Population,competition, innovation,and economic growth with and without human capital investment

This paper analyzes how population and product market competition (PMC) may interact with each other in affecting the pace of economic growth. The impact of a change in population (size or growth) and in the degree of PMC on productivity growth may vary depending on the presence of human versus physical capital investment, the way in which individuals may purposefully invest in human capital, the type of input used in the uncompetitive sector, the form of households’ intertemporal utility, and whether PMC (measured by the degree of substitutability between differentiated intermediates) is disentangled or not from the input shares in aggregate income. It is found that a growth model with human capital accumulation à la Lucas (J Monet Econ 22(1):3–42, 1988) and a continuum of degrees of intertemporal altruism can predict an ambiguous link between population and economic growth rates, in line with the available empirical evidence. The article also analyzes the conditions under which market structure (monopoly power) and population (size or growth) may be complementary to each other in the process of long-run economic growth.     

Returns to specialization,competition, population,and growth

Using an expanding-variety endogenous growth model with purposive human capital accumulation, this paper provides an alternative explanation of why we may observe an ambiguous correlation between product market competition (PMC) and economic growth, and between population and economic growth rates. Our explanation is based on the notion of ‘returns to specialization’. Under the model's assumptions, PMC and economic growth are ambiguously correlated when returns to specialization are decreasing, whereas population growth and productivity growth are ambiguously correlated when returns to specialization are increasing. From a theoretical point of view, these results are explained by the presence or absence of an ‘increasing production-complexity’ effect associated to the use of a larger number of intermediate-input varieties in the same production process.     

A note on the difference between human and non-human productive factors: Comments on ‘Love, war, and culture: An institutional approach to human evolution’

In this article, Professor Pagano views human relations as generally ‘(…) influenced by the prevailing features of the goods (private, public and positional) that have characterized production in different stages of the history.’ In my comment, I focus on the distinction between human and non-human productive factors. Because of their obvious relationship, some of the considerations that follow from such a distinction are already—explicitly or otherwise—in the target article’s argument; those that are not, especially with regard to the cultural determinant of value, could be easily integrated into it.     

Bundling of Basic Public Services and Household Welfare in Developing Countries: An Empirical Exploration for the Case of Peru

Using panel data for Peru for the period 1994–2000, we found that increases in household welfare, as measured by changes in consumption, are larger when households receive two or more services jointly than when services are provided separately. Such increases appear to be more than proportional, as F-tests on the coefficients of the corresponding regressors confirm. Thus, we found that bundling of services may help realize welfare effects. This finding is particularly robust in the case of urban areas.     

Economic integration and regional convergence: effects of NAFTA on local convergence in Mexico, 1980–2008

Continental integration processes can alter traditional development axes. Paelinck and Polèse´s work in 1999 explains that in the case of Mexico there is a tension between the U.S. border and the rest of the country: Mexico´s integration in the NAFTA should have reduced the U.S. border attraction, extending the growth to territories located between this border and Mexico City. To test this hypothesis, we propose a spatial conditional β-convergence model that uses as regressors both the distances to the U.S. border and to Mexico City, together with other control variables. This model is applied to the period from 1980 to 2008 using GVA at the municipality level. Working with municipal-level data allows to observe convergence patterns across space and identify the effects of location. The time-span studied distinguishes between before and after NAFTA. Estimates based on Mundlak´s approach were obtained for time-invariant regressors. Results show that during the pre-NAFTA period there was a general process of convergence, but it is mainly explained by the faster growth of municipalities located near to the U.S. border. However, post-NAFTA, convergence in municipalities disappeared and the effect of distance to the U.S. border reversed its sign, as predicted in Paelinck and Polèse´s model.     

Assessing the impact of domestic outsourcing and offshoring on productivity at the firm level

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of domestic and foreign sourcing on firm-level productivity. We develop a simple framework that permits the introduction of both domestic outsourcing and offshoring in a conventional production function. We find that the decision to outsource has a positive impact on the level of productivity as it permits the relocation of parts of the production process to external suppliers. Furthermore, there is a positive impact on output resulting from domestic outsourcing and offshoring like any other input.     

New Financial Architectures and Legal Infrastructures: Toward a Corrected and Compensated International Monetary System

The international monetary system features a powerful subsystem of nations with an organized polyarchic economy—in other words, a market economy adjusted and balanced by government authorities to protect the market against forces operating within it but failing to abide by the rules (as in the defense of fair competition), in which excessive asymmetry runs the risk of toppling the system. The central bank is the body guaranteeing both stability and the system. However, globalization prevents the central banks from controlling the massive flows of derivatives. In the absence of a supranational authority, the only remedy realistically feasible today lies in the network of informal agreements among the leading economic powers—the G-7, G-8, and G-20 countries. These countries, on the one hand, intervene on a case-by-case (or crisis-by-crisis) basis and, on the other, strive to bring chaotic corrective and compensatory measures into a market dominated by “turbocapitalism” to ward off future crises. Their actions thus strengthen legal infrastructures and the information flows that ensure transparency and involve financially sound nations, weak nations, international organizations, assorted classes of operators, and major private institutions.     

Leadership and organizational learning's role on innovation and performance: Lessons from Spain

Leadership style has been traditionally emphasized as one of the most important individual influences on firm innovation. Scholars are now paying growing attention to the possibility that the collective capability of organizational learning plays a key role in determining innovation. We propose that leadership style, an individual feature, and organizational learning, a collective process, simultaneously and positively affect firm innovation. A structural equation model and data from 408 large firms in four sectors supported our hypotheses. Organizational learning had a stronger direct influence on innovation than CEO transformational leadership for our sample; however, leadership had a strong, significant influence on organizational learning, indirectly affecting firm innovation. Additionally, innovation positively and significantly influenced performance. Organizational learning also positively affected performance, but interestingly mainly through innovation.     

New strategic goals and organizational solutions in large R&D labs: lessons from Centro Ricerche Fiat and Telecom Italia Lab

The issue of corporate R&D management has become particularly relevant during the last decade, since many industrial sectors experienced growing complexity in their research areas and increasing constraints in budgets devoted to R&D activities. This paper discusses the cases of the ICT and automotive sectors, exploring the changes in managerial procedures and strategies that two of the largest corporate research centres in Italy (Telecom Italia Lab and Centro Ricerche Fiat) adopted during a delicate phase of transition.
Both cases are characterized by a growing pressure towards the effective integration of short-term and long-term perspectives, i.e. towards a balance between valorization of research results and competencies, and exploration of new technological trajectories. The solutions adopted by the two organizations are explored and discussed. Specifically, while TiLab focused on the promotion of controlled spin-off companies, CRF has been very active in local technology transfer, especially in favour of SMFs.     

Development Policy Lending, Conditionality, and Ownership: A Dynamic Agency Model Perspective

Is the World Bank's Development Policy Lending likely to enhance ownership and have greater effectiveness than structural adjustment? We specify a dynamic common agency model in which a government considering economic reform faces domestic opposition from interest groups. The dynamic specification, which is original in the context of policy reforms supported by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), is essential to allow the strength of special interest groups to arise endogenously during the reform process. We show that conditionality may alter the country's political equilibrium and lead to higher social welfare. However, under certain circumstances which depend on country‐specific circumstances, conditional assistance could lead to lower social welfare. Thus, for conditionality not to be inconsistent with ownership, its design must be appropriate to the country circumstances and directly affect the domestic political constraint.