Employee mobility,spin‐outs,and knowledge spill‐in: How incumbent firms can learn from new ventures

Research summary: We consider conditions in which incumbent firms are particularly poised to benefit from knowledge spilling in from new ventures that employ individuals previously employed by the focal incumbent firm. We distinguish between inventors who leave their incumbent employers to found spin‐outs and those who become non‐founding employees of existing new ventures. Using a sample of new ventures and incumbent firms in the U.S. information technology (IT) sector, we find that incumbents are more likely to benefit from patented knowledge that spills in from their spin‐outs than from new ventures that employ non‐founding inventors formerly employed by the respective incumbent. Any advantage that parent firms have in reaping such knowledge quickly dissipates, however, when these parents have a history of misappropriating the intellectual property of others. Managerial summary: It has long been acknowledged that new ventures can acquire valuable knowledge from their larger and more established counterparts by hiring away their talented employees. We consider the possibility of a reverse flow of knowledge where established firms learn from those new ventures that have poached employees from them. We find that established information technology (IT) firms are more likely to learn and build on the technology of their spin‐outs (i.e., new ventures founded by their former inventors) than from new ventures that simply employ non‐founding inventors formerly employed by the respective IT firm. Any advantage that these IT firms had in reaping technical know‐how from their spin‐outs quickly dissipated, however, when they had a history of misappropriating the intellectual property of others. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Bologna process: how student mobility affects multi-cultural skills and educational quality

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi-cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: (1) a competition effect that raises quality, (2) a free-rider effect that lowers quality, and (3) a composition effect that influences the relative strengths of the two previous effects. The effects lead to a trade-off between the two goals. Full mobility may be optimal only when externalities are high. In this case, student mobility yields inefficiently high educational quality. For moderate externalities, partial mobility is optimal and yields an inefficiently low quality of education.      

Regional capital mobility in China: Economic reform with limited financial integration

This paper assesses the changes in the regional capital mobility in China during the period of economic reform in 1978–2008 by employing a panel time varying coefficient (TVP) model. This approach is much more suitable to model China's evolution in the regional capital mobility than a standard structural break model as China's reforms took place gradually and were often implemented over several stages. Using the TVP model, we find that (1) China's provincial capital mobility demonstrated a moderate improvement over the sample period, but worsened temporarily between 1994 and 1997. This is probably due to the government's effort to combat inflation which reduced the investment and transfers to regions; (2) regions with the most developed and least developed provinces experienced higher degree of capital mobility improvement than those in the middle.     

外资企业的要素属权结构与出口增加值的收益归属

在生产全球化的时代大背景下,外资企业积极参与一国的生产和出口,并从所在国的出口中获取收益。外资企业的出口增加值中既包括了本国要素所产生的增加值,也包括了外国要素所产生的增加值,形成了外资企业出口增加值中的要素属权结构。研究外资企业出口增加值中的要素属权结构,一方面,有助于学术界理解外国要素流入对于本国要素出口增加值的拉动效应;另一方面,有利于学术界厘清外国要素流入所形成的要素收益分配效应。本文运用微观企业数据测算发现:2000—2013年在外资加工出口企业中,中国属权要素出口增加值占属地出口增加值的平均比重为65.85%,两者之间的平均背离程度为34.15%。本文进一步运用区分异质性企业的投入产出表进行测算发现:2012年在外资加工贸易企业和非加工贸易企业出口中,中国属权要素出口增加值与属地要素出口增加值的背离相对值分别为30.13%和25.32%。本文认为属地出口增加值已经不能充分反映外资企业出口中的本国要素收益,研究外资企业出口增加值中的要素属权结构有利于学术界认识增加值贸易中国内要素的实际收益,也可以为一国政府的对外贸易谈判提供科学依据。     

Mobility,risk tolerance and competence to manage risks

Migration is a risky behaviour because of the uncertainty about future wages, living conditions, changing relationships with family and friends and cultural adjustment. While there has been some research on risk and uncertainty in migration, this has mostly been approached as a form of ‘rational’ decision-making: such approaches explain why some groups of individuals are more likely than others to migrate, but are limited in explaining individual variations in behaviour within these groups. Individual migrants vs. non-migrants are self-selected in terms of tolerance of risk and uncertainty but, with very few exceptions, there has been no research on migration within the framework of risk tolerance/aversion and competence to manage risk. Moreover, existing research is based on, and constrained by the limitations of, incumbent data-sets. Drawing on a specially commissioned large-scale survey of the UK population, this paper uses principal component analysis and logistic regression to analyse the extent to which risk and risk-related measures can be used to predict four different types of mobility profiles. There are significant associations between these individual mobility characteristics and general risk/uncertainty tolerance, and competence-based tolerance. These are strongest in terms of the two most polarised mobility types: the least mobile, the Stayers, and the most mobile, the Roamers. Recognising that previous migration is exogenous, a further analysis of migration intentions, with previous migration included as an independent variable, finds the propensity for future migration is, in fact, negatively associated with previous migration, probably due to the importance of ‘pure risk’ as opposed to acquired competence via migration experience, and to life cycle considerations.     

A-Level Subject Choice,Systematic Bias and University Performance in the UK: The Case of Accounting

British students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to attend non-selective state schools and are therefore more likely to take a wider variety of A-level subjects including applied disciplines such as Accounting. This is attributed to the performative pressure subjected by school league tables that incentivise schools to encourage students to select subjects that will yield the highest grades. However, many leading universities have restricted the chances of applicants holding particular combinations of A-level subjects that, in some cases, include Accounting. Interviews held within a large English university reveal that few students are aware of such restrictions, whilst corresponding quantitative data indicates that students who enter university with two or more restricted A-level subjects perform no differently on average than other students. Those entering university with an Accounting A-level, however, perform, better in their first year but exhibit lower degree performance, on average, by the end of their studies.     

The Effect of Regulatory Harmonization on Cross‐Border Labor Migration: Evidence from the Accounting Profession

The paper examines whether international regulatory harmonization increases cross‐border labor migration. To study this question, we analyze European Union initiatives that harmonized accounting and auditing standards. Regulatory harmonization should reduce economic mobility barriers, essentially making it easier for accounting professionals to move across countries. Our research design compares the cross‐border migration of accounting professionals relative to tightly matched other professionals before and after regulatory harmonization. We find that international labor migration in the accounting profession increases significantly relative to other professions. We provide evidence that this effect is due to harmonization, rather than increases in the demand for accounting services during the implementation of the rule changes. The findings illustrate that diversity in rules constitutes an economic barrier to cross‐border labor mobility and, more specifically, that accounting harmonization can have a meaningful effect on cross‐border migration.     

Childhood investments and skill formation

The skills needed to ensure good life chances are rising (and changing) and, despite decades of education reforms, there has been little progress in terms of equalizing opportunities. The impact of social origins on child outcomes persists, and may even strengthen. This suggests that the pursuit of more equality and future productivity come together. A major challenge is to minimize the dispersion of skills. The foundations of policy lie in the realization that learning abilities are formed during the first years of childhood. The pursuit of an optimal human capital policy needs to consider three issues: (1) the uneven capacity of parents to invest in children; (2) the impact of mothers’ employment on child outcomes; and, (3) the potential benefits of early pre-school programmes.     

农村经济精英与村域发展

随着市场经济的发展，农村经济精英逐渐成为农村众多精英中的主流精英，也成为村域发展的一支新型带动力量。文章运用文献的方法，在综述基础上指出了目前中国农村经济精英的概念、类型、发展现状及在村域发展中的作用，总结提出村域发展不同阶段农村经济精英的不同作用，并在此基础上指出了目前该方面需要加强研究的问题域。