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Social Innovations: Comparative Perspectives
No full textSocial Innovation: Comparative Perspectives investigates socio-economic impact. Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation understood as organizations capacity to generate novel ideas, ways and means of doing things, of addressing public and social problems of many kinds.
This volumes primary assertion is that the Third Sector, specifically through stimulating civic involvement, is best placed to produce social innovation, outperforming business firms and state agencies in this regard. By investigating actor contributions to social innovation across seven fields of activity, Social innovation: Comparative Perspectives develops our understanding of why and how the Third Sector is central to functioning, cohesive and viable societies.
This volume is based on contributions of the project "ITSSOIN Impact of the Third Sector as Social Innovation" funded by the European Commission under the 7th framework programme. It will be of insight across disciplines, in particular to the growing social innovation community, innovation researchers more generally and to non-profit scholars. The practical relevance of the book will be of interest to European and national policy makers and practitioners across different sectors
A Theory of Price Adjustment under Loss Aversion
No full textWe present a new partial equilibrium theory of price adjustment, based on consumer loss aversion. In line with prospect theory, the consumers’ perceived utility losses from price increases are weighted more heavily than the perceived utility gains from price decreases of equal magnitude. Price changes are evaluated relative to an endogenous reference price, which depends on the consumers’ rational price expectations from the recent past. By implication, demand responses are more elastic for price increases than for price decreases and thus firms face a downward-sloping demand curve that is kinked at the consumers’ reference price. Firms adjust their prices flexibly in response to variations in this demand curve, in the context of an otherwise standard dynamic neoclassical model of monopolistic competition. The resulting theory of price adjustment is starkly at variance with past theories. We find that – in line with the empirical evidence – prices are more sluggish upwards than downwards in response to temporary demand shocks, while they are more sluggish downwards than upwards in response to permanent demand shocks. The degree of these asymmetries, in turn, depends on the size of the shock
The Governance Report 2014
No full textThe Governance Report 2014 is the second in this annual series about
the changing conditions of governance, the challenges and opportunities
involved, and the implications and recommendations that present
themselves to analysts and policy-makers
The Governance Report 2018
No full textThe year 2018 marks the tenth anniversary of the full outbreak of what
would come to be known as the global financial and economic crisis
(GFC). Most of the countries that were impacted by the crisis have
recovered economically, but traces of it still remain in terms of high public debt burdens, distrust in many institutions, and many other aspects. Now ten years on, this edition of the Governance Report offers an opportunity to look at these developments and consider how such financial and other global crises can be prevented or better managed.
The Governance Report 2018 is the sixth in an annual series about the
changing conditions of governance, the challenges and opportunities
involved, and the implications and recommendations that present themselves to analysts and policy-makers. The Governance Report is an interdisciplinary effort to examine state-of-the-art governance. In doing so, it enlists experts from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin as well as from other institutions. Special attention
is paid to institutional designs and approaches, changes, and innovations that both state and non-state actors have adopted in response to shifts that have been occurring
Stunted growth: why don't African firms create more jobs?
No full textMany countries in Africa suffer high rates of underemployment or low rates of productive employment; many also anticipate large numbers of people to enter the workforce in the near future. This paper asks the question: Are African firms creating fewer jobs than those located elsewhere? And, if so, why? One reason may be that weak business environments slow the growth of firms and distort the allocation of resources away from better-performing firms, hence reducing their potential for job creation. The paper uses data from 41,000 firms across 119 countries to examine the drivers of firm growth, with a special focus on African firms. African firms, at any age, tend to be 20–24 percent smaller than firms in other regions of the world. The poor business environment, driven by limited access to finance, and the lack of availability of electricity, land, and unskilled labor have some value in explaining this difference. Foreign ownership, the export status of the firm, and the size of the market are also significant determinants of firm size. However, even after controlling for the business environment and for characteristics of firms and markets, about 60 percent of the size gap between African and non-African firms remains unexplained
The better you are the stronger it makes you: Evidence on the asymmetric impact of liberalization
No full textThis paper studies how liberalization affects productivity growth using micro-level plant data. While previous studies have already shown the existence of a positive relationship between competition and economic performance, the novelty of this paper is that it analyzes not only the average impact of liberalization, but also goes "beyond the average" and shows how the liberalization can affect dissimilar plants in a different way. The author first develops a model which predicts that, while the impact of liberalization on productivity growth is positive "on average", more advanced firms tend to benefit more. In fact, liberalization generates two competing effects: on one side it spurs more innovative efforts because of the increased entry threat by foreign competitors, on the other side, enhanced competition curtails expected profits and reduces the funds available to finance innovative activities. The pro-competitive effect is weaker for less advanced firms as for them it is harder to catch-up with the "technology frontier". These predictions are then tested focusing on Mexican plants during the NAFTA liberalization. The results show that a 1 percent reduction in tariffs spurred productivity growth between 4 and 8 percent on average. However, for backward firms this effect is much weaker if not close to zero, otherwise for more advanced ones this effect is stronger with productivity growing between 11 and 13 percent. Consistent with the theoretical model the results are stronger in those sectors where the scope for innovative activities is more pronounced. These results are particularly important for policy makers because they suggest that while increasing competition may be good in spurring average productivity, it is also true that this effect does not hold for all type of firms, in particular more backward firms may need some complementary support policy to upgrade their capacities and keep up with the more competitive environment
Organizing knowledge to compete: Impacts of capacity building programs on firm organization
No full textA growing literature aiming at explaining differences in productivity and access to global export markets across firms has focused on the internal organization of firms. This paper contributes to this literature by evaluating the impact of a program that aims at enhancing competitiveness of small and medium enterprises in Brazil by providing coaching and consulting on management and production practices. Specifically, the paper tests whether the program induces treated firms to reorganize knowledge by adding more layers of different skills and competencies to their workforces. Using a unique firm-level data set, the number of layers of knowledge of the firms are compared before and after the program. The impact of the program is identified by relying on an instrumental variable approach, exploiting the quasi-experimental roll-out of its implementation, which was carried out at different times across Brazilian regions. The analysis finds that the program had an effect and that this effect is heterogeneous. The program is particularly effective in promoting the reorganization of small and medium firms. The results confirm another finding of the literature, namely that in re-organized firms wage inequality increases. Finally, these results are used to discuss how the change in firms' organization is positively correlated with export performance
Minding Weber more than ever? The impacts of State Capacity and Bureaucratic Autonomy on development goals
No full textState capacity has attracted renewed interest over the last years, notably in the study of violent conflict. Yet, this concept is conceived differently depending on where the interest lies. In this article, we focus on bureaucratic autonomy as a distinct concept and discuss its connection to state capacity in detail. Using panel data over 1990–2010 and a novel indicator of autonomy, we estimate the separate effect of state capacity and bureaucratic autonomy on child mortality and tuberculosis prevalence. The evidence suggests that bureaucratic autonomy has a stronger impact than commonly used measures of state capacity or traditional macroeconomic variables
Boosting und Nudging in der Altersvorsorge - Eine verhaltensökonomische Einordnung der Studienergebnisse
No full textDie MetallRente Studie 2019 zeichnet ein zwiespältiges Bild. Zum einen betont mittlerweile jeder zweite junge Erwachsene, im „Hier und Heute“ zu leben – was die Zukunft bringt, wisse ohnehin niemand; im Jahr 2010 stimmte nur jeder Dritte dieser Aussage zu (siehe Kapitel 1 in diesem Buch, Abb. 10). Konsistent damit sinkt auch der Anteil jener, die die Altersvorsorge als Grund zum Sparen angeben. Unter den regelmäßig Sparenden, d. h., bei jungen Erwachsenen, deren ökonomische Situation das Sparen ermöglicht, war die Altersversorge im Jahr 2010 noch für 66 % der Befragten ein wichtiges Sparmotiv, während dieser Wert 2019 um zehn Prozentpunkte gesunken ist (siehe Kapitel 1, Abb. 15). Zum anderen scheint bei jungen Erwachsenen sehr wohl ein klares und immer starker ausgeprägtes Problembewusstsein vorhanden zu sein: 82 % der Befragten erkennen, dass der demografische Wandel die gesetzlichen Rentenkassen zunehmend unter Druck setzt; 85 % rechnen damit, noch weit über ihr 67. Lebensjahr arbeiten zu müssen, und 86 % stimmen der Aussage zu, dass
ohne eine eigenständige private Vorsorge deutlich mehr Menschen von Altersarmut betroffen sein werden (siehe Kapitel 1, Abb. 23). Damit, so konnte man meinen, ist den Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen die Bedeutung der dritten Säule in der Altersvorsorge klar. Die Studienergebnisse zeigen jedoch, dass die private Altersvorsorge weiterhin an Attraktivität einbüßt
Innovation When The Market Is Shrinking: Firm-level Responses To Competition From China
No full textHow does trade liberalization that raises a country’s import competition affect the innovative activity of its firms? We exploit the strong growth of Chinese exports resulting from China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 as a competitive shock to, specifically, Mexican manufacturing firms. Innovation is captured through information on the adoption of specific production techniques such as just in time inventory methods, quality control, and job rotation. Our results indicate that China’s rise in global trade did not affect by much Mexico’s rate of innovation, which contrasts with the substantial gains that others have found in the case of bilateral liberalization. At the same time, there is a striking heterogeneity in the responses across firms: productive firms innovate more while less productive firms innovate less. This leads to positive selection in that initial differences in firm performance are sharpened by the advent of new competition. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of trade and innovation