Porter’s Competitive Advantage Of Nations: Time For The Final Judgement?

Porter's (1990) Competitive Advantage of Nations ( CAN ) was heralded on publication as a book which could build a bridge between the theoretical literatures in strategic management and international economics, and provide the basis for improved national policies on 'competitiveness'. This review of CAN draws on papers written since its publication to show that while it was enormously rich in its range and scope it fell far short of the claims made for it. That failure arose from a number of sources. Most fundamentally, there were elisions with respect to the object of the analysis which meant that explanations for productivity at national level became confused with explanations for industry level success in gaining market share. Second, there were fundamental misunderstandings of the factors which determine trade, particularly with respect to the principle of comparative advantage. Third, there were flaws in the methodology and mode of reasoning. Finally, the assertions which form the heart of CAN have been refuted. Sustained prosperity may be achieved without a nation becoming 'innovation-driven', strong 'diamonds' are not in place in the home bases of many internationally successful industries and inward foreign direct investment does not indicate a lack of 'competitiveness' or low national productivity. Policy-makers are left with a 'laundry list' on which to base simple SWOT-type analyses of their economies, but there is no reliable guide to policy. Developing countries in particular are inadvertently encouraged to pursue policies which might be harmful. Porter generalized inappropriately from the American experience, while confusing competition at industry level with trade at national level. CAN 's failure suggests that academicians of international business would be well advised to revisit the elementary economics of trade and growth before venturing too boldly into the field of policy.     

Labour markets, welfare, and the personal scope of employment law

The issues which confront those concerned with employment law,about the types of workers to whom employment laws apply, arehighly relevant to the subject of labour markets and welfare.The formulation and application of the personal categories ofemployment law is or involves a welfare allocation, often seenas a trade-off between welfare and efficiency. This articledescribe the basic legal framework for determining the personalscope of employment law in the UK, considers some recent adaptationsto that framework, engages in comparison with some continentalEuropean legal systems, examines empirical evidence about theworking of the personal categories of employment law, describesthe debate within the ILO about employment status and 'contractlabour', canvasses some ideas about the growth of complex workrelationships, and concludes by assessing a remaining task offurther refinement of theory in this area.     

The Effect of Tax Treaties on Multinational Firms: New Evidence from Microdata

This paper uses affiliate‐level data from Swedish multinationals to examine the impact of tax treaties on both overall affiliate sales and the composition of those sales. In line with previous results, we find little evidence for an effect of treaties on the level of total sales. We do, however, find that a tax treaty increases the probability of investment by a firm in a given country. In addition, we find that a treaty reduces exports to the parent but increases imports of intermediate inputs from the parent. This is consistent with treaties increasing the effective host tax. This suggests that tax treaties impact the behaviour of multinationals along some dimensions but not along others.     

How Choice Experiment Design Affects Estimated Valuation of Use of Gestation Crates

This study utilises a split‐sample experimental approach where six different choice experiment designs that vary in the number of attributes are used to control for the effects of design dimensions and consumer inferences in assessing consumer demand. Our application is in the use of gestation stalls (crates) in pork production. Our findings suggest that effects of both the mixture of attributes included in the design and consumer inferences on the specific attributes presented in experiments influence estimated willingness‐to‐pay and consumer welfare. Implications are that when researchers limit their studies to the use of a unique choice experiment design, resulting willingness‐to‐pay estimates might not be robust to different specifications.     

The Rise and Rise of Evidence in Health Care

Health care practitioners (especially doctors) have always given assurances that what they do is efficacious. But in the past 50 years justification of the effectiveness of health care interventions has attained a new prominence. Evidence, at least notionally, now lies at the heart of health care policy and practice. This article provides an overview of the generation and use of evidence on effectiveness in health care. It explains why rigorous methodologies have taken hold and describes the major preoccupation with trying to ensure that research evidence has an impact on clinical practice. The strengths and weaknesses of evidence-based health care are explored to identify the opportunities for profitable transfer of experience across the public sector.     

ON THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN CANADA*

This paper is concerned with measurement of the size distribution of personal wealth in Canada. The only available estimates of this distribution are those provided on the occasions when Statistics Canada's Survey of Consumer Finance has surveyed assets and debts. Results of the latest “SCF” to do this, that of 1977, are not yet available. The paper shows that the previous study, conducted in 1970, indicated wealth-inequality as viewed by top quantile shares roughly of the same order as estimated by others for the U.S. and U.K. A comparison of asset and debt aggregates implied by the survey, however, with independent totals indicates that for almost all items the SCF likely under-estimated true holdings. The possible relative importance of sampling and non-sampling errors in explaining this distortion is considered, drawing on Monte Carlo evidence and American validation studies of survey response. It is concluded that sampling error is unlikely to provide the explanation for SCF discrepancies in aggregates, but that non-sampling error is capable of doing so. Finally the 1970 SCF distribution of wealth is re-estimated. First a correction is made for hypothetical differential response according to true net worth. Second an attempt is made to remove the effects of under-reporting by respondents. The “best-guess” re-estimated distribution exhibits mean net worth considerably greater than shown by the SCF but only a slightly greater degree of concentration. Under certain fundamental assumptions this result is surprisingly robust. The appropriate conclusion is not that survey estimates of the distribution of wealth are reliable, but that the strong non-sampling errors affecting the 1970 Canadian SCF wealth estimates may have been composed of almost completely offsetting sources of bias.