Economic policy implications of the implementation of the single European currency

As it is well known, before the next century a single European currency, the Euro, will be introduced and European products will enjoy an extensive market. Economists have focused their attention on analyzing the different costs and benefits derived from the implementation of the single currency. With regard to the benefits of such an implementation, the most important ones are as follows. The introduction of a single currency will encourage internal demand and will help economic agents save transaction costs; labor distribution will improve; there will be less uncertainty in the markets; and, lastly, it will improve economic growth if technical transmission is facilitated. But there are also problems in the implementation of the single European currency. Credit institutions, especially banks and savings banks, will lose their income from the currency exchange process. It must also be considered that the economies will depend on the higher development level of the German economy. The goal of this paper is to analyze the costs and benefits derived from the implementation of a single currency.     

Value at Risk and Economic Growth

The improvement of data statistics as well as the econometrician methods have facilitated the introduction the new variables and factors I the economic growth analysis. In this sense, real variables have mainly been considered in the economic growth studies, but not financial or risk management aspects. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze the relationship between economic growth and value at risk and the feed-back process. The goal of the paper is to analyze the relationship between economic growth and risk management and the feed-back process. We will consider economic variables, including economic growth, rule of law, human capital, fiscal policy and monetary policy, among others, in our analysis. We will analyze the theoretical relationships between these variables and risk and the effects of risk on economic growth. We will also develop an empirical analysis considering the case of 15 European Union countries.

Fiscal policy effects, convergence, and growth

The objective of this paper is to create an economic growth model with public capital that determines when exogenous or endogenous growth appears, showing the optimal public sector dimension, and determines the convergence equation condition. An empirical analysis is also developed for several countries.     

Innovation, progress, entrepreneurship and cultural aspects

In the case of economic progress, some of the literature has considered economic growth and economic progress to be the same thing. However, there is a relevant difference between the two concepts. As Holcombe states, economic growth considers the quantity of products and economic progress the quality of products. Innovation has been considered as a key factor to promote economic progress. A culture would have a direct and an indirect effect on innovation through entrepreneurship. The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between culture and innovation. To carry out this study, an empirical estimation has been developed for the case of 11 countries.     

Cash flow effects on economic growth

Policy makers have traditionally considered the macroeconomic relations and the variables that can affect the economic objectives that they pursue, such as prices, employment, balance of payments, and economic growth. Recently, microeconomic behavior has also been considered. To complete the analysis, it is necessary to include those variables that define the firm's evolution and activities, and cash flow could be this kind of variable to be included in the analysis. The main objective of this paper is to show the relationship between cash flow and one of the final economic policy targets, economic growth. This paper considers the relationship between cash flow and applied economics, then develops the effects of cash flow on economic growth.     

Non-profit organizations,entrepreneurship, social capital and economic growth

Traditional economic growth literature focuses mainly on the neoclassical approach. According to this view, firms try to maximize their benefits so that there is no place for non-profit organizations (NPOs). However, the activity of NPOs has a higher relevance in society, and it is necessary to analyze its effects on economic growth. These effects are not direct, but occur through other variables that directly promote economic growth, such as entrepreneurship activity and human capital, and through the improvement of education. We engage in an empirical analysis of these issues using data from 11 countries.     

Modelling innovation support systems for regional development – analysis of cluster structures in innovation in Portugal

The present article offers a concise theoretical conceptualization and operational analysis of the contribution of innovation to regional development. The latter concepts are closely related to geographical proximity, knowledge diffusion and filters and clustering. Institutional innovation profiles and regional patterns of innovation are two mutually linked, novel conceptual elements in this article. Next to a theoretical framing, the article employs the regional innovation systems concept as a vehicle to analyse institutional innovation profiles. Our case study addresses three Portuguese regions and their institutions, included in a web-based inventory of innovation agencies which offered the foundation for an extensive database. This data-set was analysed by means of a recently developed principal coordinates analysis followed by a Logistic Biplot approach (leading to a Voronoi mapping) to design a systemic typology of innovation structures where each institution is individually represented. There appears to be a significant difference in the regional innovation patterns resulting from the diverse institutional innovation profiles concerned. These profiles appear to be region specific. Our conclusion highlights the main advantages in the use of the method used for policy-makers and business companies.     

Economic design of an chart for short-run production

The aim of this paper is to present an economical design of an X chart for a short-run production. The process mean starts equal to μ₀ (in-control, State I) and in a random time it shifts to μ₁>μ₀ (out-of-control, State II). The monitoring procedure consists of inspecting a single item at every m produced ones. If the measurement of the quality characteristic does not meet the control limits, the process is stopped, adjusted, and additional (r-1) items are inspected retrospectively. The probabilistic model was developed considering only shifts in the process mean. A direct search technique is applied to find the optimum parameters which minimizes the expected cost function. Numerical examples illustrate the proposed procedure.     

The origin principle and the welfare gains from indirect tax harmonization

This paper establishes a parallelism between indirect tax harmonization when taxes are levied according to the destination principle and its counterpart when taxes are imposed on an origin basis. Using a simple two-country model of international trade it is argued that, under normal circumstances, indirect tax harmonization under the origin principle, considered as a movement of domestic taxes toward an appropriately designed average tax structure, is potentially Pareto improving. It is also shown that if the initial position is a Nash equilibrium, there are exceptional situations under which the above-mentioned reform may generate an actual Pareto improvement, so that both countries improve their welfare without any need for a compensating international transfer.     

Job satisfaction and commitment in the entrepreneurial SME

In the current global corporate climate that surrounds us, firms would do well to encourage the talent and creativity of their employees to achieve success. This is achieved, not by giving priority to individual talent, but by optimizing the collective as a whole and with the firm’s activities based on teamwork and joint effort. Heads of organizations might benefit from creating a favorable context for the birth and growth of collective internal cooperation, which is understood to be the collective ability to create and innovate on the part of the team, the firm or the organization. Having contrasted our hypotheses through research on Spanish firms, we have concluded that job satisfaction and commitment to the team are factors that have a direct and positive effect on Internal Entrepreneurship.