Exploring the knowledge spillovers of a technology in an entrepreneurial ecosystem—The case of artificial intelligence in Sydney

New knowledge presents opportunities for commercial value and can hence be a critical asset for entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). In particular, general purpose technologies are major drivers of entrepreneurship. Thus, a nuanced understanding on technological knowledge and its spillovers among actors within an EE is warranted. Using knowledge‐spillover‐based strategic entrepreneurship theory, we propose to observe knowledge spillovers through the assessment of the knowledge bases of a technology in an EE. To do so, this article proposes to use three key sources of knowledge: publications reflecting the emerging knowledge base, patents representing the realized knowledge base, and startups showing the experimental knowledge base. This article uses secondary data sources such as Web of Science and applies the method of bibliometrics to illustrate how an assessment is carried out in practice by evaluating the artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge bases in Sydney from 2000 to 2018. The findings are summarized with an illustration of the evolution of the key actors and their activities over time in order to indicate the key strengths and weaknesses in Sydney's AI knowledge among the different bases. Contrary to expectations from the high potential of knowledge spillovers from a general purpose digital technology such as AI, the article shows that apparent knowledge spillovers are yet highly limited in Sydney. Even though Sydney has a strong emerging knowledge base, the realized knowledge base seems weak and the experimental knowledge base is slowly improving. That observation itself verifies the need to take strategic actions to facilitate knowledge spillovers within EEs. After the implications for theory and policy makers are discussed, suggestions for further studies are proposed.     

Odious Debt in an Imperfect World

The odious debt problem refers to a government's ability to borrow for elite consumption while the general population repays. Although an intuitive response is to ban lending to such regimes, this paper shows that if a government faces endogenous replacement risk, then an international odious debt doctrine which (i) decreases the country's debt ceiling; (ii) decreases the likelihood that the citizens must repay the debt; or (iii) increases the government's cost of borrowing for a given default risk can all decrease citizens' welfare. These findings suggest that, even when a regime is clearly odious, allowing it to borrow up to a point may be preferable to a complete lending ban.     

Economic, Demographic, and Institutional Determinants of Life Insurance Consumption across Countries

Life insurance has become an increasingly important part ofthe financial sector over the past 40 years, providing a rangeof financial services for consumers and becoming a major sourceof investment in the capital market. But what drives the largevariation in life insurance consumption across countries remainsunclear. Using a panel with data aggregated at different frequenciesfor 68 economies in 1961–2000, this article finds thateconomic indicators—such as inflation, income per capita,and banking sector development—and religious and institutionalindicators are the most robust predictors of the use of lifeinsurance. Education, life expectancy, the young dependencyratio, and the size of the social security system appear tohave no robust association with life insurance consumption.The results highlight the importance of price stability andbanking sector development in fully realizing the savings andinvestment functions of life insurance in an economy.     

Political Risk and Export Promotion: Evidence from Germany

Political risk represents an important hidden transaction cost that reduces international trade. This paper investigates the claim that public export credit guarantees mitigate this friction to trade flows and hence promote exports. We employ an empirical trade gravity model, where we explicitly control for political risk in the importing country in order to evaluate the effect of export guarantees. Using a novel data set on guarantees, we estimate the effect of guarantees in a static and dynamic panel model. We find a statistically and economically significant positive effect of public export guarantees on exports which indicates that export promotion is indeed effective. Furthermore, political risk turns out to be an important obstacle for exports and hence should be taken into account in any empirical model of trade.     

Financing patterns around the world: Are small firms different?

Using a firm-level survey database covering 48 countries, we investigate how financial and institutional development affects financing of large and small firms. Our database is not limited to large firms but includes small and medium-size firms and data on a broad spectrum of financing sources, including leasing, supplier, development, and informal finance. Small firms and firms in countries with poor institutions use less external finance, especially bank finance. Protection of property rights increases external financing of small firms significantly more than of large firms, mainly due to its effect on bank finance. Small firms do not use disproportionately more leasing or trade finance compared with larger firms, so these financing sources do not compensate for lower access to bank financing of small firms. We also find that larger firms more easily expand external financing when they are constrained than small firms. Finally, we find suggestive evidence that the pecking order holds across countries.     

Measuring Financial Contagion Using Time‐Aligned Data: The Importance of the Speed of Transmission of Shocks*

This paper presents a new empirical approach to address the problem of trading time differences between markets in studies of financial contagion. In contrast to end‐of‐business‐day data common to most contagion studies, we employ price observations, which are exactly aligned in time to correct for time‐zone and end‐of‐business‐day differences between markets. Additionally, we allow for time lags between price observations in order to test the assumption that the shock is not immediately transmitted from one market to the other. Our analysis of the financial turmoil surrounding the Asian crisis reveals that such corrections have an important bearing on the evidence for contagion, independent of the methodology employed. Using a correlation‐based test, we find more contagion the faster we assume the shock to be transmitted.     

Can economic bonus programs jeopardize service relationships?

Research findings on the impact of economic bonus programs on service relationships are contradictory. While some studies find positive effects of economic bonus programs on customer’s relational behavior, other studies demonstrate negative effects. Building on self-determination theory, Dholakia (J Market Res 43(2):109–120, 2006) points at a possible explanation for these conflicting results, arguing that economic marketing programs have negative effects on self-determined customers when the program is perceived as controlling by them. By testing the effect of four different kinds of economic bonus programs on loyalty in an experimental setting using a nationwide representative sample of 768 participants, this research is the first that provides empirical evidence that economic bonus programs can indeed endanger service relationships by reducing customer’s self-determination. Implications of our findings for the abundance of economic bonus programs offered to service customers these days are highlighted.     

Can good marketing carry a bad product? Evidence from the motion picture industry

We examine the relative roles of marketing actions and product quality in determining commercial success. Using the motion picture context, in which product quality is difficult for consumers to anticipate and information on product success is available for different points in time, we model the effects of studio actions and movie quality on a movie’s sales during different phases of its theatrical run. For a sample of 331 recent motion pictures, structural equation modeling demonstrates that studio actions primarily influence early box office results, whereas movie quality influences both short- and long-term theatrical outcomes. The core results are robust across moderating conditions. We identify two data segments with follow-up latent class regressions and explore the degree of studio actions needed to “save” movies of varying quality. We finally offer some implications for research and management.