designing and rating an area yield crop insurance contract this article documents the design and rate making procedures used in the development of the group risk plan grp the new federal crop insurance product that insures based on area yield the authors of this article worked closely with personnel in the federal crop insurance corporation and others in developing methodological and practical constraints needed in implementing a workable area yield contract grp indemnity payments are made based on percentage shortfalls in actual county yields relative to a forecasted yield historical county yield data are used to develop forecasted yields and premium rates

market share market value and innovation in a panel of british manufacturing firms this paper examines the empirical relationship between technological innovations market share and stock market value new developments in the estimation of dynamic count data models are used to control for unobserved firm specific heterogeneity we find a robust and positive effect of market share on observable headcounts of innovations and patents although increased product market competition in the industry tends to stimulate innovative activity furthermore the impact of innovation on market value is larger for firms with higher market shares we argue that our results are consistent with models where high market share firms have incentives to pre emptively innovate

the regional dimension of competitiveness in manufacturing productivity employment and wages in northern ireland and the united kingdom borooah v k and lee k c 1991 the regional dimension of competitiveness in manufacturing productivity employment and wages in northern ireland and the united kingdom reg studies 25 219 229 the regional dimension of competitiveness in manufacturing industry is examined by comparing the uk with one of its poorest regions northern ireland an overview is provided of total factor productivity and real wage developments in northern ireland and the uk over the last two decades these developments are then investigated econometrically through the estimation of labour demand and wage equations the paper identifies a number of factors which may have eroded the competitiveness and hence the employment prospects of the region relative to the uk as a whole over the period borooah v k et lee k c 1991 la competitivite de l industrie manufacturiere sous un optique regional productivite emploi et salaires en irlande du nord et au royaume uni reg studies 25 219 229 on examine les aspects region

an expected indemnity approach to the measurement of moral hazard in crop insurance a definition of moral hazard in multiple peril crop insurance is proposed that focuses on expected indemnities rather than input use five years of production and insurance data for a panel of kansas wheat farms is used to empirically test for this type of moral hazard results suggest that moral hazard affects multiple peril crop insurance indemnities in poor production years but that no significant moral hazard occurs in years when growing conditions are favorable

dual labor markets urban unemployment and multicentric cities a two sector model of urban employment is developed which focuses on the formation of a secondary sector in response to a primary sector demand shock the optimal location of this single firm sector is shown to give rise to a multicentric urban spatial structure conditions are then established under which the new labor market equilibrium involves both a decrease in unemployment and an increase in net income for those unemployed these results are extended to a case where all unemployment benefits are financed by local taxation of firms here it is shown that profit incentives may exist for the primary sector to subsidize entry of the secondary sector c 1997 academic press

modeling conditional yield densities given the increasing interest in agricultural risk many have sought improved methods to characterize conditional crop yield densities while most have postulated the beta as a flexible alternative to the normal others have chosen nonparametric methods unfortunately yield data tends not to be sufficiently abundant to invalidate many reasonable parametric models this is problematic because conclusions from economic analyses which require estimated conditional yield densities tend not to be invariant to the modeling assumption we propose a semiparametric estimator that because of its theoretical properties and our simulation results enables one to empirically proceed with a higher degree of confidence copyright 2003 oxford university press

a system approach to the demand for salmon in the european union this study addresses the demand for salmon in the european union a system of demand equations are specified with an almost ideal demand system aids to analyse the demand structure for fresh frozen and smoked salmon using quarterly data for the period 1984 92 the time series porperties of the data series are explored and the data series are found to be non stationary but cointegrated to avoid the invalild inference and spurious regression problems that may be created by non stationary data series the fully modified least squares fmls estimatior is utilized

estimating the demand for a new technology bt cotton and insecticide policies this article examines the potential demand for bt cotton in the southeast from information gathered in the first year of commercialization we combine revealed preference rp data on adoption of bt cotton varieties with stated preference sp data on willingness to adopt to estimate demand using a double bounded maximum likelihood procedure using estimated demand equations we simulate the costs of reducing conventional insecticide applications through subsidization of bt cotton results indicate that reducing cotton insecticide applications by 40 in the southeast would require a 21 acre subsidy with total annual program costs between 53 million and 60 million

poverty traps and index based risk transfer products summary a growing literature suggests that in low income countries households with few assets can be trapped in chronic poverty this article reviews relevant threads of the poverty traps literature to motivate a description of the opportunities presented by innovative index based risk transfer products these products can be used to address some insurance and credit market failures that contribute to the persistence of poverty among households in low income countries applications are considered at the micro meso and macro levels 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

estimating capital stocks and capital ages in canada s regions 1961 1981 anderson w p and rigby d l 1989 estimating capital stocks and capitals ages in canada s regions reg studies 23 117 126 most existing methods of calculating capital stocks fail to capture spatial variations in depreciation profiles this paper presents a new technique that allows estimating the most likely pattern of depreciation independently for any region the new method is used to estimate capital stocks for six regions of canada between 1961 and 1981 findings show that the maximum service lifetime of manufacturing capital varies between twenty four and twenty nine years while the spatial distribution of manufacturing capital appears relatively stable the average age of capital varies significantly between regions in most regions the capital stock is aging anderson w p et rigby d l 1989 l estimation du capital social et de l ge du capital dans les regions au canada de 1961 a 1981 reg studies 23 117 126 la plupart des methodes en vigueur qui permettent une evaluation du capita

innovations and r d in northern ireland manufacturing a schumpeterian approach harris r and trainor m 1995 innovations and r d in northern ireland manufacturing a schumpeterian approach reg studies 29 593 604 given the importance of r d and innovative outputs and the change in regional policy in the 1980s to encourage an enterprise culture based inter alia on a high rate of innovations this paper attempts to explain the determinants of inventive activities in one of the most disadvantaged regions of the united kingdom a model incorporating the impact of market structure is estimated and it is found that in northern ireland higher r d spending leads to a higher probability of innovating while r d itself is positively affected by higher post innovation price cost margins thus r d spending and innovation outputs are beneficial to profitability and thus presumably the long term growth of firms however while market structure is important the direct effects of monopoly power are if anything negative thus the results presented by geroski 1990 are support

technology and regional policy a case study of northern ireland the importance of technical change through the innovative activity of industry has received a lot of attention in the regional economic literature regional policy has now begun to reflect the changing emphasis in the recent literature and especially the key role of inventive activity in achieving long run self sustaining regional growth this paper concentrates on research activities in terms of inventive inputs r d and innovative outputs especially patented innovations in general the results suggest that there is a low level of technological activity in northern ireland especially in industries that are characterized as being technologically advanced this is partly because external ownership reduces r d activity which in turn reduces innovation outputs but there is also a problem in that companies in northern ireland are relatively unsuccessful at producing new products and processes of the type and quality required in the market place the availability of government sponsored r d grants s

corporate structure ownership and the likelihood of innovation an examination is conducted into the effect which external ownership and other aspects of corporate ownership structure have on the likelihood of innovation for a sample of manufacturing plants located in scotland econometric estimation indicates that plant size the presence of in plant r d and non uk ownership have a positive effect on the likelihood of innovation multiplant operation market power and variations in industrial structure have no discernible effect on innovation the finding that foreign ownership is positively associated with innovation contrasts with previous research conducted on manufacturing plants in northern ireland

technology imports and r d efforts of korean manufacturing firms abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between technology imports and r d efforts of korean manufacturing firms by a two stage method in the first stage using a sample representing the whole population of firms the paper shows that firms importing technology tend to commit themselves to r d efforts through having formal r d institutes in the second stage it shows that among firms with formal r d institutes technology imports have non complementary relationship with r d efforts moreover when technology imports are considered interactively with international inventive activity they turn out to have rather a substitutive relationship with r d efforts

the role of manufacturing in regional growth harris r i d 1987 the role of manufacturing in regional growth reg studies 21 301 312 since a shift in regional policy away from manufacturing to aiding services is being advocated this paper re examines the role of manufacturing in regional growth from both an empirical and theoretical viewpoint first of all it discusses the importance of manufacturing s share of output concluding that in output terms and prior to 1979 manufacturing has not been displaced by services in shares of total output secondly the paper focuses on the theoretical importance of manufacturing to the growth of regional output showing that for most theories demand side growth pole cumulative causation manufacturing is the natural base for growth potential harris r i d 1987 le role des industries de fabrication dans la croissance regionale reg studies 21 301 312 vu que l on propose une reorientation de la politique regionale au depens des industries de fabrication et en faveur du tertiaire cet article

the effects of water temperature in aquaculture management this study examines the impact of water temperature on the optimal management of the ration size and fish weight in off shore farm aquaculture a model for the expected returns of the farm is developed which includes a fish growth function influenced by fish weight the ration size and water temperature the output transportation cost has an ambiguous effect on the harvesting size but the impact of water temperature is positive these results explain empirical evidence in the canary islands that unfavourable economic conditions could be overcome by environmental advantageous conditions raising productivity

the size distribution of innovating firms in the uk 1945 1983 a survey of 4 378 significant innovations shows that firms with fewer than 1 000 employees commercialized a much larger share than is indicated by their share of r and d expenditures innovations per employee have been consistently above average in firms with more than 10 000 employees and have become so in firms with fewer than 1 000 intersectoral variation in the size distribution of innovating firms can be explained as a function of r and d based technological opportunities and of technological ease of entry by user firms with principal activities outside the sector copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

are crop yields normally distributed the evidence for nonnormality of crop yields is reassessed three methodological problems are identified in typical yield distribution analyses i misspecification of the nonrandom components of yield distributions ii missreporting of statistical significance and iii use of aggregate timeseries ats data to represent farm level yield distributions one or more of these problems infect virtually all evidence against normality to date the positive contribution of the article is a set of principles that must be followed in any valid investigation of yield normality

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

the effects of crop yield insurance designs on farmer participation and welfare the performance of individual farm yield and area yield crop insurance programs is evaluated for a representative iowa corn farm using numerical optimization of expected utility and simulation techniques several different contract design features are studied including the nature of the yield index which triggers insurance payouts alternative restrictions on coverage levels and alternative pricing structures performance is evaluated in terms of impacts on farmer participation and welfare and is examined in a portfolio setting where futures and options are also available to farmers the relative performance of different crop insurance designs is found to be particularly sensitive to restrictions on coverage levels the size of premium loadings and the degree to which individual farm yields are correlated with area yields

optimal coverage level choice with individual and area insurance plans we theoretically a farmer s optimal use of area and individual crop insurance when area and individual losses are positively but imperfectly correlated if premium rates for both plans are actuarially fair the farmer will demand full individual insurance and no area insurance if area insurance is free and individual insurance is offered at an actuarially fair rate area insurance replaces a portion of individual insurance demand if individual insurance is offered as a wrap around the area plan at an actuarially fair rate and area insurance is free the farmer will demand excess individual insurance and some area insurance copyright 2012 oxford university press

modelling regional patterns of innovation diffusion in the uk metalworking industries alderman n and davies s 1990 modelling regional patterns of innovation diffusion in the uk metalworking industries reg studies 24 513 528 in this paper davies economic model of innovation diffusion is tested at the regional level using survey data on the adoption of a number of key manufacturing technologies based on microelectronics or new materials within nine industries engaged primarily in metalworking activities the results demonstrate that there are regional variations in the rates of diffusion along one or other of the two types of trajectory derived from the model and that these have been slower in some peripheral regions than elsewhere these variations may be partly but by no means entirely accounted for by regional differences in industrial structure and establishment size distributions it is suggested however that as diffusion approaches saturation level regional convergence will be observed alderman n et davies s 1990 la modelisation de la distribution regionale de la diff

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

international fish trade and exchange rates an application to the trade with salmon and fishmeal international fish trade is growing and fish exports represent an important source of foreign currency for many countries for a few countries the exports are also an essential part of the economy we revisit the seminal paper of richardson 1978 that addresses the issue of exchange rate pass through in commodity markets but in a multivariate cointegration framework the multivariate cointegration framework allows us to test common assumptions like exchange rate pass through leading price central markets and exogeneity of exchange rates this approach is particularly suited when studying markets for primary products we provide empirical examples using salmon imports to japan and fish meal exports from peru to germany

us high technology multinationals and silicon glen haug p 1986 us high technology multinationals and silicon glen reg studies 20 103 116 future growth and investment by high technology industries have generated increasing interest in the agglomeration tendencies of high technology firms governments throughout the world are seeking to develop high technology firm concentrations similar to silicon valley in california an area that represents one of the largest high technology industry clusters outside the united states is scotland s silicon glen this article is based on interviews conducted at fourteen us owned manufacturing plants in silicon glen and sets out to 1 define the terms high technology industry and silicon glen 2 summarize research on the origins of silicon valley boston s route 128 silicon fen or the cambridge phenomenon and the m4 corridor near london and 3 present evidence on the location and investment activities of us multinational enterprises in silicon glen the results indicate that the attributes attracting high te

market structure for farmed salmon farmed salmon represents 20 of the total volume of the world s salmon supply norwegian salmon farmers produce more than 50 of the world s farmed salmon rapid expansion of this industry raises important issues about market model specification we specify and test models with varying degrees of market power including third degree price discrimination using norwegian export data from 1983 to 1988 results indicate that norwegian exporters have limited ability to engage in regional price discrimination although they may have discriminated after the third quarter of 1987 seasonal price discrimination however may have taken place because demand is more inelastic in periods when fresh wild caught salmon are unavailable

crop insurance valuation under alternative yield distributions considerable disagreement exists about the most appropriate characterization of farm level yield distributions yet the economic importance of alternative yield distribution specifications on crop insurance valuation has not been well documented the results of this study demonstrate that large differences in expected payouts from popular crop insurance products can arise solely from the parameterization chosen to represent yield distributions the results suggest that the frequently unexamined yield distribution specification may lead to economically significant errors in crop insurance policy rating and assessment of expected payouts from policies

average crop revenue election a revenue based alternative to price based commodity payment programs this article develops a stochastic model of the average crop revenue election acre program which offers revenue based commodity payments under the 2008 farm act our analysis shows that adding acre revenue payments to gross revenue reduces downside revenue risk for corn wheat and soybean farmers in 2009 on average by 16 21 and 23 respectively results indicate that farms with higher expected yields and lower variance of yields tend to benefit the most from acre integrating federal crop insurance with acre lowers insurance premiums from 10 to 40 depending on the crop and location

the role of foreign direct investment in the development of regional industrial systems current knowledge and suggestions for a future american research agenda o huallachain b 1985 the role of foreign direct investment in the development of regional industrial systems current knowledge and suggestions for a future american research agenda reg studies 20 151 162 the role of foreign direct investment in american regional industrial systems differs from the experiences found in other countries foreign investment in the us is increasing rapidly outside of the traditional industrial heartland it is highly integrated with the domestic economy and it does not seem to be developing the same truncated character found in other countries american research should concentrate on the impact increasing foreign investment is having on the technological makeup and total linkage structure of regional economies understanding these impacts will require a variety of research approaches ranging from sectoral studies to analysis of individual corporations this paper attempts to identify research priorities using the knowledge of foreign direct investment generated abroad

regional earnings convergence the case of northern ireland black b 1985 regional earnings convergence the case of northern ireland reg studies 19 1 7 this paper analyses the rapid increase in the earnings of northern ireland male manual workers relative to the united kingdom average which has taken place in recent decades it identifies four factors which help explain this convergence first there has been a big increase in hours worked in northern ireland relative to the uk average since 1961 second the influence of changing industrial structure is highlighted in addition the impact of a range of government policies and developments in the institutional process of pay determination on earnings is examined the paper concludes that the convergence reflects the erosion of regional distinctiveness as earnings levels are increasingly influenced by national factors

r d and the growth of firms empirical analysis of a panel of italian firms abstract this paper deals with the growth of firms and with their innovative activities the main hypothesis of the paper maintains that firms with a strong commitment to r d have a higher rate of growth because they succeed in the product market after a review of the related literature the paper presents an econometric analysis of the r d growth of firms relation based on a database of italian firms data on a sample of 500 firms with time series in the range 1989 1997 were drawn from the mediocredito survey of italian manufacturing descriptive analysis shows that the sales growth rate of firms with r d is higher than that of firms without r d econometric analysis is performed in two steps first we apply a panel unit root test im k pesaran h shin y 1997 testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels dae university of cambridge mimeo to verify whether the firm size significantly affects firm growth the test confirms gibrat s law that firm size has a stochastic trend second we explore whether there are variables with stochastic trends that could account for firm size according to our estimates the growth rate of firms is positively correlated with research intensity in these estimates a further interesting result is that investment in ict is not significant or shows a parameter with negative sign

r d appropriability opportunity and market structure new evidence on some schumpeterian hypotheses one of the largest bodies of literature in the field of industrial organization is devoted to the interpretation and testing of several hypotheses advanced by joseph schumpeter 1950 concerning innovation and industrial market structure one set of hypotheses focuses on the role of firm size as a determinant of r d spending and the rate of technological advance another set focuses on the effect of market concentration on r d and technological advance in this paper we reexamine the latter set of hypotheses at the industry level using new data on r d appropriability and technological opportunity collected by levin et al 1984 in a survey of r d executives in 130 industries

coping with systemic risk in index based crop insurance the implementation of index based crop insurance is often impeded by the existence of systemic risk of insured losses we assess the effectiveness of two strategies for coping with systemic risk regional diversification and securitization with catastrophe cat bonds the analysis is conducted in an equilibrium pricing framework which allows the optimal price of the insurance and the number of traded contracts to be determined we also explore the role of basis risk and risk aversion of market agents the model is applied to a hypothetical area yield insurance for rice producers in northeast china if yields in two regions are positively correlated we find that enlarging the insured area leads to higher insurance premiums unless capital market investors are very risk averse a cat bond written on an area yield index outperforms regional diversification in terms of certainty equivalents of both farmers and insurers

the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 harris r i d 1983 the measurement of capital services in production for uk regions 1968 78 reg studies 17 169 180 the purpose of this study is to obtain meaningful measures of the factor input capital so that estimation of the production function is possible at a regional level firstly gross stock measures are converted into a net stock series and the series obtained are then adjusted for levels of utilization finally some use of the data is made to look at various issues such as which regions have experienced rapid growth in capital stocks the composition of these stocks and changes in the capital labour ratios which have resulted

nonparametric estimation of crop yield distributions implications for rating group risk crop insurance contracts we use nonparametric density estimation procedures to evaluate county level crop yield distributions implications for rating area yield crop insurance contracts are discussed the procedures developed are used to measure yield risk and calculate insurance premium rates for wheat and barley in the 1995 96 group risk program

external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland harris r i d 1990 external ownership of industry and government policy some further evidence for northern ireland reg studies 25 45 62 this paper considers the causes and consequences of external ownership and control of manufacturing in northern ireland the province is an interesting example of a branch plant economy since government regional policy has been particularly responsible for encouraging inward investment the effect of external control on occupational structures inter firm linkages technological development and plant closures is assessed using various and often unique databases the results obtained suggest that high levels of external ownership in northern ireland lead to proportionately more unskilled as opposed to skilled manual workers linkages tend to be truncated leading to generally lower levels of integration into the local economy rd and there appears to have been a higher propensity for closure if the plant w

climate and agricultural risk measuring the effect of enso on u s crop insurance predictive models of climatic phenomena can aid in insurance program design and decision making extreme weather outcomes have been linked to the el nino southern oscillation enso which globally impacts agricultural production this study demonstrates that extreme enso events alter cotton yield distributions in the southeastern united states these impacts translate into economically meaningful effects on crop insurance premium rates commercial insurers can use publicly available information to determine if government set premium rates are mispriced and in turn extract economic rents via the federally mandated standard reinsurance agreement by ceding underpriced policies in el nino and la nina years we find that private insurance companies can reduce paid indemnities by 10 15 on average

long run price flexibilities for high valued uk fish species a cointegration systems approach in this paper the own and cross price flexibilities for four high valued species bass lobster sole and turbot landed in the uk are estimated system of equation models were developed using the vector error correction model vecm approach johansen s multivariate approach was used to obtain estimates of the long run steady state relationship vectors between fish prices and landings to find unique vectors i e no interdependent vectors zero restrictions on the coefficients of the price variables were applied so that the model effectively contained quantity independent variables only the resulting vectors were four unique cointegration long run relationships of monthly fish prices and landings various tests suggested that the variables were i 1 nonstationary variables the model also suggested that there are more than one cointegration vectors relationships between the variables it was found that bass has the largest absolute long run own price flexibility bass and lobster were found to be

market versus corporate structure in plant level innovation performance this paper examines the effect which market and corporate structure have on the extent of innovation for a sample of circa 300 manufacturing plants located in scotland innovation is defined as the introduction of a commercially significant new product at the establishment level the theoretical model of geroski 1990 is extended to incorporate plant level variables such as size multiplant operation the presence of r d facilities and external indigenous ownership a distinction is made between the direct and indirect effects of these variables negative binomial estimations indicate that corporate structure influences are more important in determining the number of innovations than market structure and barrier to entry variables plant size foreign ownership and the presence of r d are all positively associated with innovation direct effects greatly outweigh indirect effects tobit estimations on the number of innovations per employee support the findings of acs and audretsch 1988 that smaller enterprises are more innovation intensive than larger enterprises at least up to a limit of around 1200 employees the positive effect of r d arises principally from increasing the probability of a plant becoming an innovator rather than from making a plant more innovation intensive by contrast the importance of size lies principally in encouraging further innovations among plants which are already innovators but less than proportionately with the increase in employment size

warming temperatures will likely induce higher premium rates and government outlays for the u s crop insurance program likely climate change impacts include damages to agricultural production resulting from increased exposure to extreme heat considerable uncertainty remains regarding impacts on crop insurance programs we utilize a panel of u s corn yield data to predict the effect of warming temperatures on the mean and variance of yields as well as crop insurance premium rates and producer subsidies while we focus on corn we demonstrate that the subsidy impacts are likely to carry over to other major program crops we find that warming decreases mean yields and increases yield risk on average which results in higher premium rates under a 1 c warming scenario we find that premium rates at the 90 coverage level will increase by 39 on average however there is considerable statistical uncertainty around this average as the 95 confidence interval spans from 22 to 61 we also find evidence of extensive cross sectional differences as the county level rate impacts range from a 10 reduction to a 63 increase results indicate that exposure to extreme heat and changes in the coefficient of variation are large drivers of the impacts under the 1 c warming scenario we find that annual subsidy payments for the crop insurance program could increase by as much as 1 5 billion representing a 22 increase relative to current levels this estimate increases to 3 7 billion 57 under a 2 c warming scenario our results correspond to a very specific counterfactual the marginal effect of warming temperatures under current technology production and crop insurance enrollments these impacts are shown to be smaller than the forecasted impacts under a commonly used end of century general circulation model for even the most optimistic co emissions projection

competitive strategy and flexible manufacturing new dimensions in high technology venture based economic development abstract the recent proliferation of high technology venture based economic development beyond the well established research centers of santa clara s silicon valley boston s route 128 and carolina s research triangle has raised important questions concerning the demands placed on a facility s location by a modern high technology firm historical arguments promoted the idea that venture capital opportunities intertwined with skilled engineering and professional networks all propelled by the advanced technology spin offs of major research universities and neighboring firms were necessary both to attract and to retain existent high technology enterprises and incubate new start up ventures yet current empirical research suggests that these oft cited infrastructure requirements that fueled the technopoli high technology centers are inadequate in their ability to explain the spatial tendencies and location behavior of modern technologybased enterprises accordingly we argue that in order to more fully understand the economic dynamics of technology development it is important to consider carefully the implications of competitive strategy and recent advances in manufacturing technology utilizing an empirically derived typology of competitive strategy for high technology firms we investigated the linkages between strategy and community infrastructure requirements at both the regional and site specific levels of analysis we also examined the impact of flexible manufacturing technologies on both actual and anticipated location behavior to develop a relevant typology of competitive strategy for high technology ventures we incorporated elements of three important dimensions that frame a corporation s overall strategy manufacturing strategy technology strategy and market strategy using a cluster analytic technique three generic competitive strategy types were established technology mills technology specialists and technology mass producers further statistical analyses indicated that these three strategies had significantly different infrastructure requirements at both the broad community level and the specific site level in addition firms employing more flexible manufacturing technologies appeared to have very different spatial tendencies and were more likely to shift production between various facilities the results of this study have important implications at two levels for high technology economic development strategies and for corporate strategies for the economic development officer or community planner especially those involved with smaller communities without the vast and complex infrastructure of a silicon valley this study suggests that a productive economic development strategy would be one that takes a relatively focused approach these communities should encourage infrastructure development provide appropriate government incentives and establish community marketing plans by targeting firms with competitive strategies that value the type of infrastructure inputs the community can provide for the corporate strategist this study underlies the importance of closely integrating the location decision with the firm s overall competitive strategy matching plant location with strategic thrust is often overlooked by corporations in their misplaced desire to simply find a low cost solution

exports and innovation a simultaneous model abstract this study analyses the role of r d expenditures in determining export composition and contrasts it with the role of skilled labour it proposes the hypothesis that there is a simultaneous relation between exports and innovation a simultaneous model is set up to estimate the effects of technology and skill on uk export composition both the technology level and the technology gap are found to have positive effects on exports as is manual skilled labour concentration has a negative effect the simultaneity hypothesis is supported

adverse selection in crop insurance actuarial and asymmetric information incentives adverse selection is often blamed for crop insurance indemnities exceeding premiums plus subsidies however nationwide empirical evidence has been lacking or based on inadequate county level data this article uses nationwide farm level data on corn and soybeans to decompose incentives for participation in u s multiple peril crop insurance into a risk aversion incentive the conventional justification for insurance an actuarial or subsidy incentive reflecting government subsidization and an asymmetric information incentive which reflects farmers information advantage results show that the risk aversion incentive is small farmers participate in crop insurance primarily to receive the subsidy or because of adverse selection possibilities

a dominant firm model of price determination in the us fresh salmon market 1985 88 in this paper a dominant firm pricing model is used to examine price determination in the us imported farmed salmon market for the period 1985 88 in the 1980s us imports of fresh and frozen salmon increased rapidly with norway supplying nearly 80 of farmed salmon the model assumes that norwegian suppliers recognize their dominant position in the market and set the level of supply to the us to achieve a price that will maximize profits the model does well in explaining variations in the price of farmed salmon over the period of study and is used to study recent allegations that norwegian salmon have been dumped in the us market

is there a viable market for area based crop insurance the performance of area yield insurance and farm level multiple peril crop insurance is analyzed for cotton and soybean production in georgia and south carolina the analysis improves on many previous studies by utilizing actual farm level yield data and by comparing the two types of insurance products not only for actuarially fair premium rates but also for actual unsubsidized and subsidized premium rates results suggest that even in heterogeneous production regions area yield insurance may be a viable alternative to farm level insurance when premium rates for farm level insurance contain large positive wedges

funding for innovation in small firms the role of government abstract this paper examines some of the issues facing innovative small firms the shortage of enterprise funding for such small firms can be explained by the uncertainty associated with such ventures uncertainty which is magnified in the case of hightechnology firms we characterise the uncertainty as an information gap both technological and commercial which is exacerbated by an asymmetry of interest between the founders of a firm and private sector sources of finance we explore the sources of this uncertainty and examine the effect that one government scheme the small firms merit awards for research and technology smart has had in offsetting such problems some suggestions for improvements in policy in the light of the experience of smart are put forward

some evidence of regional variations in the introduction and diffusion of industrial products and processes within british manufacturing industry thwaites a t 1982 some evidence of regional variations in the introduction and diffusion of industrial products and processes within british manufacturing industry reg studies 16 371 81 in the present economic circumstances the traditional instruments of regional aid public expenditure job transfer and mobile industry are greatly constrained which thrusts greater responsibility upon industry indigenous to each area to preserve and to create employment self sustained economic growth any concept of the mobilization of this regional potential must incorporate a technological dimension if any region lags in the production or adoption of new technology within its manufacturing industries then in the longer term it must face industrial decline evidence of regional performance in the production and adoption of new products and processes together with research and development effort is provided from two establishment based surveys of manufacturing industry in great britain the conclusion is reached

external ownership and innovation in the united kingdom this paper examines the impact of ownership and a variety of other variables on the likelihood of innovation and the presence of an r d function within a national sample of uk defence related firms it is shown that foreign ownership has a negative indirect impact upon innovation mixed support is found for the schumpeterian approach to innovation involvement in export markets technological opportunity and r d collaboration are shown to have a positive impact on innovation

industrial strategy a missing link in british economic policy this paper critically analyzes the potential and limitations of economic instruments for environmental protection it presents a general framework for analyzing environmental issues along with a taxonomy for classifying different approaches to environmental protection a key contribution of the paper is to identify critical steps in marketing economic incentive approaches for environmental protection the challenge to researchers is to design tools that will help achieve environmental goals more effectively this means taking careful account of political technical and economic constraints in system design copyright 1993 by oxford university press

regularities in the growth of high technology industries in regions abstract this paper aims to identify regularities in the growth of high technology industries in regions or synonymously regional high technology abbreviated as rht hereafter re viewing past studies a number of hypotheses as to what affects the growth of rht are presented and examined by various statistical methods a hypothesis on the self reproductive effect is supported most strongly the relationship of the self reproductive effect with the cumulative advantage effect is discussed as policy implications of the analyses it is advised for local governments 1 to base short term rht policies on the present state of rht or more specifically to expand currently forte fields of ht toward the specialisatin among regions instead of the current trend that every region follows the same rht policy and 2 to maintain or improve intellectual potential in the regions for long term rht policies or more specifically to improve middle education and to form a regional cultural policy rather than costly investment for science technical universities or public r d institutes

nonparametric estimation of crop insurance rates revisited with the crop insurance program becoming the cornerstone of u s agricultural policy recovering accurate rates is of paramount interest lack of yield data presents by far the most fundamental obstacle to recovery of accurate rates thisarticle employsnew methodology to estimate conditional yield densities and derive the insurance rates in our application we find the nonparametric kernel density estimator requires an additional twenty six years of yield data to estimate the shape of the conditional yield dens itiesasaccurately asthe recently developed empirical bayesnonparametric kernel density estimator such methodological improvements can significantly aid in ameliorating the data problem recovering accurate premium ratesis paramount to the actuarial soundness of the crop insurance program a program which hasgained prominence in the overall u s agricultural policy agenda the 1996 federal agricultural improvement and reform fair act signaled a new policy environment under which farmerswould be s to market forces under this policy regime crop insurance remains in some respects one of the only government subsidized income stabilizing mechanisms available to agricultural producers in addition it appears that current political forcesare in the proces sof fashioning crop insurance as the cornerstone of u s agricultural policy consider the 1999 state of the union address in which the president stated

relaxing heteroscedasticity assumptions in area yield crop insurance rating this article focuses on the effect of differing heteroscedasticity assumptions on derived premium rates of area yield crop insurance tests of the proportional and absolute heteroscedasticity assumptions are conducted using both in sample and out of sample measures our results suggest that arbitrarily imposing a specific form of heteroscedasticity or homoscedasticity in insurance rate calculations limits actuarial soundness our results have practical implications for the federal crop insurance programs as we reject the traditional rating assumptions for many cotton regions and lower yielding higher risk corn and soybean counties but not in the heart of the cornbelt copyright 2011 oxford university press

semiconductors scotland and the international division of labour the paper seeks to analyse the semiconductor industry in scotland in relation to the international division of labour of which it is a part it does this by theorising the emergence and subsequent development of the industry both within scotland and in terms of its structural connections with american semiconductor production in the usa and southeast asia in this context the paper explores some of the social and spatial implications of the industry s development in silicon glen the paper concludes with a number of comments on the significance of the semiconductor industry in scotland for analyses informed by the international division of labour perspective

new process technology and the regeneration of the manufacturing sector of an urban economy local economic development strategies for the manufacturing sectors of urban areas have tended to focus on either inward investment or the stimulation of new firms this paper argues more attention should be focused upon existing large manufacturing operations the introduction of new process technologies into existing establishments may enhance the competitiveness of an urban economy using data from a new survey of the larger metal using establishments in the sheffield economy the empirical work highlights the difficulties that can be encountered in the introduction of new process technology the concluding section outlines a number of policy considerations which may indicate a way forward for local administrations seeking to encourage the introduction of new process technology into large plants in traditional manufacturing sectors

the investment decision making process and investment determinants in the northern ireland manufacturing sector sheehan m 1994 the investment decision making process and investment determinants in the northern ireland manufacturing sector reg studies 28 511 520 the way in which companies make investment decisions is one of the least understood processes in the workings of an economy this paper is based on interviews with 45 manufacturing firms in northern ireland and sets out to 1 describe reasons for company investment and 2 extend this descriptive analysis by investigating how investment decisions are actually evaluated the paper also assesses how investment appraisals have been affected by government capital grants the results indicate that companies reasons for investing and required rates of return on investments have changed over time while it was found that a majority of companies formally evaluated investments the use of formal appraisal techniques were frequently abandoned sheehan m 1994 le processus de decision relatif a l investissement et les determinants de l investissement dans

price transmission and market integration vertical and horizontal price linkages for salmon relationships between prices are of interest when testing for market integration as well as analyses of supply chains a feature that has received little attention is that if two supply chains are linked by market integration at some stage then the whole supply chain will be linked furthermore the leading price in such a system can be in one supply chain and will not be revealed in market integration studies or analysis of a single supply chain an empirical analysis is provided for the supply chains for salmon which originates in norway and the united kingdom and is then sold at retail level in france as smoked salmon we find a high degree of price transmission in both supply chains as well as integrated markets

plant size and industry mix effects on uk regional productivity wage costs and operating surplus roper s 1998 plant size and industry mix effects on uk regional productivity wage costs and operating surplus reg studies 32 325 332 the ability of a region to create wealth depends both on the competitiveness of its individual firms and its industrial structure this paper examines the effect of industry mix and plant size structure on the wealth generating capacity of the uk regions from 1980 91 reflecting the findings of similar us studies the analysis suggests that in general uk regions structural disadvantages act to reinforce rather than counter plant level productivity wage cost and operating surplus profitability differentials thus lagging regions face a three fold disadvantage poorly performing plants disadvantageous industry mix and plant size structure this suggests a need for a strategic approach to policy which must aim to counter regions structural disadvantages as well as to improve the competitiveness of existing plants roper s 1998 les effets de la taille des et

reasons for the development of islands of innovation evidence from hertfordshire this paper analyses why innovations often cluster in a few metropolitan islands of innovation the reason for this interest is that a growing body of neo schumpeterian economic theory argues that economic recovery after periods of economic recession and depression such as we have seen during the 1980s and early 1990s is driven by innovations these do not spring up all over the country but are spatially concentrated in a small number of metropolitan regions it is therefore important to know why this is so in order to evaluate the effectiveness of various uk and eu public policies whose specific objectives are to stimulate local and regional economic development agglomeration theory is used in order to understand the driving forces behind the spatial clustering of new innovations this leads to four explanatory hypotheses these are that innovation is facilitated by agglomeration in order to reduce distance transaction costs between firms in different spaces or by local factor conditions which provide

agglomeration economies among high technology firms in advanced production areas the case of denver boulder lyons d 1995 agglomeration economies among high technology firms in advanced production areas the case of denver boulder reg studies 29 265 278 research on the agglomeration economies generated by high technology industry has tended to focus on either core high technology areas or fabrication clusters this paper directs attention to intermediate or advanced production areas through an investigation of the agglomeration advantages generated by high technology firms in the denver boulder region the results suggest that advanced production areas are characterized by relatively robust and innovative high technology sectors with significant agglomeration advantages derived from the division of labour new firm formation and to a lesser extent local forward and backward linkages although small firms account for the majority of firms in the denver boulder area a small number of large firms are crucial to the future economic health of the area lyons d 1995 les economies d agglomeration des entre

estimation of mixture models using cross validation optimization implications for crop yield distribution modeling a critical issue in identifying an appropriate characterization of crop yield distributions is that the best fitting distribution in an in sample framework is not necessarily the best choice out of sample this study provides a methodology for estimating flexible and efficient mixture models using cross validation that alleviates many of these associated model selection issues the method is illustrated in an application to the rating of group risk insurance products results indicate that nonparametric models often fit best in sample but are inefficient and consistently overstate true rates and vice versa for parametric models the proposed model provides unbiased rates and also has desirable efficiency properties

spatial pattern of yield distributions implications for crop insurance crop insurance is similar to flood and hurricane insurance in that spatially correlated weather tends to cause violations of the independence assumption ideally one would seek to pool uncorrelated risk drawn from the same distribution in crop insurance this article proposes a testing procedure for the cross sectional pooling of group units and empirically analyzes whether the proposed test improves out of sample rating performance we utilize a balanced panel of u s county level corn yields for 510 counties and the results of an out of sample crop insurance rating performance exercise provide economic significance to the proposed pooling methodology and results

government financial assistance and manufacturing investment in northern ireland sheehan m 1993 government financial assistance and manufacturing investment in northern ireland reg studies 27 527 540 this paper analyses the influence of government grants on the investment decision making process in the northern ireland manufacturing sector the paper is based on detailed interviews with northern ireland manufacturing firms and focuses on two time periods 1985 88 and 1989 92 findings are presented on the impact of grant schemes on the level timing and quality of investment expenditure during the period 1985 88 two types of grant schemes were available for capital investment in northern ireland standard capital grants scgs which were automatic grants and selective financial assistance sfa the standard capital grant scheme was eliminated in 1988 the findings indicate that scgs had more effect on companies investment programmes than sfa due to the certainty of payment since 1988 sfa has become more important to companies and appears to be offsetting to a certain exte

analyzing literature based innovation output indicators the italian experience abstract this paper presents the results of a study on the product innovations introduced in the italian market in 1989 and reported in a selected number of trade journals the analysis of data collected by means of this literature based counting procedure confirms that r d oriented industries and large firms do not in italy have a marked competitive advantage in innovation the country appears to be instead characterized by a significant presence of consumer goods industries and small firms in innovation our data indicate a statistically significant association between trade competitiveness and strength in product innovation and show the comparatively higher capacity for product innovation of some of the industries in which italy achieves a positive performance in international trade moreover the presence of spillovers at the regional level from both private and public r d expenditures proves to be positively correlated with the development of product innovations finally small firms with fewer than 50 employees appear to be more innovative than is usually believed to be the case

firm size and technical change in a dynamic context this article investigates relationship between firm size and technical change the relationship between firm size and technical change has long been a pre occupation in the literature preceding the flurry of macroeconomic studies which followed the discovery of the residual factor by solow dennison and others although this concern goes back at least to the writings of marx it was schumpeter who first emphasized the relationship between firm size and technical change for some years the assertion of schumpeter s was widely accepted but then a number of detailed empirical studies were undertaken resting on 1950s data these began to suggest that beyond a certain size inventive activity rose less than proportionately with bigness by contrast rothwell and zegveld assembled a variety of country studies some of which suggest that small and medium sized firms are relatively invention and innovation intensive in some sectors and in some countries the purpose of this paper is to argue by illustration with a single sector computer aided design cad that the above mentioned studies reach their varying conclusions in a largely static framework thus whilst there is always a tendency towards concentration in capitalism the relationship between firm size and technical change is a dynamic one ensuring that static generalisations at any single point of time are not very helpful the article is divided into sections by section iii describes the market structure in the cad sector and analyse how this has changed over the past decade section iv analyses the nature of the barriers to entry in this sector and illustrate how these are typical of other emerging software intensive microelectronic based sectors finally section v is a return discussion on the relationship between firm size and inventive activity

locational and organizational determinants of r d employment in high technology firms felsenstein d and shachar a 1988 locational and organizational determinants of r d employment in high technology firms reg studies 22 477 486 a causal model is presented that predicts the relationship between the organizational structure and location of the high technology firm on the one hand and its r d employment intensity on the other the organizational structure of the firm is treated in two ways the intra organizational internal structure of the firm is analysed and found to be significantly and negatively related to the level of r d employment in the firm this is contrary to the hypothesisied direction of relationship variables representing the inter organizational environment of the firm however are found to be associated with r d employment intensity in the manner expected the results further show that r d employment intensity is positively associated with metropolitan location unmediated by the effects of firm size this suggests that small high technology firms due to their liab

product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets evidence from an sme survey in six european union member states abstract this work explores the relationship between product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets among a sample of smes in six european union countries located in both peripheral and more central areas we find that the presence of product innovation reduces the probability to invest a firm s size exerts a direct inverted u shape effect on the probability to invest and an indirect effect through the linear effect of size on the probability to innovate the gap in the probability to invest between innovative and non innovative firms increases with size

factors governing the development of high tech industry agglomerations a tale of three cities glasmeier a 1988 factors governing the development of high tech industry agglomerations a tale of three cities reg studies 22 287 301 high tech industries are thought to precipitate structural change in local economies through the creation of backward and forward linkages and new firm spinoffs case studies of high tech firms and products indicate interindustry linkage development is closely associated with product type and organizational structure of firms three product configurations one of a kind customized and standardized generate differing levels of linkage and spinoff potential firms producing customized products with highly variable input structures and established subcontracting relationships are more amenable to linkage and spinoff creation than firms producing one of a kind or standardized products the potential for linked industry development is further diluted because the spatial expansion path of high tech firms has been through the creation of technical branch plants which a