Firms’ linkages with public research organisations in Argentina: Drivers, perceptions and behaviours

This paper analyses firms’ drivers for linking to public research organisations (PRO) (first goal) and compares perceptions and behaviours of linked vs. unlinked firms (second goal). We used an original firm database constructed from a representative survey with information for linked and unlinked firms for year 2005 in Argentina. Drivers were estimated using a Probit model, while differences in perceptions and behaviours between linked and unlinked firms were assessed with propensity score matching techniques. For our first goal we found that (i) firms’ knowledge bases were not drivers for linking to PRO and (ii) networking capabilities matter but there is a substitution effect between interacting with PRO and interacting with other economic agents in the market when firms aim at exchanging information rather than doing joint research. These findings may imply that current linkages are not exploiting properly their knowledge potential; it may be worth designing a division of labour among PRO in their functions in PRO-industry interactions. For our second goal: we found that (i) linked firms invest more in innovative activities; (ii) they are more prone to patenting; (iii) both groups of firms value similarly PRO research outputs available at arm length (i.e. without direct linking). Given the asymmetric development on appropriability tools between PRO and firms and the fact that all firms benefit from PRO research outputs, the higher predisposition of linked firms towards patenting, suggests that special attention should be placed at analysing the risks of a private appropriation of publicly created knowledge.     

Red sky at night or in the morning,to the equity market neither a delight nor a warning: the weather effect re-examined using intraday stock data

Unlike most of the existing literature on the weather effect, we conducted our analysis by employing intraday weather and market data, examining a large set of stocks rather than indices only, including volume and volatility data in the study and inspecting a wide number of weather variables (temperature, humidity, pressure, visibility, wind, cloud, rain and snow). Our analysis covered the Italian stock market for the period August 2005–March 2014 for a total of 2201 trading days. We conclude that no systematic relationship seems to exist between the weather and the Italian stock market. Moreover, our results raise doubts that testing the weather effect by limiting the analysis to indices only can lead to spurious conclusions.     

International outsourcing versus FDI under contractual incompleteness

This paper empirically analyses the boundaries of a large sample of Italian multinational enterprises, with firm-level data from Capitalia, AIDA and Centrale dei Bilanci. Within the broad array of feasible contracts in a foreign country, we focus on the trade-off between international outsourcing and foreign direct investment (FDI), in a context of contractual incompleteness. Probit estimates reveal that Italian enterprises operating in highly relation-specific environments are more prone to international outsourcing than FDI, consistently with recent theoretical contributions on the topic. Results are robust to different specifications and alternative measures of contractual incompleteness and international outsourcing.     

What makes a joint venture: Micro‐evidence from Sino‐Italian contracts

This paper provides new contract-level evidence on control rights allocation in order to define what makes a joint venture. Property rights theory of the firm identifies circumstances under which joint control alleviates investment distortions due to contract incompleteness. We compare predictions of the theoretical literature with actual governance structures of Sino-Italian joint ventures, as reported in a questionnaire submitted to the entire population of Italian enterprises operating in China. With an exceptional response rate of 60%, our evidence confirms most of the theoretical predictions and helps select among competing approaches to model joint ventures.     

Explorations: Time-use surveys in the south

Abstract

Time-use surveys show how individuals spend their time during the day or week, which provides evidence of the gendered division of labor within households and the interdependence of women's and men's paid and unpaid work. Time-use experts in the South face similar challenges to those working in other countries, but they also have to come to terms with the restrictions faced in less developed contexts – notably higher illiteracy rates and limited statistical budgets. These Explorations bring together contributions from three experts on time-use survey design and administration working in three diverse Southern regions to highlight the ongoing processes of learning-by-doing and of building local expertise in these regions. Their discussion of methodological and logistical issues holds particular relevance for developing countries moving toward the implementation of time-use surveys. It also bears on more general feminist concerns regarding the classification and measurement of unpaid care.     

Explaining Employment Effects in Multipolar Value Chains: A Cross‐National Study on Soft Drinks and Dairy Manufacturing in Europe

The article develops an integrated framework that employs a dynamic perspective on interlinked levels of value chain governance in order to explain employment in value chains. It compares two multipolar chains in food and beverage manufacturing, in two different producer and consumer markets, Belgium and Germany. Analysis reveals that varied value capture dynamics in the food and beverage industries underpin distinct employment effects at specific inter‐firm nodes, as well as between labour and product markets. This reveals institutional and product variation explaining firms’ value capture trajectories. However, it also illustrates a concomitant transnational trend of deteriorating working conditions, stemming from overall chain governance.     

Competition Policy and Food Sector in the European Union

The article reviews the enforcement of the EU competition policy in the food sector in order to evaluate its actual ability to promote a fair and efficient food supply. Competition policy is scrutinized stemming from the different perspectives offered by 3 antitrust schools, namely, the Harvard, the Chicago, and the post-Chicago Schools. The main finding of the article is that with reforms carried out in the 1990s, EU competition policy has followed the shift that occurred in the United States since the late 1970s from the traditionalist Harvard School to the Chicago and post-Chicago Schools of antitrust. The general effect of this shift has been a significant drop in antitrust enforcement and merger control activity. As a consequence, currently competition policy is not able to tackle the wide range of social and economic problems associated with the overwhelming power of large agrofood corporations.     

Income Distribution,Household Debt and Growth in Modern Financialized Economies

Abstract:

We analyze some core features of the institutional transformation of the Canadian and U.S. economies over the last half century, as they became increasingly financialized economies resting on household consumption as the key contributor to economic growth, despite weak growth in real wages and personal disposable income. This growth in consumption spending is highly fragile not only because it is a debt-led growth that has relied on an unsustainable expansion of household indebtedness largely dependent on credit bubbles in the housing market, but also because of the perverse form of this indebtedness. Studied from the angle of disaggregated household consumption/saving behavior, it is the poorest and most vulnerable households who have been building up unsustainable debt, thereby presaging increasing financial fragility and crises.     

Firm heterogeneity in TFP,sectoral innovation and location. Evidence from Italy

Sectoral and territorial specificities affect a firm’s capabilities of being productive. While there is a wide consensus on this, a quantitative measure of these effects has been lacking. To this end, we combine a data-set of Italian firms with some meso regional and sectoral variables and apply a cross-classified model that allows for a clear distinction between firm, region-specific and sector-specific effects. After observing a marked TFP heterogeneity across firms, the paper addresses the issue of understanding how much differences in firms’ productivity depend on regional localisation and sector specificities. Results refer to 2004–2006 and have three aspects. First, they confirm that the main source of firm variety is mostly due to differences revealed at individual level. Secondly, we find that the sector is more important than location in explaining firms’ TFP. Lastly, the results show that firm TFP increases when it belongs to more innovative sectors. Similarly, companies get benefits from belonging to sectors where there is a high proportion of firms using R&D public support and a high propensity to collaborate in innovative projects.     

Environment, human development and economic growth

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into economic growth and development theories and empirics is currently widely analyzed in the literature. The effects of natural resources endowment on economic growth are mainly analyzed through the so-called Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) whereas the effects of economic growth on environmental quality are part of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Furthermore, recent contributions on RCH and EKC have shown the important role of institutions and human development dimensions in building a sustainable development path. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the causal relationships between economic growth, human development and sustainability combining the RCH and EKC models and adopting a human development perspective. Results confirm the importance of high institutional quality and investments for human capital accumulation in order to build a sustainable development path.