numbers, and why they are willing to pay immigrants the same wage as local workers, whilst at the same time also paying for their moving costs, despite the similar human capital profile of immigrants to domestic workers.     

Step Returns in Threshold Public Goods: A Meta- and Experimental Analysis

One important determinant of voluntary contributions to public goods is the value of the public good relative to that of the forgone private good. Isaac, Walker and Thomas (1984) formalized this relation in the Marginal Per Capita Return (MPCR) and demonstrated its influence on the provision of linear public goods. This paper develops a parallel concept, in the context of a threshold public good, the Step Return (SR). After providing a meta-analysis of the effect of SR in previous experiments, we compare contributions in threshold public goods games with low, medium and high SRs. Results show that subjects respond to the SR in this setting just as they respond to the MPCR in the linear public goods setting: higher SRs lead to more contributions.     

The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate

This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls.     

The TUC’s Organising Academy: an assessment

In 1998 the British Trades Union Congress established an Organising Academy to train a new generation of paid union organisers. This article reviews the first two years of the Academy and offers an initial evaluation. It seeks to gauge whether the initiative has prompted innovation in organision policy in unions and led to successful organising outcomes.     

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Recent attention to the phenomenon of ‘beds in sheds’—outbuildings used illegally for residential accommodation—suggests that shelter informality is increasing in the UK. Reflecting concerns about its apparent proliferation, the issue has been increasingly prominent on government and media agendas, framed in terms of illegal immigration and rogue landlordism, with policy announcements accompanied by high‐profile police and border agency raids. While little firm evidence exists on the scale, nature and causes of this type of informal shelter provision, this paper takes as its starting point the discursive construction of informality in the specific context of the UK, exploring the role of key agentic and structural factors therein. It suggests that an emphasis on agency in government and media accounts may risk obscuring the structural factors (including state policies) involved in the production of informality, as well as the interaction between agency and structure. The case of shed housing demonstrates how informality is produced by a complex interplay of structural and agentic factors characteristic of many global Northern cities, captured by the notion of ‘informality as practice’ which derives from debates focusing on Southern cities. At the same time, it shows how discourses around informality may be mobilized in the service of specifically context‐driven ideological agendas, in this case relating to immigration and welfare.     

Coordination, matching, and wages

We analyse the coordination problem in the labour market by endogenizing the matching function and the wage share. Each firm posts a wage to maximize the expected profit, anticipating how the wage affects the expected number of applicants. In equilibrium workers apply to firms with mixed strategies, which generate coordination failure and persistent unemployment. We show how the wage share, unemployment, and the welfare loss from the coordination failure depend on the market tightness and the market size. The welfare loss from the coordination failure is as high as 7.5 per cent of potential output. JEL Classification: C78, J64
Les auteurs analysent le problème de la coordination dans le marché du travail en endogénéisant la fonction 'arrimage et la part des revenus qui va aux salaires. Chaque entreprise définit le niveau de salaire qui maximise ses profits anticipés, en tenant compte de l'effet de ce niveau de salaire sur le nombre des applications qu'elle peut anticiper. De même, les travailleurs font application auprès d'une entreprise à un salaire donné en tenant compte d'une certaine relation d'équivalence entre niveau de salaire et probabilité d'obtenir l'emploi. Voilà qui engendre incoordination et chômage persistant. On montre que la part des revenus qui revient aux salaires, le niveau de chômage, et les pertes de bien-être attribuables au manque de coordination dépendent de la taille du marché et du degré de rareté de la main d'oeuvre. Les pertes de bien-être attribuables au manque de coordination correspondent à quelques 7,5 pour-cent de la production potentielle.