Barriers to innovation through public procurement: A supplier perspective

Public procurement is increasingly viewed as having important potential to drive innovation. Despite this interest, numerous barriers prevent the public sector from acting as an intelligent and informed customer. This paper seeks to understand how barriers related to processes, competences, procedures and relationships in public procurement influence suppliers? ability to innovate and to reap the benefits of innovation. We address this by exploiting a dedicated survey of public sector suppliers in the UK, using a probit model to investigate the influence of structural, market and innovation determinants on suppliers? perception of these barriers.     

Patent Hold‐Up and Antitrust: How A Well‐Intentioned Rule Could Retard Innovation

Licensing technology essential to a standard can present a hold‐up problem. After designing new products incorporating a standard, a manufacturer could be confronted by an innovator asserting patent rights to essential technology. This hold‐up problem can be solved with a damages remedy provided by antitrust or some other body of law, but a damages remedy can reduce the innovator's licensing revenue and thereby retard innovation. The availability of an ex post damages remedy also alters the licensing terms in ex ante bargaining with the result that fewer socially beneficial R&D projects are undertaken.     

An Introduction to the Symposium on the Use of Simulation in Applied Industrial Organization

Simulation offers a rigorous methodology for addressing policy or litigation issues that require a comparison of an observed state of the world with an unobserved one. Simulation employs a calibrated, structural oligopoly model to describe the unobserved state of the world. Calibration involves reliance on real-world observations to set the key parameter values in the model. Simulation is an increasingly important tool of the industrial organization economist, particularly in analyzing the competitive effects of mergers. Papers in this symposium illustrate merger simulations in a variety of contexts and one other application of simulation.     

DID Japanese main banks improve the technical efficiencies of their non-financial client firms in the 1980s?

This paper tests the hypothesis that the Japanese main bank system was not effective in enhancing technical efficiency in the non-financial corporate sector in the 1980s. Technical efficiency is defined as the ratio of a firm's actual to its potential output for given input levels and technology. During the eighties, it did not improve consistently and significantly in Japanese manufacturing firms which have close ties to a main bank.     

Bank credit,public financial incentives,tax financial incentives and export performance during the global financial crisis

This paper investigates the extent to which access to credit, public financial incentives and tax financial incentives affect export performance using the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-Unicredit data set, covering firms within Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the UK during the 2008 global financial crisis. The results show that firms receiving credit or benefiting from public financial incentives display higher export intensity and export a greater number of product lines compared to those that did not, especially in countries with better access to credit and/or financial incentives during the crisis. Further, firms benefiting from tax financial incentives show a better export performance compared to those that did not, regardless of the degree of access to credit and/or financial incentives in the country in which they operate. In addition, the effect of access to credit and public finance incentives on export performance is found to be size-dependent, while the effect of tax financial incentives is not. We suggest that governments should promote publicly funded financial incentives along with conventional schemes, such as R&D subsidies, to promote exports, particularly during a period of financial crisis.     

外商直接投资与对外贸易技术溢出效应比较——基于面板因果关系的研究

开放经济中,最主要的国际经济关系是国际投资和国际贸易,二者都对东道国的产业有技术上的影响。文章运用面板单位根检验、协整检验以及误差修正模型等现代计量经济学方法,考察外资和进出口对中国整体技术水平的影响。结果显示FDI和技术进步互为长期和短期因果关系,对外贸易是技术进步的长期和短期原因,没有证据显示外商直接投资和进出口有长期稳定关系。     

micro-Business Community Responsibility in Australia: Approaches, Motivations and Barriers

Micro and small businesses contribute the majority of business activity in the most developed economies. They are typically embedded in local communities and therefore well placed to influence community wellbeing. While there has been considerable theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (CSR), the nature of micro-business community responsibility (mBCR) remains relatively under-explored. This article presents findings from an exploratory study of mBCR that examined the approaches, motivations and barriers of this phenomenon. Analysis of data from 36 semi-structured interviews with micro-business owner-operators in the Australian city of Brisbane revealed three mBCR approaches, suggesting an observable mBCR typology. Each mBCR type was at least partly driven by enlightened self-interest (ESI). In addition to a pure ESI approach, findings revealed ESI combined with philanthropic approaches and ESI combined with social entrepreneurial approaches. The combination of doing business and doing good found amongst participants in this study suggests that many micro-business owner-operators are supporters of their local communities and, therefore, driven by more than profit. This study provides a fine-grained understanding of micro-business involvement in community wellbeing through a lens of responsible business behaviour.     

Foreign Debt and Domestic Savings in Developing Countries

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the question of potential causality between foreign debt and domestic savings within the context of developing countries. The literature provides evidence insofar as foreign debt and development is concerned, but little attention has been given so far to internal potential for capital formation. We provide a theoretical framework and test its relevance by using 1975–2004 data for two groups of countries: sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America with the Caribbean. With the use of instrumental variables we find that foreign debt impacts negatively on domestic savings, especially in the long run. The results are not susceptible to the choice of countries or outliers. However, the relationship between foreign debt and savings seems to depend on debt accumulation gaining significance only after surpassing a country's specific threshold.

RESUMEN. Este estudio aborda el tema de la causalidad potencial que existe entre la deuda externa y el ahorro interno en el ámbito de los países en desarrollo. La literatura existente contiene pruebas sobre la deuda externa y el desarrollo pero, hasta el momento, ha dedicado poca atención a todo lo concerniente al potencial doméstico para la formación de capital (capitalización). Hemos trazado un marco teórico y puesto a prueba su relevancia usando datos del período 1975–2004 para dos grupos de países: África subsahariana y Latinoamérica incluyendo El Caribe. Los instrumentos variables utilizados nos permitieron encontrar el impacto negativo que la deuda externa ejerce sobre el ahorro interno, especialmente a largo plazo. Estos resultados no son susceptibles a la selección de países específicos o aislados. No obstante, la relación entre la deuda externa y el ahorro parece depender de la acumulación de la deuda, adquiriendo más significado solo después de pasar el umbral específico de un país.

RESUMO. Este estudo aborda a questão da causalidade possível entre o débito estrangeiro e a poupança interna no contexto dos países em desenvolvimento. A literatura apresenta evidências sobre débito externo e desenvolvimento, mas há pouca informação em relação ao potencial interno para a formação de capital. Mostramos uma estrutura teórica e testamos a sua relevância, utilizando dados de 1975 até 2004 para dois grupos de países: a África Subsaariana e a América Latina com o Caribe. Com a ajuda das variáveis instrumentais, descobrimos um impacto negativo do débito estrangeiro sobre a poupança interna, especialmente a longo prazo. Os resultados não são suscetíveis à escolha de países ou de dados atípicos (outliers). A relação entre débito externo e poupança, entretanto, parece depender do acúmulo do débito, tornando-se importante, apenas no caso de ultrapassar um limiar específico do país.     

Economics at the Antitrust Division: 2017–2018

This article describes some of the work of Antitrust Division economists over the past year, with a focus on modeling. It begins by illustrating the mapping from evidence to prediction using tools for assessing the effects of mergers using Bertrand, Cournot, and auction models. It then turns to two hot topics in competition policy: the implications of claims of increasing margins for merger enforcement and the validity of claims of increasing concentration. Finally, it considers how mergers affect prices in bargaining models.     

Economics Research at the FTC: Information,Retrospectives, and Retailing

Individual Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cases invariably raise broad questions about consumers, markets, and effective enforcement policy. Recent consumer protection cases raise questions about information regulation. Horizontal merger enforcement has recently focused on retrospective analysis of mergers and the role of the retail sector in predicting the effects of manufacturer mergers. In this paper, we describe research by the FTCs Bureau of Economics that addresses these three areas. We argue that such research is well worth the agencys relatively small resource investment because it demonstrably contributes to more thoughtful policy analysis and better policy outcomes.