Foreword: Competing: Important Stimuli for Knowledge Cities to Become Prosperous
Peter Franz
T. Yigitcanlar, K. Metaxiotis, J. Carrillo (eds), Building Prosperous Knowledge Cities. Policies, Plans and Metrics,
2012
Abstract
The author discusses the role of competitions in urban development strategies based on the cooperation of higher education institutions. The experience with similar strategies in regional policy and in innovation policy is reflected upon. After the presentation of some cases, the advantages and disadvantages of development strategies based on competitions are compared.
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Intellectual Property Rights Policy, Competition and Innovation
Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit
Journal of the European Economic Association,
No. 1,
2012
Abstract
To what extent and in what form should the intellectual property rights (IPR) of innovators be protected? Should a company with a large technology lead over its rivals receive the same IPR protection as a company with a more limited advantage? In this paper, we develop a dynamic framework for the study of the interactions between IPR and competition, in particular to understand the impact of such policies on future incentives. The economy consists of many industries and firms engaged in cumulative (step-by-step) innovation. IPR policy regulates whether followers in an industry can copy the technology of the leader. We prove the existence of a steady-state equilibrium and characterize some of its properties. We then quantitatively investigate the implications of different types of IPR policy on the equilibrium growth rate and welfare. The most important result from this exercise is that full patent protection is not optimal; instead, optimal policy involves state-dependent IPR protection, providing greater protection to technology leaders that are further ahead than those that are close to their followers. This is because of a trickle-down effect: providing greater protection to firms that are further ahead of their followers than a certain threshold increases the R&D incentives also for all technology leaders that are less advanced than this threshold.
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Local Economic Structure and Sectoral Employment Growth in German Cities
Annette Illy, Michael Schwartz, Christoph Hornych, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie,
No. 5,
2011
Abstract
This study systematically examines the impact of fundamental elements of urban economic structure on sectoral employment growth in German cities (“urban growth”). We test four elements simultaneously – sectoral specialisation, diversification of economic activities, urban size and the impact of local competition. To account for the effect of varying spatial delimitations in the analysis of urban growth, we further differentiate between cities and planning regions as geographical units. Our regression results show a U-shaped relationship between localisation economies and urban growth and positive effects of local competition on urban growth. With respect to diversification, we find positive effects on urban growth on the city level, but insignificant results on the level of the planning regions. The impact of urban size also differs between free cities and planning regions; in the former, a U-shaped relationship is found, whereas the effect is inversely U-shaped for the latter.
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Assessing Competitiveness: How Firm-Level Data Can Help
Carlo Altomonte, Filippo di Mauro, Giorgio Barba Navaretti, Gianmarco Ottaviano
Bruegel Policy Contribution,
No. 16,
2011
Abstract
As policymakers refocus on growth, the ability to take a firm-level view is key to disentangling the various factors at the root of competitiveness, and thus to designing appropriate policies. Firm-level data provides critical information for the design of appropriate competitiveness measures that complement traditional macro analysis. More work remains to be done assembling firm-level information, but the variance of the distribution of firm characteristics already conveys important information in addition to standard averages. New indicators should be developed to translate the distribution of firm characteristics into indicators of competitiveness designed to capture not only average performance but also the heterogeneity of firm performance. This Policy Contribution builds on ongoing research within EFIGE (www.efige.org), a project to help identify the internal policies needed to improve the external competitiveness of the European Union.
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Labor Demand During the Crisis: What Happened in Germany?
Claudia M. Buch
IZA. Discussion Paper No. 6074,
2011
Abstract
In Germany, the employment response to the post-2007 crisis has been muted compared to other industrialized countries. Despite a large drop in output, employment has hardly changed. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of German firms’ labor demand during the crisis using a firm-level panel dataset. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we estimate a dynamic labor demand function for the years 2000-2009 accounting for the degree of working time flexibility and the presence of works councils. Second, on the basis of these
estimates, we use the difference between predicted and actual employment as a measure of labor hoarding as the dependent variable in a cross-sectional regression for 2009. Apart from total labor hoarding, we also look at the determinants of subsidized labor hoarding through short-time work. The structural characteristics of firms using these channels of adjustment differ. Product market competition has a negative impact on total labor hoarding but a positive effect on the use of short-time work. Firm covered by collective agreements hoard less labor overall; firms without financial frictions use short-time work less intensively.
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05.10.2011 • 42/2011
Neues EU-Projekt am IWH stärkt internationale Vernetzung
Das Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) hat heute die Verträge zur Beteiligung am Forschungsprojekt „Growth – Innovation – Competitiveness: Fostering Cohesion in Central and Eastern Europe (GRINCOH)“ unterzeichnet, das im 7. Forschungsrahmenprogramm der Europäischen Union (EU) gefördert wird. Im Wettbewerb der eingereichten Anträge wurde das GRINCOH-Projekt nach den Kriterien wissenschaftliche Exzellenz, Qualität des Konsortiums und potenzielle Wirksamkeit in der politischen Beratung am höchsten bewertet.
Iciar Dominguez Lacasa
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Government Banking in Russia: Magnitude and New Features
Andrei Vernikov
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 13,
2011
Abstract
State-controlled banks are currently at the core of financial intermediation in Russia. This paper aims to assess the magnitude of government banking, and to reveal some of its special features and arrangements. We distinguish between directly and indirectly state-controlled banks and construct a set of bank-level statistical data covering the period between 2000 and 2011. By January 2011 the market share of state-controlled banks reached almost 54 percent of all bank assets, putting Russia in the same league with China and India and widening the gap from typical European emerging markets. We show that direct state ownership is gradually substituted by indirect ownership and control. It tends to be organized in corporate pyramids that dilute public property, take control away from government bodies, and underpin managerial opportunism. Statecontrolled
banks blur the borderline between commercial banking and development
banking. Dominance of public banks has a bearing on empirical studies whose results might suggest state-owned banks’ greater (or lesser) efficiency or competitiveness compared to other forms of ownership. We tend to interpret such results as influenced by the choice of indicator, period of observations, sample selection, etc., in the absence of an equal playing field for all groups of players. We suggest that the government’s planned retreat from the banking sector will involve non-core assets mainly, whereas control over core institutions will just become more subtle.
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University Cities: Including Universities and Research Institutes into Strategies for Urban Growth
Peter Franz
International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development,
2011
Abstract
The topic of this special issue refers to the observation that many larger and middle-sized cities dispose of a considerable potential of institutions creating and disseminating knowledge. This kind of endowment seems to be especially valuable in an upcoming knowledge-based economy. Recent strategic concepts and inter-city competitions referring to ‘knowledge-based urban development’, ‘knowledge city’, ‘creative city’, ‘science city’ or ‘entrepreneurial university’ indicate that urban planners and politicians are beginning to search for strategies to take advantage and to make use of this potential. The papers in this special issue a) present case studies of cities trying to activate their knowledge resources for local economic growth, b) deal with regulatory barriers and problems for cities applying ‘knowledge city’ strategies, c) analyze the university support for entrepreneurial activities, and d) discuss some implications of ‘knowledge city’ strategies for architecture and urban planning.
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The Revealed Competitiveness of U.S. Exports
Massimo Del Gatto, Filippo di Mauro, Joseph Gruber, Benjamin Mandel
Federal Reserve Discussion Paper,
No. 1026,
2011
Abstract
The U.S. share of world merchandise exports has declined sharply over the last decade. Using data at the level of detailed industries, this paper analyzes the decline in U.S. share against the backdrop of alternative measures of the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. We document the following facts: (i) only a few industries contributed to the decline in any meaningful way, (ii) a large part of the drop was driven by the changing size of U.S. export industries and not the size of U.S. sales within those industries, (iii) in a gravity framework, the majority of the decline in the U.S. export share within industries was due to the declining U.S. share of world income, and (iv) in a computed structural measure of firm productivity, average U.S. export productivity has generally maintained its high level versus other countries over time. Overall, our analysis suggests that the dismal performance of the U.S. market share is not a sufficient statistic for competitiveness.
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Mergers, Spinoffs, and Employee Incentives
Paolo Fulghieri, Merih Sevilir
Review of Financial Studies,
No. 7,
2011
Abstract
This article studies mergers between competing firms and shows that while such mergers reduce the level of product market competition, they may have an adverse effect on employee incentives to innovate. In industries where value creation depends on innovation and development of new products, mergers are likely to be inefficient even though they increase the market power of the post-merger firm. In such industries, a stand-alone structure where independent firms compete both in the product market and in the market for employee human capital leads to a greater profitability. Furthermore, our analysis shows that multidivisional firms can improve employee incentives and increase firm value by reducing firm size through a spinoff transaction, although doing so eliminates the economies of scale advantage of being a larger firm and the benefits of operating an internal capital market within the firm. Finally, our article suggests that established firms can benefit from creating their own competition in the product and labor markets by accommodating new firm entry, and the desire to do so is greater at the intermediate stages of industry/product development.
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