inflation and the informativeness of prices this paper studies the welfare effects of the relative price variability arising from inflation if customers and suppliers form long term relationships prices have an informational role a potential customer uses current prices as signals of future prices inflation reduces the informativeness of current prices causing customers to make costly mistakes about which relationships to enter in addition the reduced informativeness of prices makes demand less price elastic thereby increasing markups both effects can be quantitatively significant at moderate inflation rates

not all price endings are created equal price points and asymmetric price rigidity abstract we document an asymmetry in the rigidity of 9 ending prices relative to non 9 ending prices consumers have difficulty noticing higher prices if they are 9 ending or noticing price increases if the new prices are 9 ending because 9 endings are used as a signal for low prices price setters respond strategically to the consumer heuristic by setting 9 ending prices more often after price increases than after price decreases 9 ending prices therefore remain 9 ending more often after price increases than after price decreases leading to asymmetric rigidity 9 ending prices are more rigid upward than downward these findings hold for both transaction prices and regular prices and for both inflation and no inflation periods

making sense of the competitiveness debate the debate over national competitiveness is marked by some basic misperceptions with few exceptions those who use the term have a crude essentially mercantilist view of world trade in which competition among nations is just like competition between corporations not only do the authors and readers of reports on national competitiveness usually not understand comparative advantage they are unaware of the most basic adding up constraints economists however find it hard to believe that seemingly well informed people can really be this naive and assume that there must be more sophisticated ideas lying behind what they say the rationales offered by economists in turn offer false comfort to the would be sophisticates who like the term competitiveness they believe that they have transcended conventional economic theory when the fact is that they have failed to comprehend it in short the actual level of discussion is lower than any of the participants imagines copyright 1996 by oxford university press

upgrading in global value chains lessons from latin american clusters it has been shown that clustering helps local enterprises in industrial districts overcome growth constraints and compete in distant markets in advanced and less developed countries nevertheless recent contributions have stressed that more attention needs to be paid to external linkages and to the role played by global buyers to foster upgrading at cluster levels in this study we contribute to this debate focusing on the analysis of the relationships existing between clustering global value chains upgrading and sectoral patterns of innovation in latin america we find that sectoral specificities matter and influence the mode and the extent of upgrading in clusters integrated in global value chains

exporting manufactures human resources natural resources and trade policy whether a country s exports consist mainly of manufactures or mainly of primary products depends fundamentally on the skills of its labour force relative to the extent of its natural resources this proposition derived from a modified version of heckscher ohlin theory is supported by a strong cross country correlation between the manufactured primary export ratio and the skill land ratio cross country variation in trade policies is now only a minor cause of variation in the manufactured primary export ratio

sme growth the relationship with business advice and external collaboration the paper presents multivariate analysis of the relationship of sme growth with the acquisition of external business advice whilst controlling for the influence of sme characteristics of age manufacturing services high technology innovator level of skill of the workforce exporter and number of competitors the relationship of external business advice with sme performance is statistically significant for only a small number of sources and fields obtaining external advice in fields such as business strategy and staff recruitment is associated with positive firm performance the main positive relationships of advice and performance are dominated by private sector sources such as lawyers suppliers customers and business friends relatives collaborative arrangements with suppliers nationally internationally have a strong positive relationship with employment and turnover growth collaboration with local suppliers has a strong positive relationship with growth in profitability there is little evidence of statistically significant relationships between government backed providers of business advice such as business link and firm performance

discrete equilibrium price dispersion an explicit solution of an equilibrium model with price setting firms and searching customers makes possible a number of comparativestatics predictions about how cost differences among firms search costs of customers and taxes will affect the mean and variance of the distribution of market prices another implication of the model is that a firm s demand depends on the difference between its price and the average price in the market

moving innovation systems research to the next level towards an integrative agenda the concept of innovation systems has been a guiding paradigm of innovation research and strongly influenced research and innovation policy since the early 1990s in spite of this success criticisms have been raised in recent years about whether it is still a suitable framework for addressing the innovation related challenges of the future in the present paper we claim that systemic explanations of innovation success have still a very important role to play in order to address the rising criticism however we have to reconsider the conceptual core of the family of innovation systems is approaches and sketch out a path for renewal the paper retraces the conceptual roots of is approaches assesses their uptake in different policy circles around the world discusses the conceptual core and explanatory ambition and finally formulates a future oriented research agenda for a more integrative innovation systems framework

the private sector in agricultural research systems will it fill the gap abstract this article examines whether the private sector can fill the gap of declining public research in developing countries economic theory suggests private for profit research will focus on areas where returns to research are appropriable and reasonable profits are generated actual private for profit research activities concentrate on countries and industries with large markets appropriable returns strong science infrastructure and favorable government policies governments and donors can promote private research by easing constraints to private entry and operations but if governments stop funding research on public goods and technologies with limited market potential the private sector is unlikely to fill the gap completely

on high inflation and the allocation of resources abstract this paper formalizes some of the disruptive effects of inflation on the organization of markets rapid inflation induces buyers to speed up purchases which thus inhibits the selection of more adequate trading partners through search this blurs distinctions across firms of different productivities and leads to resource misallocations as inflation causes efficient and inefficient firms to be less distinguishable the incentives to engage in cost reduction are dampened and lower growth results the model could provide a rationale for the large number of bankruptcies and large turnover rates following successful inflation stabilization programs like those of israel bolivia and argentina

sources procedures and microeconomic effects of innovation fabio arcangeli paul david frank engelman christopher freeman massimo moggi richard nelson luigi orsenigo nathan rosenberg michele salvati g n von tunzelman two anonymous referees and the participants at the meeting of the committee on distribution growth and technical progress of the italian national research council cnr rome november 16 1985 have helped with various redraftings a particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of moses abramovitz this work has been undertaken at the science policy research unit spru university of sussex as part of the research program of the designated research centre sponsored by the economic and social research council esrc earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the italian national research council cnr is also gratefully acknowledged the statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of stephano brioschi ilaria fornari and giovannu prennushi

technological regimes and schumpeterian patterns of innovation this paper proposes that the specific pattern of innovative activities in an industry can be explained as the outcome of different technological learning regimes a technological regime is defined by the particular combination of technological opportunities appropriability of innovations cumulativeness of technical advances and properties of the knowledge base building upon the distinction between schumpeter mark i and schumpeter mark ii industries this paper provides empirical estimates of the relationships between indicators of the schumpeterian patterns of innovation concentration of innovative activities stability in the hierarchy of innovators and importance of new innovators and indicators of the variables defining technological regimes

collective learning in global diffusion spreading quality standards in a developing country cluster this research analyzes how foreign organizational practices diffuse among indigenous enterprises in a developing economy it highlights the collective knowledge building process as central for understanding diffusion based on a longitudinal case study of a cluster of dairy producers in nicaragua a representative low income country it looks at cross border diffusion in conditions that differ significantly from advanced economies the current literature that highlights institutional pressures driving global spread of practices has limits for capturing a significant dynamic caused by increased integration of markets and production by focusing on production organization and practices in a late developing context this paper explains the intertwined process of spreading new standards and changing existing local practices by elaborating the relationship among building collective capabilities learning and standards diffusion this study enriches current views on institutional effects and adds to the practice based literature as well as to the work on developing economy firms in organizational research

competitiveness indices and developing countries an economic evaluation of the global competitiveness report developing countries policy makers worry about national competitiveness and closely watch indices ranking international competitive performance this paper analyzes from a development economics perspective if competitiveness is a legitimate concern and if the leading indices deserve the attention they get it assesses the best known index the global competitiveness report of the world economic forum and finds deficiencies at several levels its definitions are too broad the approach biased and the methodology flawed many qualitative measures are vague redundant or wrong these weak theoretical and empirical foundations reduce the value of the indices for analytical or policy purposes

which way is up in upgrading trajectories of change in the value chain for south african wine summary global value chain gvc analysis uses the concept of upgrading to highlight paths for developing country firms to move up the value chain usually through the lenses of four categories product process functional and inter sectoral upgrading the implicit normative expectation is that these firms move toward producing higher value added products and or take on more sophisticated functions along a value chain in this article upgrading is approached more broadly as reaching a better deal including a balance between rewards and risk the case study of south african wine shows that better product quality improved processes and some functional upgrading have co existed with processes of downgrading higher risks and limited rewards especially in traditional export markets a reflection on further conceptual development and directions for empirical research is also provided

search sticky prices and inflation this paper examines equilibrium in a deflationary environment in a market with free entry where consumers search and firms set prices on individual units of the commodity prices attached to newly produced goods are continuously adjusted prices attached to previously produced goods can only be changed at a cost deflation cuts into the market power created by the need to search for the good thus consumers welfare is inverse u shaped in deflation

adaptation bridging and firm upgrading how non market institutions and mncs facilitate knowledge recombination in emerging markets how do multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries and local institutions help or hinder emerging market suppliers to upgrade their capabilities drawing on insights from economic sociology and comparative capitalism we posit that in these contexts of scarce resources and inferior technologies upgrading depends on the ways in which organizational and institutional networks enable firms to integrate imported advanced knowledge with local applied knowledge using a combination of field work and unique survey data of argentine auto parts suppliers we show that process upgrading improves significantly when suppliers have ties to seemingly resource weak non market institutions that improve access to a variety of experiential knowledge these institutions act as knowledge bridges helping local firms tap into diverse applied knowledge embedded in isolated industrial districts and adapt frontier advanced practices to their local conditions moreover suppliers appear to benefit from ties to mnc subsidiaries only when they simultaneously collaborate with certain non market institutions that help them recombine experiential knowledge with the standards gained from the subsidiaries

industrial complexes in mexico implications for regional industrial policy based on related variety and smart specialization abstractindustrial complexes in mexico implications for regional industrial policy based on related variety and smart specialization regional studies the goal of this paper is to identify and analyze the location of industrial complexes in mexico with the purpose of providing an analytical foundation for the construction of regionally based industrial policies based on the principles of related variety and smart specialization that complement current national level policy efforts to promote investment and stabilize the real exchange rate the results of this analysis highlight distinct complexes located in particular portions of the country the location of these complexes points to several regional policy options that will better address regional heterogeneities in the distribution of industry employment as well as regional differences in workforce competencies infrastructure quality and extra regional linkages than have national level industrial policies

on the granger causality between median inflation and price dispersion the granger causal relationship between the size and dispersion of fluctuations in sub components of the us consumer price index cpi is examined using both in sample and out of sample tests and data from january 1968 to december 2008 strong in sample evidence is found for feedback between median inflation and price dispersion the evidence for granger causation from median inflation to price dispersion remains strong in out of sample testing but is less strong for granger causation in the opposite direction the implications of these results for the variety of price level determination models in the literature are discussed

enforcing higher labor standards within developing country value chains consequences for mnes and informal actors in a dual economy the 2013 collapse of the rana plaza building in dhaka bangladesh led external stakeholders to insist on higher labor standards in apparel global value chains gvcs stakeholders now expect mnes to take full chain responsibility however the increased monitoring and enforcement costs of a large network of suppliers have been non trivial mnes instead implement a cascading compliance approach coupled with a partial re internalization elevated costs are further exacerbated in developing countries where the informal and formal sectors are linked and cost competitiveness greatly depends on this duality monitoring actors in the informal sector is difficult and few informal actors can achieve compliance gvcs have therefore reduced informal sector engagement by excluding non compliant actors and investing in greater automation by seeking to strictly enforce compliance mnes are attenuating some of the positive effects of mne investment particularly the prospects for employment creation especially among women and enterprise growth in the informal sector i discuss how these observations might inform other cross disciplinary work in development ethics and sociology finally i note implications for ib theory from the disparities between the ownership control and responsibility boundaries of the firm

the relationship between firm growth size and age estimates for 100 manufacturing industries this study uses a sample of all firms operating in 100 manufacturing industries to examine some aspects of firm dynamics it finds that firm growth the variability of firm growth and the probability that a firm will fail decrease with firm age it also finds that firm growth decreases at a diminishing rate with firm size even after controlling for the exit of slow growing firms from the sample gibrat s law therefore fails although the severity of the failure decreases with firm size copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

price dispersion and inflation evidence from israel the paper considers the question whether observed price differentials reflect perceived differences in quality service agreements or location or whether information imperfections can explain this phenomenon it sets out theoretical arguments linking inflation to reductions in the information stock held by agents and thus to greater price dispersion the hypothesis is tested using monthly price data for 13 uniquely defined goods sold in israel between 1971 and 1984 price dispersion is shown to be positively related to the rate of market price inflation since inflation is an unlikely proxy for changes in perceived characteristics the findings support price dispersion theories based on optimally imperfect decision making

age size growth and survival uk companies in the 1980s this paper examines growth and survival amongst quoted and unquoted u k companies in the period 1975 85 and compares the results with earlier u k and u s studies an examination of death rates shows that smaller companies had higher death rates but the largest and smallest companies were least vulnerable to takeover careful attention is therefore paid to problems of sample selection bias it is shown that smaller companies grew faster than larger companies that gibrat s law does not hold amongst smaller firms that age is negatively related to growth and that these results are not an artifact of sample selection bias copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

sectoral patterns of technical change towards a taxonomy and a theory abstract the purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in britain since 1945 most technological knowledge turns out not to be information that is generally applicable and easily reproducible but specific to firms and applications cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals are relatively big and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector but relatively few outside firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised and they exist in symbiosis with large firms in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles who make a significant contribution to their own process technology in textile firms on the other hand most process innovations come from suppliers these characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms 1 supplier dominated 2 production intensive 3 science based they can be explained by sources of technology requirements of users and possibilities for appropriation this explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change firms diversification behaviour the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm the region and the country

real wages profit margins and inflation in turkish manufacturing under post liberalization this article reports investigations into the behaviour of gross profit margins mark ups in turkish manufacturing industries for the post 1980 liberalization period in relation to price inflation trade liberalization openness and real wage costs panel data econometrics over 29 subsectors of turkish manufacturing are used over the period 1980 1996 results suggest that profit margins are positively and significantly related both to price inflation and real wage costs however openness is found to have very little impact on profit margins

shifting proximities the maritime ports sector in an era of global supply chains hall p v and jacobs w shifting proximities the maritime ports sector in an era of global supply chains regional studies economic geographers argue that spatial and non spatial dimensions of proximity are central to innovation and collective action the various dimensions of proximity in relation to maritime ports are examined global supply chains represent a shift in organizational and cognitive proximities between seaports and among port users in the process extra local relationships have become even more influential in maritime port development as organizational proximity between dominant port users has increased through vertical and horizontal integration territorially based institutional and social proximities especially as regards stable and shared regulatory systems are increasingly important as a counterbalance to ensure openness to innovation and upgrading hall p v et jacobs w des proximites en pleine evolution les ports maritimes en periode de chaines d approvisionnement mondial

search with learning from prices does increased inflationary uncertainty lead to higher markups aggregate cost uncertainty arising from real shocks or unanticipated inflation reduces the informativeness of prices by scrambling relative and aggregate variations but when agents can acquire additional information such increased noise may in fact lead them to become better informed and price competition will intensify we examine these issues in a model of search with learning where consumers search optimally from an unknown price distribution while firms price optimally given consumers search rules we show that the decisive factor in whether inflation variability increases or reduces the incentive to search and thereby market efficiency is the size of informational costs

cooperation between rivals informal know how trading it has long been recognized that it is difficult for an innovating firm to fully appropriate the benefits arising from its innovations and that desired research might therefore not be performed nelson 1959 pp 297 306 one sometimes possible solution to this dilemma is cooperative r d conducted by firms who share the costs and benefits of particular r d projects johnson 1973

the cross sectional dynamics of the us business cycle 1950 1999 abstract modern interest in business cycles has focussed on the co movements and correlations in the major macroeconomic aggregates in this paper we offer another dimension to business cycle analysis which looks at the time series of cross sectional distributions of the growth rates of sales by us quoted companies from 1950 to 1999 we detect correlations between aggregate business cycle fluctuations and the higher moments of the cross sectional distribution we find a significant negative correlation between the rate of growth of gdp and the cross sectional variance and skewness of growth rates of sales on the other hand there is positive correlation at business cycle frequencies with kurtosis in order to explore this further we turn to the dynamic evolution of firms and analyse the sensitivity of growth rates to aggregate shocks conditioning on firm size the results suggest that despite considerable heterogeneity macroeconomic shocks have pervasive effects that are however more pronounced for firms in the middle range of growth this has implications for both macro and industrial economics

subcontracting in italian industry labour division firm growth and the north south divide giunta a nifo a et scalera d subcontracting in italian industry labour division firm growth and the north south divide regional studies the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of subcontracting on italian manufacturing firms growth in the second half of the 1990s the main results are 1 producing as subcontractors does not penalize firms but can be a positive determinant of growth especially when coupled with the propensity to innovate 2 since a non linear relationship between growth and subcontracting emerges an organizational mode not fully specialized in either subcontracting activity or direct sales may be optimal and 3 the deep dualism of the italian industrial structure is confirmed as southern subcontractors show poorer performances and slower growth giunta a nifo a and scalera d 90 1 2 3

what characterizes a fast growing firm this paper seeks to empirically identify factors that influence the probability of being a fast growing firm in eastern and western germany descriptive analyses have shown that most firms experience only small positive or negative employment growth or stagnate over time the job generation mechanism rests with a handful of firms that increase their employment significantly over time the empirical analysis shows that the probability of being a fast growing firm depends on different factors when separating eastern and western germany as well as using different definitions of fast growing firms moreover the analysis shows that technology intensive manufacturing branches and knowledge based business related services do not generate the majority of fast growing firms

global value chains meet innovation systems are there learning opportunities for developing countries summary the innovation systems is literature tends not to emphasize the crucial impact of international knowledge and innovation exchange and collaboration through for example inter firm and intra firm networks and global value chains gvc in developing countries this aspect is crucial with integration in gvc playing a growing and very important role in accessing knowledge and enhancing learning and innovation however there is no agreement in the literature about how innovation systems and gvc interact and how this interaction is likely to affect enterprise learning three main conclusions emerge from the theoretical analysis and evidence presented in this paper first learning mechanisms can vary widely within the various forms of governance of gvc they can be the result of the pressure to achieve international standards or be facilitated by direct involvement of the value chain leaders when the suppliers competence is low and the risk of failure to comply is high when the competences of the actors in the value chain are complementary learning is mutual and is based on intense face to face interactions second as we open is to foreign sources of knowledge the relationship between gvcs and is is nonlinear and endogenous and mutually affecting on the basis of our model we would expect a well structured and efficient innovation system would help to reduce transaction complexity and enable transactions based on relational forms of gvc governance third the internal governance of gvc is a dynamic phenomenon that is subject to continuous adjustments and changes and the nature of the is affects this co evolution 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

chinese electronics export taiwanese contract manufacturing the win win outcome along the evolving global value chain the ascent of china as the world s top exporter is unusual in its rapidity andhigh tech content with a major portion in process trade by chinese classification forming part of the evolving global value chain with chronology andeconomic analysis applied to notions in frequent business usage but not economicsliterature this study shows the global value chain arose from the microelectronicrevolution known as moore s law evolved under the time tomarketimperative and caused widespread outsourcing in america and europe with final stage production mostly in china by taiwanese contract manufacturers the insight gained may help to assess future trends

financial and legal constraints to growth does firm size matter using a unique firm level survey database covering 54 countries we investigate the effect of financial legal and corruption problems on firms growth rates whether these factors constrain growth depends on firm size it is consistently the smallest firms that are most constrained financial and institutional development weakens the constraining effects of financial legal and corruption obstacles and it is again the small firms that benefit the most there is only a weak relation between firms perception of the quality of the courts in their country and firm growth we also provide evidence that the corruption of bank officials constrains firm growth

new firm survival industry strategy and location abstract how important is the physical location of a new firm for its chances of survival location of a new firm whether in urban metro or rural vicinities can have important impacts on performance outcomes urban locations often contain a wealth of diverse resources but may also have a greater number of competitors rural locations may lack diversity but can enable the firm to exploit a niche with limited competition we suggest that a simple examination of new firm location will not adequately predict survival chances rather the impact on location of the new firm will be influenced by the industry in which the new firm operates and by the strategy the new firm pursues the industry of the new firm is examined by focusing on where the new firm is located in the value chain we predict that a new firm upstream in the industry value chain will have better chances of survival than new firms downstream in the industry value chain new firms with broadly focused strategies are hypothesized to have greater survival chances than new firms strategically positioned to exploit a narrow market focus and we predict that new firms in urban locations will have greater chances for survival than new firms in rural locations

an assessment of the measurement of performance in international business research a sizeable body of international business ib research is devoted to building knowledge about the determinants of organizational performance a key precursor to accurately diagnosing why some organizations succeed in the international marketplace while others struggle is operationalizing performance appropriately yet to date no systematic investigation has considered how well ib research measures performance we examine the measurement of performance in 96 articles published in the academy of management journal administrative science quarterly journal of marketing journal of marketing research journal of international business studies management science organization science a nd thestrategic management journal between 1995 and 2005 the findings reveal that most studies do not measure performance in a manner that captures the multifaceted nature of the construct we describe the implications of these results and offer suggestions for improving future practice journal of international business studies 2008 39 1064 1080

global connectedness and local innovation in industrial clusters in today s knowledge economy clusters are a key driver of a country s competitiveness yet a cluster s technological base is now more than ever influenced by constituent firms actions to tap into distant knowledge sources drawing on a social network perspective and distinguishing between horizontal versus vertical organization based linkages we explore the effects of a cluster s connectedness to foreign locations on its innovation performance we show that improvements in horizontal and vertical connectedness both stimulate a cluster s innovation performance but that their relative effects vary across cluster types innovation in knowledge intensive clusters disproportionately benefits from enhancements in their constituent firms horizontal connectedness to foreign knowledge hotspots innovation in labor intensive clusters mostly gains from stronger vertical connections by their firms to central value chain players abroad we discuss the implications of our findings for research on global knowledge sourcing and cluster upgrading

a comparison of clustered and dispersed firms in the small scale clothing industry of lima abstract this study provides empirical evidence on the strength and type of clustering advantages contrasting the performance of small clustered firms with several control groups of dispersed producers in the garment industry of lima peru repeated measurement facilitates an evaluation of the ability of clustered firms to respond to pressures arising from the swift trade liberalization carried out in peru after 1990 the evidence suggests that clustering advantages have been significant particularly for the smallest firms cost reductions and information spillovers are the dominant type of advantages these are however passive advantages of clustering they largely arise at the level of transactions in goods and services and to a lesser extent in the transformation of inputs into output while significant these advantages are insufficient for sustaining competitiveness in the liberalized markets the garment cluster runs the risk of entropic death if information spillovers remain limited in origin and diversity and if interfirm cooperation does not cross local borders

collective efficiency growth path for small scale industry this study is concerned with the growth of small local industry in developing countries and explores one particular route for understanding and fostering such growth it focuses on the clustering of firms and the competitive advantage which they derive from local external economies and joint action captured in the concept of collective efficiency following a conceptual discussion the article explores the economic and institutional conditions which enhance or hinder collective efficiency this includes a case study which suggests that responding to opportunity and crisis requires shifting from mere reliance on external economies to joint action and from ascribed to earned trust

sticky prices new evidence from retail catalogs this paper presents new results on the size frequency and synchronization of price changes for twelve selected retail goods over the past 35 years three basic facts about the data are uncovered first nominal prices are typically fixed for more than one year although the time between changes is very irregular second prices change more often during periods of high overall inflation third when prices do change the sizes of the changes are widely dispersed both large and small changes occur for the same item and the sizes of these changes do not closely depend on overall inflation

globalization of production insights from the hard disk drive industry abstract rapid change in the geographical location of production raises important questions regarding the welfare development potential and competitive position of different countries and regions this paper explores in detail the geography of economic activity in a specific industry the hard disk drive hdd component of the computer industry firms in the hdd industry are breaking the production system into ever smaller distinct steps and spreading the physical location of these steps around the world firms from the united states dominate the industry our findings suggest that globalization has enabled us firms to sustain their dominant position in the industry preserve employment in the united states and possibly expand it and increase employment worldwide most notably in southeast asia

universities in emerging economies bridging local industry with international science evidence from chile and south africa emerging economies are now becoming more central in global competition to achieve this many countries have invested to develop into knowledge economies universities have a role to play in this transformation both as generators of new knowledge as well as actors that can interact with the local industry and contribute to its innovativeness this paper explores using two case studies in the chilean and south african wine industry how universities connect international science to domestic industry it finds that this connection occurs through a few bridging researchers who display particular characteristics compared with their colleagues bridging researchers are more talented than average researchers both because they publish more in international journals and or because they have received awards for their academic work this finding may have significant policy implications as policies aimed at strengthening the skills of these researchers should be welcomed in catching up industries copyright the author 2012 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

the real thing nominal price rigidity of the nickel coke 1886 1959 we report that the price of a 6 5 oz coca cola was 5c from 1886 until 1959 thus we are documenting a nominal price rigidity that lasted more than 70 years the case of coca cola is particularly interesting because during the 70 year period there were substantial changes in the soft drink industry as well as two world wars the great depression and numerous regulatory interventions and lawsuits which led to substantial changes in the coca cola market conditions the nickel price of coke nevertheless remained unchanged we find that this unusual rigidity is best explained by 1 a contract between the company and its parent bottlers that encouraged retail price maintenance 2 a single coin vending machine technology which limited the company s price adjustment options due to limited availability and unreliability of the existing flexible price adjustment technologies and 3 a single coin monetary transaction technology which limited the company s price adjustment options due to the customer inconvenience cost we show that these price adjustment costs are of a different nature than the standard menu cost and their estimates exceed the existing estimates by an order of magnitude a possible broader relevance of the nickel coke phenomenon is discussed in the context of nickel and dime stores which were popular in the us in the late 1800s and the early 1900s

the consequences of price instability on search markets toward understanding the effects of inflation real price variability depreciates the information about future prices contained in current ones repeat purchase customers have then less incentive to acquire price information the fact that consumers are less well informed allows firms to increase their markups and permits inefficient producers to increase their sales production gets reallocated toward higher cost firms given the well documented correlation between inflation and relative price variability these results help explain some of the costs of inflation copyright 1994 by american economic association

who profits from innovation in global value chains a study of the ipod and notebook pcs in an era when new ideas are brought to the market by global value networks of specialists rather than by one company a key question is who captures the most value from innovation in such a structure and why this paper addresses the question of who benefits from innovation in global value chains by looking at specific computer and electronics products we apply a novel industry studies methodology for measuring the distribution of financial value across the supply chains for two models from apple s ipod family and notebook pc models from lenovo and hewlett packard hp these are all examples of globally innovated products combining technologies from the u s japan and other countries and assembled in china our analysis shows that the gross margins of apple for its high end ipod products are generally higher than those earned by hp and lenovo for notebook pcs although not so high as to be considered supernormal a key reason for the difference is that apple s control of the core software proprietary standards and complementary infrastructure of the ipod enables it to retain greater profits whereas a large share of the pc industry profits are siphoned off to microsoft and intel who control key technical standards consistent with teece 1986 our results confirm the importance of stages of technical evolution appropriability regimes and complementary assets as determinants of profiting from innovation on the other hand we find that manufacturing has become commoditized and is no longer a key to profiting from innovation in final electronic products also contrary to recent suggestions in the literature we find no evidence of a causal link between product and industry architectures instead there is a vast electronics industry architecture that can easily support product level value chain configurations ranging from modular to integrated

the magnitude of menu costs direct evidence from large u s supermarket chains we use store level data to document the exact process of changing prices and to directly measure menu costs at five multistore supermarket chains we show that changing prices in these establishments is a complex process requiring dozens of steps and a nontrivial amount of resources the menu costs average 105 887 year per store comprising 0 70 percent of revenues 35 2 percent of net margins and 0 52 price change these menu costs may be forming a barrier to price changes specifically 1 a supermarket chain facing higher menu costs due to item pricing laws that require a separate price tag on each item changes prices two and one half times less frequently than the other four chains 2 within this chain the prices of products exempt from the law are changed over three times more frequently than the products subject to the law in principle fixed costs of changing prices can be observed and measured in practice such costs take disparate forms in different firms and we have no data on their magnitude so the theory can be tested at best indirectly at worst not at all alan blinder 1991 p 90

price adjustment costs and the output inflation trade off when prices are costly to adjust there is a trade off between the rate of inflation and the firm s average level of output this trade off is the result of fully optimizing behaviour by the firm sufficient conditions are developed for inflation to have no effect on output however these conditions are unlikely to be met in practice this suggests that the superneutrality of money hypothesis is incompatible with the type of demand and cost curves normally encountered in economic theory if the discount rate is positive moderate rates of inflation will always lead to higher levels of output

structural reforms and technological behaviour abstract the opening up to foreign competition the deregulation of a vast array of markets and the privatization of public sector firms have been inducing major changes in the structure and behaviour of the latin american economies the aim of this paper is to describe some of these changes and to identify the new patterns of firm behavior the new institutional environment and the new policy agenda gradually emerging in the region in the field of science and technology as a result of recent trade liberalization and market deregulation efforts

network composition collaborative ties and upgrading in emerging market firms lessons from the argentine autoparts sector what types of relational and institutional mechanisms shape knowledge flows and the upgrading capabilities of emerging market firms in the face of economic liberalization we analyze the argentine autoparts sector to distinguish the relative impact of different types of network relationships on a firm s process and product upgrading a few social ties to international assemblers appear to be most beneficial for local suppliers although they may be insufficient to compensate fully for the negative effect of being located in a lower tier supplier customer relationships that are part of regular disciplined discussions for product and process improvements appear to be especially beneficial for upgrading

search price setting and inflation a model of monopolistic competition in an inflationary environment is developed which embodies optimal sequential search price dynamics and entry on the part of consumers and firms respectively equilibrium price strategies are s s these bounds increase continuously with consumer search costs and so does price dispersion indeed the whole equilibrium varies smoothly from the competitive bertrand to the monopolistic diamond 1971 end of the spectrum the latter s paradoxical result is explained as a limiting case where frictions on firms side of the market price adjustment costs but not on buyers search costs tend to zero a positive relationship between smooth and perfectly anticipated inflation and price dispersion or uncertainty is established

gatekeepers in regional networks of innovators the internal density of a local network is said to increase the regionspecific knowledge stock and might lead to a comparative advantage however it might also lead to a lock in situation if local trajectories are directed towards inferior solutions accordingly it is argued that successful clusters are characterised by the existence of gatekeepers i e actors that generate novelty by drawing on local and external knowledge we attempt to answer questions related to the role and characteristics of gatekeepers within regional innovation systems by applying social network analysis based on patent data for four east german regions the regional networks appear to be significantly dierent with respect to the overall degree of interaction and with respect to their relative outward orientation concerning the characteristics of gatekeepers we find that size does not play the major role for being a gatekeeper it is rather absorptive capacity that matters for gatekeepers it also shows that public research organisations serve the functions of a gatekeeper to a higher degree than private actors

comparison of private incentive mechanisms for improving sustainability of filipino tuna fisheries this paper analyzes the influence of three private incentive mechanisms over decision making related to improved sustainability of fishing practices in filipino tuna fisheries the three mechanisms compared are the world wildlife fund for nature s fishery improvement project model marine stewardship council certification and the international seafood sustainability foundation pro active vessel register the main question addressed in this paper is how and to what extent the private incentive mechanisms support the development of fisher capabilities to respond to the requirements set out by these mechanisms applying a global value chain approach to analyze results collected from key actors involved in philippine tuna fishers contributing to both domestic and regional economic development in the western pacific we explore the structure and function of these private incentive mechanisms in achieving both environmental and economic development outcomes our results show that these private incentive mechanisms deliver different direct and indirect incentives for changing to more sustainable fishing practices and that the success of these mechanisms is dependent on the extent to which the mechanisms support the development of target fisher capabilities to comply with their sustainability requirements we conclude that the future success of these incentive mechanisms depends for a large part on stricter sustainability requirements but also on the capacity of the mechanisms to incentivize the inclusion of more developing country fishers these findings contribute to a wider understanding of how the capabilities of developing country producers are influenced by their relationship with chain and non chain actors and with the wide institutional arrangements that the producers operate in

inflation and efficiency in search markets this paper examines how inflation affects efficiency and output in monopolistically competitive search markets it formalizes the conventional wisdom linking higher inflation price dispersion and increased resources devoted to search it also brings to light the induced exit of arms which reduces rent dissipation but the most important effect of inflation is how it alters the distribution of real transactions prices whether this reduces or promotes efficiency and output is shown to depend critically on preferences and market structure and especially on whether search costs are large or small relative to consumer surplus

on inflation and output with costly price changes a simple unifying result we analyze the effect of inflation on the average output of monopolistic firms facing a small fixed cost of changing nominal prices using taylor expansions we derive a general closed form solution for the slope of the long run phillips curve this very simple unifying formula allows us to evaluate and clarify the role of three key factors the asymmetry of the profit function the convexity of the demand function and the discount rate these partial equilibrium effects remain important components of any general equilibrium model with s s pricing this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the blue revolution in asia upgrading and governance in aquaculture value chains summary in this article we examine the upgrading trajectories of selected aquaculture value chains in four asian countries and the links between upgrading and three factors of value chain governance coordination mechanisms types of drivers and domestic regulation we find instances of improving products processes and value chain coordination while moving up the value chain is rare we also find that the type of value chain driver and the quality of the domestic regulatory framework are main facilitators of upgrading we conclude by highlighting lessons on the potential limits and risks of upgrading the blue revolution in asia

local means in value chain ends dynamics of product and social upgrading in apparel manufacturing in guatemala and colombia summary this paper contributes to existing discussions of global value chains gvc and industrial upgrading by examining observations from eight months of field research in guatemala and colombia where upgrading firms have their own nationally distinct form of labor relations despite producing the same products for the same overseas buyers analysis of these observations leads to the conclusion that labor relations show significant leeway in relation to upgrading outcomes and that local history merits more attention as a driver of management strategy the paper concludes with a discussion of relevant theory and implications for future research

coping with the upheavals of globalization in the shea value chain the maintenance and relevance of upstream shea nut supply chain organization in western burkina faso summary market globalization has had only a weak impact on the regional shea nut supply chain in western burkina faso despite the boom in the shea trade and the arrival of leading foreign firms we show that despite the fact that wholesalers have kept the shea chain locked in an oligarchic organization for the last 50 years they still play an important role in the smooth functioning of the chain and in profit sharing down the chain to the rural poor we suggest that development actors should consider shea traders and their role in the coordination of the chain more carefully 2014 the authors published by elsevier ltd this is an open access article under the cc by nc sa license http creativecommons org licenses by nc sa 3 0

price points and price rigidity abstract we study the link between price points and price rigidity using two data sets weekly scanner data and internet data we find that 9 is the most frequent ending for the penny dime dollar and ten dollar digits the most common price changes are those that keep the price endings at 9 9 ending prices are less likely to change than non 9 ending prices and the average size of price change is larger for 9 ending than non 9 ending prices we conclude that 9 ending contributes to price rigidity from penny to dollar digits and across a wide range of product categories retail formats and retailers

the impact of operating in multiple value chains for upgrading the case of the brazilian furniture and footwear industries summary exporting has been upheld as the golden standard for industrial upgrading however research using the value chain approach shows that upgrading for developing country firms is often limited to the lowest value added activities based on comparative research carried out in two brazilian clusters furniture and footwear industries this paper shows that domestic and regional value chains can offer greater upgrading opportunities providing space for activities of higher value added better remunerated and difficult to replicate notably design marketing and branding moreover this study highlights that many firms simultaneously serve multiple value chains multichain and that multichain firms have better upgrading prospects than those primarily exporting via global value chains

african enterprise clusters and industrialization theory and reality abstract using six case studies from africa this paper examines the theoretical argument that geographic and sectoral clustering enables enterprises to overcome constraints to growth and development findings were both theoretical and practical theoretically the study underscored the strength of the collective efficiency framework but found that certain anomalies could only be explained by other contextual variables grouping the six case studies revealed important differences among them and showed that each group plays its own part in the industrialization process groundwork clusters prepare the way industrializing clusters begin the process of specialization differentiation and technological development and complex industrial clusters produce competitively for wider markets the paper concludes with practical implications for african governments donors and the business community

prices inflation and smoking onset the case of argentina this article examines the effect of tobacco prices on the decision to start smoking in argentina argentina is an interesting case to explore given its high smoking rates its recent experience with periods of very high and hyperinflation and the mixed evidence of the effect of prices on smoking onset particularly in low and middle income countries we used data from four cycles of two large national surveys conducted between 2005 and 2011 and discrete time hazard models we found that tobacco prices had a statistically significant and fairly large impact on the hazard of smoking onset and these findings were robust to alternative specifications we also found that prices had little effect on the hazards of smoking onset during periods of hyper and very high inflation which provide some support for the notion that prices lose their informational role in such periods governments need to be cognizant that their most important policy tool to reduce tobacco use taxes that increase real tobacco prices is likely no longer effective during these times jel c41 h20 i12 i18

quantifying value chain analysis in the context of livestock systems in developing countries the analysis of value chains has augmented our knowledge on the complexities inter linkages distributional benefits and institutional arrangements of production and marketing channels in developing countries however the analysis remains relatively qualitative and case specific with limited ability to rank or assess the impact of alternative interventions or to analyze sufficiently the complex market dynamics and feedbacks present in livestock systems this paper offers theoretical and applied insights on ways to improve the analytical rigor of the value chain methodology that combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches

foreign firms and chinese employment this paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment fdi on employment in the chinese manufacturing sector as one of the world s largest recipients of fdi china has arguably benefited from foreign multinational enterprises in various respects however one of the main challenges for china and other developing countries is job creation and the effect of fdi on employment is uncertain the effect depends on the amount of jobs created within foreign firms as well as the effect of fdi on employment in domestic firms we analyse fdi and employment in china using a large sample of manufacturing firms for the period 1998 2004 our results show that fdi has positive effects on employment growth the relatively high employment growth in foreign firms is associated with their firm characteristics and their high survival rate employment growth is also relatively high in private domestic chinese firms there also seems to be a positive indirect effect of fdi on employment in private domestically owned firms presumably caused by spillovers

recovery of a mexican cluster devaluation bonanza or collective efficiency abstract mexico as many other developing countries in latin america and elsewhere has been moving in the 1980s toward a liberalized trade regime after a long period of import substitution this paper analyzes the impact of trade liberalization on the cooperative behavior of shoe firms located in a cluster in guadalajara the empirical evidence shows that cooperation has increased it also suggests that cooperation positively influences firms performance and together with a favorable market environment contributes to the cluster s recovery the study is based on fieldwork carried out in guadalajara in 1996 qualitative information was collected through in depth interviews and quantified responses came from a questionnaire survey covering a sample of 63 shoe manufacturing enterprises

employment and smes during crises the persistent increasing duration of unemployment has become an issue during economic crises although lay offs at large firms normally make headlines during crises we still know little about the potential impact of firm size on adjustment behavior in a crisis we studied effects of firm size on employment growth during economic slowdowns using a rich microeconomic database for the 1988 2007 period in portuguese manufacturing industry the results show that economic downturns affect firm growth negatively this negative effect is found to be higher for larger firms both during and immediately following crisis periods small and medium sized enterprises smes emerge as potential stabilizers in downturn periods however larger firms seem to be able to quickly recover from downturn periods our results contribute to the scarce literature and to the understanding of the portuguese case where many smes secure most jobs these first results may be useful because smes play a determinant role in other european union economies

learning and catching up in different sectoral systems evidence from six industries this article claims that catching up is a learning process that requires a long time and often differs significantly across economic sectors in the factors leading to success or failure we support these claims by examining the major factors affecting catching up by several countries in six industries india and brazil for pharmaceuticals korea china and brazil for autos india ireland israel china brazil and other countries for software korea and india for telecommunication equipment korea taiwan china and malaysia for semiconductors and china brazil costa rica and nigeria for some agricultural crops the article uses the framework of sectoral systems and argues that there are significant differences across these sectors in the variables and mechanisms involved in catching up the article identifies the common factors affecting catching up and the main differences across sectoral systems it then discusses the interplay between national systems and sectoral systems copyright 2011 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

regional worlds from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks this annual lecture paper bridges two influential but parallel literature strands on evolutionary economic geography eeg and global production networks gpn it argues that both strands are prem

networks and local environmental characteristics in the survival of new firms this study seeks firstly to clarify which networks at start up situation and early in life influence the survival of new firms secondly the study examines regional differences in the success of new firms the subjects were firms which had closed down during their fourth to sixth year of operations and they were compared with firms continuing in business the results indicate firstly that it is networks internal to firm that create competitive advantage innovation and efficiency secondly management based on working in groups was emphasized in the firms that continued in business in a typical family enterprise ownership management and family are united in a single entity in other types of firms networks are seen as participating in the strategic management of the firm thirdly close downs were often caused by uncontrolled risks a firm which fails after a successful start up often tends to grow rapidly in the beginning leaning on its product idea but this rate of growth is too high from the viewpoint of the financing and the management of the firm in firms which closed the growth objectives were too ambitions compared with the resources of the entrepreneur

the economics of technical change this paper reviews the recent rapidly growing literature on technical change in the economy it concentrates on innovations and their diffusion at firm and industry level since this was the area designated as relatively weak in earlier literature surveys the review argues that the extensive empirical evidence and theoretical analysis now available presents a basic challenge to neoclassical theory after indicating some weaknesses in the neo schumpeterian literature the paper concludes by advocating an experiment with a new form of assessment by neighboring disciplines to economics itself which would take full account of the fundamental issues at stake in this modern methodenstreit c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

inflation and efficiency in a search economy we present a model in which purely monetary inflation systematically affects efficiency welfare and relative prices the model focuses on the microeconomics of trade in search markets under inflation inflation by increasing the cost of holding money undermines the market s ability to sustain long term customer relationships because those relationships generate the most efficient transactions patterns overall welfare unambiguously declines

small and medium enterprises in korea achievements constraints and policy issues this paper provides an overview of the evolution of the small and medium enterprise sector in korea during the past quarter century it shows how the industrial structure of korea has changed dramatically over this period reflecting much greater shares in employment and value added by smes it reviews the evidence on sme dynamism showing that smes have contributed to the enormous transformations that have taken place in the korean economy since 1975 especially with regard to exports foreign investment and productivity performance it discusses the role of subcontracting as well as that of government and non governmental institutions in supporting sme development finally it examines the link between variations in the economic importance of smes as measured by their shares in employment and aspects of growth and inequality to assess whether smes function as business cycle shock absorbers and inequality reducing mechanisms