Ideologie vor Eigennutz?

The case study regards the question whether economic self-interests of publishers have a significant influence on the reporting of their own newspapers with regard to crucial topics touching those interests. The conflict about the minimum wage in the mailing business is scrutinized. The newspapers engaged in the mailing business are compared with those of independent newspapers without these interests. Because the political inclination of a newspaper, even beyond the self-interests of its publisher, affects the reporting of a conflict, newspapers with different political views are chosen among economically involved and uninvolved media companies. The study is based on the “public task” of press and researches, using a quantifying analysis of contents, relevance and plurality of conflict reports. The results show that in this case the basic political orientation of a newspaper had a significant influence on the portrayal of the conflict. An additional influence with regard to the economic self-interests could not be proven significantly. Ideology seems to be more important than self-interest. However in this case political orientation and economic self-interests harmonized. Therefore it is still relevant to study the role of economic interests for the realization of the “public task”.     

Financial incentives to postpone retirement and further effects on employment — Evidence from a natural experiment

This paper examines the effect of the introduction of permanent benefit reductions for early retirees (i) on the duration until benefit claiming and (ii) on the duration until exit from gainful employment. I estimate discrete time duration models using different error term specifications. Administrative data containing the full earnings history of the individuals are used. Since the reform implementing the benefit reductions was a natural experiment, under some assumptions a causal effect can be identified. The permanent reduction of retirement benefit amounts causes a postponement of claiming benefits by about 14 months and a delay of employment exit by about 10 months on average.     

The international diffusion of biotechnology: the arrival of developing countries

According to conventional economic theory, countries tend to converge in economic and technological terms towards the leader. More recently, empirical approaches by economic historians (Abramovitz, Landes, Madison, Reinert) have found that while some countries are catching up, others are falling increasingly behind. Several theories compete to explain the precise mechanisms that explain how technological diffusion takes place. The paper reviews them and draws testable hypotheses for the study of international biotechnology diffusion. Biotechnologies are one of the leading sets of technologies developed in the late 20th century. They encompass applications in agriculture, chemicals, environment and pharmaceuticals. The United States has led the way in both scientific and industrial development of biotechnologies and these have quickly spread to Canada, Japan and Western Europe. Are the main developing countries adopting biotechnology? A study of the adoption of human health biotechnology in eight developing countries in Asia (China, India, Korea, and Singapore) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) was conducted, based on the analysis of in situ interviews, patents and scientific publication. The study shows a marked process of adoption and learning in science: each of the above-mentioned developing countries is increasing its share of world publication between 1996 and 2008. However, their share of biotechnology patents for the same period has barely increased. There are also regional differences in terms of sectoral concentration; Latin America, Argentina and Brazil are eager adopters of agricultural biotechnology and are moving up in the pharmaceutical records. Several Argentinean, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean pharmaceutical companies have been particularly active in the development of biogenerics.     

The effect of disability pension incentives on early retirement decisions

I investigate the incentive effects of disability pensions on disability retirement entry as a special type of early retirement. The implicit tax rate on further work is included as a forward looking incentive measure. A substantial change of the disability pension legislation caused exogenous variation in disability benefits in Germany in 2001 and is used to obtain estimates of individual's responses to financial incentives. Benefit levels appear to have no effect on the labour market behaviour. At the same time, there is a sizable and significant disincentive effect of implicit taxes on labour market income, indicating that alleviating such disincentives would likely increase labour force participation. Since the response to financial incentives occurs mainly among those in good health, such a policy might on the other hand imperil the aim of providing insurance against a health‐induced loss of one's working capacity.     

The timing of retirement — New evidence from Swiss female workers

We investigate the responsiveness of individual retirement decisions to changes in financial incentives. A reform increased women's normal retirement age (NRA) in two steps from age 62 to age 63 first and then to age 64. At the same time retirement at the previous NRA became possible at a benefit discount. Since the reform affected specific birth cohorts we can identify causal effects. We find strong and robust behavioral effects of changes in financial retirement incentives. A permanent reduction of retirement benefits by 3.4% induces a decline in the age-specific annual retirement probability by over 50%. The response to changes in financial retirement benefits varies with educational background: those with low education respond most strongly to an increase in the price of leisure.     

Effects of R & D Spillovers on the Profitability of Firms

This cross-section study of a sample of 278 firms from the COMPUSTAT II database explores the relationship between a firm's profitability and other variables, notably its own R & D capital, knowledge and market spillovers and appropriability. The proxy for knowledge spillovers is based on technological distance. Market spillovers are based on a patent input-output matrix. Both spillover proxies combine information on R & D expenditures and patent counts.The results do not reject the hypothesis that R & D has a direct, positive effect on profitability, especially in industries with effective patent protection. Information spillovers affect profits negatively, market spillovers positively.     

R&D,Interindustry and International Technology Spillovers and the Total Factor Productivity Growth of Manufacturing Industries in Canada, 1974-1989

The paper presents new econometric evidence on the relationship between total factor productivity growth and the R&D expenditures of Canadian manufacturing industries in the presence of interindustry and international spillovers of technology. In contrast to studies that presume that international spillovers are incorporated in imports of intermediate and/or capital equipment goods, the present paper assumes that the principal channel of transmission of new technology is foreign direct investment. Three original proxies for international spillovers use information on patenting, the size and the origin of foreign ownership in the host country and the R&D expenditures in the country of origin. The results suggest that the nexus between industry's own R&D expenditures and the TFP growth is significant and positive, especially for the process-related R&D. Domestic interindustry spillovers of new technology have a larger effect on TFP than industry's own R&D expenditures. All three proxies for international technology spillovers are associated positively and significantly with TFP growth. However, international spillovers contribute to TFP growth less than domestic interindustry spillovers and less than own process-related R&D.     

THE USE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND INNOVATION BY MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN CANADA

The objective of the paper is to determine how the utilisation of intellectual property rights (IPRs) by Canadian manufacturing firms is related to their characteristics, activities, competitive strategies and industry sector in which they operate. The principal source of information used in this endeavour is the Statistics Canada Survey of Innovation 1999.

The paper starts with an overview of other studies that looked at the use of intellectual property rights in Canada. Follows a conceptual framework presenting variables likely to explain the use specific IPRs by Canadian manufacturing firms.

The use of IPRs is to a great extent correlated with basic economic characteristics of firms, their activities and industry environment. A series of estimated logit regressions predict the probability that a firm will use a specific IPR instrument. Also estimated is the contribution of the use of IPRs to the probability that a firm innovates.

The decision of a firm to use IPRs is often not independent of the decision to innovate. To eliminate the potential endogeneity bias I estimate a two-stage logit model. A comparison of the single- and two-stage logit models shows that the nexus from the protection of intellectual property (patents) to innovation may be weaker than indicated by the single equation model.