Determinants of spatial knowledge spillovers in Italian provinces

Statistical evidence suggests that the relevance of knowledge spillovers has increased over time. In this paper we focus on regional knowledge spillovers and adopt a new econometric transformation that allows inference on potential inter-regional knowledge spillovers, accounting for spatial interdependencies.Determinants of inter-regional knowledge spillovers are explained with a sample of 103 Italian provinces. We find that a region’s absorptive capacity, measured by local R&D expenditure and social capital, implies a reduction of outward knowledge spillovers.Identification is based on the use of Two Stages Least Squares and Fixed Effects estimates.     

Embodied Technological Change,Learning‐by‐doing and the Productivity Slowdown*

The productivity slowdown in the US economy since the first oil shock has recently been associated with a larger decline rate of the relative price of equipment investment and a smaller rate of disembodied technical change. We set up a growth model in which learning‐by‐doing is the engine of both embodied and disembodied technological progress. A shift in the relative efficiency of learning‐by‐doing from the consumption to the investment sector is shown to imply a technological reassignment consistent with the above‐mentioned evidence. This result derives from the interaction between the obsolescence costs inherent in embodiment and the learning‐by‐doing engine.     

Trends and Paths From Border Regions＂ The Frontier Centro-Castilla y Leon of Portugal and Spain

The objective of this paper is to determine whether the process of European Union （EU） integration has unleashed a new territorial dynamic with the convergence of border regions. Authors intend to analyze trends and trajectories of the Portuguese--Spanish border regions of the Center of Portugal and Castilla y Leon, particularly the municipalities of NUTS Ill and northern and southern Beira Interior （Central Region） and the provinces of the municipalities of Salamanca and Zamora （Region of Castilla y Leon）, in the last 20 years, given a set of demographic, economic, and social indicators, by using statistical analysis combined with contributions from the development processes established in these regions.     

Does retailer power lead to exclusion?

This article examines whether retailer bargaining power and upfront slotting allowances prevent small manufacturers (who have no bargaining power) from obtaining adequate distribution. In contrast to the findings of Marx and Shaffer (2007) , who show that all equilibria involve limited distribution (i.e., exclusion of a retailer), we show that there is always an equilibrium in which full distribution is obtained, provided that full distribution is the industry profit‐maximizing outcome. The key feature leading to this differing result is that we do not restrict each retailer to offering the manufacturer a single tariff.     

The origins of external knowledge inflows and the impact of university technologies

This paper analyses how universities leverage knowledge coming from different technological, institutional, and geographical domains to develop technologies exerting a relevant impact for firms’ technological advancements. The analysis is based on a panel of 219 worldwide universities that filed, at least, a patent belonging to the alternative energy production sector in the period 2002–2010. Results show that using external knowledge originating in different technological and institutional domains exerts an inverted U‐shaped effect on the firms’ subsequent technological progress, while the geographical origin seems to do not exert any influence.     

Termination fees revisited

We reconsider the question of the optimal level of termination fees between communication networks in the context of heterogeneous usage and elastic participation. The interaction between these two features yields new insights; in our model: i) The profit maximizing reciprocal termination fee is above marginal cost; ii) the welfare maximizing termination fee is also above cost; iii) the welfare-maximizing termination fee is below the profit-maximizing one in the absence of termination-based price discrimination, but can be above it otherwise.     

A Fresh Approach to Context Influence,Development and Performance in Environmental Management

Respect for the environment has rapidly gained importance in the context of firms, regardless of their pollution levels. Most of the existing research has related to the most polluting sectors and has been limited to the effect that the adoption of cleaner practices has on performance, primarily in terms of operations, financial performance and competitiveness. This paper expands the research towards a more complete picture of environmental management by examining context, development and performance to understand how other factors can influence the development of cleaner practices. In addition, we focus our research on the service sector. In our analysis, we differentiated between the affiliation and size of the studied companies to better understand their specificities. Based on a sample of 374 restaurants, the results show the importance of the influence of institutions and the limited influence of competitors in encouraging firms to adopt a strategic, clean approach, especially for the smallest firms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Successive Sampling to Estimate Quantiles with P-Auxiliary Variables

The successive sampling is a known technique that can be used in longitudinal surveys to estimate population parameters and measurements of difference or change of a study variable. The paper discusses the estimation of quantiles for the current occasion based on sampling in two successive occasions and using p-auxiliary variables obtained of the previous occasion. A multivariate ratio estimator from the matched portion is used to provide the optimum estimate of a quantile by weighting the estimates inversely to derived optimum weights. Its properties are studied under large–sample approximation and the expressions of the variances are established. The behavior of these asymptotic variances is analyzed on the basis of data from natural populations. A simulation study is also used to measure the precision of the proposed estimator.     

Priors from General Equilibrium Models for VARS*

This article uses a simple New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model as a prior for a vector autoregression, and shows that the resulting model is competitive with standard benchmarks in terms of forecasting, and can be used for policy analysis.     

Health and Wealth: How do They Affect Individual Preferences?

There is no consensus among health economists about the specification of individual preferences that best fits observed behaviors. One crucial point of disagreement concerns the sign of the interaction between health and wealth in individual utility functions. We propose here a simple, static, model where individuals have only one decision to make concerning their future health (say to get a flu shot). We derive very simple testable implications that allow to discriminate between three specifications that are commonly used in theoretical models: additive separability between health and consumption, multiplicative separability, and existence of a monetary equivalent of health. We also derive several implications on the pattern of the demand for health insurance.