Are the BRIC countries overtaking intermediate countries in the race for international R&D? The case of Spain

The emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as international locations for foreign direct investment in R&D is a sign that multinationals are relocating their technological activities to new territories. This trend may weaken the supremacy of the developed countries until now considered leaders in innovation, and may mean the loss of the competitive advantages enjoyed by the countries considered intermediate innovators. This paper examines the situation of Spain as a typical intermediate economy and compares it to its main competitors among the BRICs. Based on eight case studies of subsidiaries with R&D centres in Spain, we conclude that the policies adopted by certain emerging economies to develop their national innovation systems are proving effective and that these countries now pose a threat to intermediate economies. However, the BRICs still lag behind in terms of the security of their institutional framework; this situation leaves intermediate countries in an advantageous position.     

REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR THE PROVISION OF PATERNALISTIC GOODS

In this study, we analyze the regulation of markets for the provision of services whose costs are subsidized for paternalistic reasons. We model the choice of a benevolent regulator who wants to maximize consumer welfare in a setting where quality cannot be verified and the good provided is fully subsidized. The choice is thus made between two types of providers (profit maximizers and altruistic providers) and two frameworks (monopoly franchise and quality competition). Our analysis shows that in this environment the performance of mixed markets is always dominated by pure forms. Moreover, although making efficient providers compete for the market minimizes cost, the choice of quality competition with altruistic providers may be preferable from a welfare point of view whenever service quality is relevant and the productivity differential is not substantial.     

Recognizing the Best: The Productive and Counterproductive Effects of Relative Performance Recognition

I use a laboratory experiment to examine the productive and counterproductive effects of providing employees nonpecuniary recognition based on measures of relative performance. I find that, on average, recognition programs increase both productive efforts (those intended to increase one's own performance) and counterproductive efforts (those intended to decrease peer performance) in a setting where it is salient to employees that they can exert both productive and counterproductive efforts. Interestingly, I also find that these effects are moderated by the Dark Triad of personalities, a group of three personality traits. My study reveals that recognition programs mainly lead individuals who score lower on the Dark Triad to increase counterproductive efforts and those who score higher on the Dark Triad to increase productive efforts. These results contribute to the literature on relative performance information by demonstrating that recognition programs can have both productive and counterproductive effects. However, whether these programs produce mainly a productive or counterproductive effect depends on important personality characteristics of the employees.     

Did Muhammad Ali foster industrialization in early nineteenth‐century Egypt?

Muhammad Ali, who ruled Egypt between 1805 and 1849, intervened in Egyptian markets in an attempt to foster industrialization, especially between 1812 and 1840. Like a modern marketing board, the state purchased agricultural commodities (cotton and wheat) at low prices and sold them on world markets at much higher prices, a policy equivalent to an export tax. Ali also replaced tax farming with his own land taxes. The revenues so derived were used in part to finance manufacturing investment and to build irrigation canals. In addition, Ali supplied flax and cotton at those cheap purchase prices to domestic textile manufacturing, thus subsidizing the industry. He also used non‐tariff barriers to exclude foreign competition from domestic markets. Were Ali's state‐led policies successful in fostering industry? The answer is no easier to extract from this phase of Egyptian history than from that of other poor countries at that time. This is because Egypt faced the same terms of trade boom typical of most poor commodity exporters, which was causing de‐industrialization everywhere else in the poor periphery. Ali picked a very difficult time to pursue his agenda, but we show that his policies were successful.     

Perception evaluation kit: a case study with materials and learning styles

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Materials are elements that configure our built environment and are key components in design and engineering education. This research aims...     

Quality perceptions under evolving information conditions: Implications for diet,health and consumer satisfaction

Consumers’ perception of, and satisfaction with, fruit quality is an important issue for both public policy and commercial reasons. However, because of information problems, consumers cannot easily choose fruits of a quality most likely to satisfy their preferences and health needs. The research reported here employed an experimental auction method to test perceptions of fruit quality by evaluating the willingness to pay (WTP) of consumers for five different varieties of soft citrus under three different information conditions: visual inspection of the fruit before peeling; visual inspection after peeling; and after consumption. Significant differences were found in valuations of the different varieties as consumers gained information. Conclusions are drawn about the value of the methodology and the results themselves, and implications are inferred for policy and for growers and traders. It is argued that product information should be oriented not just towards nutritional education but also towards increasing the pleasure of healthy eating.     

MORE THAN A FEELING: CONFIDENCE,UNCERTAINTY, AND MACROECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS

Economists, observers, and policy-makers often emphasize the role of sentiment as a potential driver of the business cycle. In this paper, we provide three contributions to this debate. First, we give an overview of the recent literature on the nexus between sentiment (considering both confidence and uncertainty) and economic activity. Second, we review existing empirical measures of sentiment, in particular consumer confidence, stock market volatility (SMV) and Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU), on monthly data for 27 countries, 1985–2016. Third, we identify some new stylized facts based on international evidence. While different measures are surprisingly lowly correlated on average in each country, they are typically highly positively correlated across countries, suggesting the existence of a global factor or sizeable international spillovers of sentiment. Consumer confidence has the closest co-movement with economic and financial variables, and most of the correlations are contemporaneous or forward-looking, consistent with the view that economic sentiment is indeed a driver of activity.     

Risk of poverty in Southern Europe

We analyze whether the risk of poverty deteriorates with the crisis in France, Greece, Italy and Spain, for different categories of households, individual features and policy instruments, such as the regional European Structural Funds. We find that the impact of the economic recession was heterogeneous, deteriorating the status of temporary workers, self-employed, single and female-headed households, while the risk of poverty decreased relatively for larger households with dependent children and elderly members. We also find that targeted funds toward human capital investment are associated to decreasing the risk of poverty, but the crisis slowed down their effects.     

Transaction Costs of Environmental Policies and Returns to Scale: The Case of Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans

Comprehensive nutrient management plans are being promoted to reduce excess nutrient applications on livestock farms to improve water quality. Development of these plans has been shown to exhibit increasing returns to scale but these costs did not include farmer time. Data from a farmer survey are used to characterize the magnitude and determinants of the transaction costs of comprehensive nutrient management plan development in the Midwest. The analyses confirm that the time spent by farmers exhibits increasing returns to scale. Ignoring the hours spent by farmers on plan development underestimates time requirements by approximately 10%.