Innovation Offshoring,Institutional Context and Innovation Performance: A Meta‐Analysis

Innovation offshoring (IO) has become a widespread management practice. Yet, evidence on the performance implications is inconsistent, and scattered across disciplines and contexts. We argue that the benefits firms can derive from IO depend on the institutional environment at home. Drawing on recent work on institutional theory in international business, we explore institutions that facilitate reverse knowledge transfer and/or institutional arbitrage with respect to innovation‐related activities. The results of our meta‐analysis that synthesizes evidence from 48 samples show that IO is related positively to innovation performance. As predicted, this relationship is moderated by differences in the institutional environments across countries. Specifically, when national innovation systems are weak at home, IO appears to enable institutional arbitrage strategy whereas Confucian cultures enable more effective reverse knowledge transfer. However, contrary to our expectations, the beneficial effects of IO appear to have diminished over time.     

Under what conditions may social contracts arise? Evidence from the Hanseatic League

Social contractarians commonly take social contracts to be solely hypothetical and refrain from elaborating on the factors that influence the feasibility of the formation of social contracts. In contrast, this paper aims at providing a discussion of the conditions affecting the feasibility of social contracts. I argue that the more aligned the preferences of group members for public goods are, the more the individuals share similar social norms, and the smaller the group is the more feasible a genuine social contract becomes. I provide evidence in support of my contention from the medieval Hanseatic League. At the Hanseatic Kontor in Novgorod, one of the four major trading posts of the Hanseatic League in cities outside of Germany, German merchants agreed to live under the rule of a constitution that gave rise to a political authority for the Kontor society.     

The Global Distribution of Trademarks: Some Stylised Facts

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the global distribution of trademarks. It is based on a new dataset compiled by the authors from the statistical information published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The questions analysed include the distribution of trademarks among countries of different income levels, the share of trademark registrations accounted for by foreign residents and its variation across different income groups, the extent to which poor countries participate in the international trademark system, and the distribution of registrations across different sectors of the economy. The evidence presented in this paper is relevant for assessing possible welfare implications of changes in intellectual property protection and evaluating the role of reputational assets in determining international trading patterns.     

Patent Protection, Transnational Corporations, and Market Structure: A Simulation Study of the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

This study examines the role of patent protection on the behavior of transnational corporations and market structure in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. The method of analysis is the calibration of a theoretical model to firm-level data from two therapeutic groups of the Indian pharmacy market, and a simulation analysis asking the hypothetical question of what the market structure would be if India granted patent protection to pharmaceutical products. The model developed for the simulation analysis explicitly accounts for the complex demand structure for pharmaceutical goods that results from the presence of therapeutic substitute drugs, and product differentiation among chemically equivalent drugs.     

SSNIP, state-owned enterprises, public goods and complements

State-owned enterprises sometimes operate in markets below marginal costs in order to provide public goods. In practice it happens that they can cross-subsidize their activity in other markets since regulation is not perfect. Based on a simple model, I show that such cross-subsidization reduces at least consumer welfare. In competition law, the SSNIP test is used to identify market power. If the state-owned enterprises have some scope for price discrimination, the paper argues that the paradox of the SSNIP test that companies operating below marginal costs are a monopolist on a ??relevant market?? makes sense. The paper recommends imposing a duty to deal as a special responsibility for these companies. Finally, it is argued that some criteria are necessary to refine the applicability of competition law in such situations. Subadditivity of the underlying cost structure should be one sufficient condition to apply competition law.     

Contribution of financial market segments at different stages of development: Transition,cohesion and mature economies compared

What is the impact of financial sector segments at different stages of development? We apply a production function approach to investigate the impact of the credit, bond and stock segments in nine EU-accession countries over early years of transition (1996–2000) and compare these to mature market economies and to countries at intermediate stage. We find that the transfer mechanisms differ over the development cycle (from bond markets to educational attainment to labor participation) and that financial market segments with links to the public sector (but not stock markets) contributed to stability and growth in transition economies.     

Bartlett corrections for the weibull distribution

We describe, for the calculation of Bartlett adjustments, a method which may be of use when a transformation to orthogonalized parameters can be found. This method is used to calculate the Bartlett adjustment for the Weibull distribution if two or only one of the parameters are of interest.