1,721,065 research outputs found
Labour markets, bargaining and innovation
No full textMuch of the recent empirical work on the impact of unions on R&D is based on a theoretical model which predicts that (i) unions have a negative impact on R&D; (ii) under some circumstances an increase in union strength can make both firms and unions worse off. We survey a more recent theoretical literature which takes account of the fact that R&D is often undertaken for strategic reasons by firms that are in competition with one another. We show that in this framework the prevailing theoretical paradigm may be overturned. Thus when firms and unions can enter into long-term bargains then an increase in union strength will increase (decrease) R&D spending if successful innovation causes employment to rise (respectively fall). However, when R&D falls then this increase in union strength can cause both firms and unions to be better off. When firms and unions engage in short-term bargaining then an increase in union bargaining strength will cause R&D to fall when bargaining is over wages alone. However, when bargaining takes place over wages and employment, then, if unions care a lot about employment, the relationship between union strength and R&D is inverse U-shaped
Global warming, irreversibility and learning
No full textA number of economists have argued that the literature on the irreversibility effect implies that current abatement of greenhouse gas emissions should be greater when there is the possibility of obtaining better information in the future about the potential damages from global warming than when there is no possibility of obtaining better information. In this paper we show that even the simplest model of global warming does not satisfy either of Epstein's (1980) sufficient conditions, so it is not possible to use Epstein's analysis to tell whether the irreversibility effect applies to models of global warming. We derive an alternative sufficient condition for the irreversibility effect to hold
University funding : impact on teaching and research
Full text linkWe address the following question: how does a higher education funding system influence the trade-off that universities make between research and teaching? We do so by constructing a model that allows universities to choose actively the quality of their teaching and research when faced with different funding systems characterised by the pivotal role of the university funding budget constraint. In particular, we derive the feasible sets that face universities under such systems and show how, as the parameters of the system (the research block grant element, the research quality premium and the incentives-triggering quality threshold) are varied, the nature of the university system itself changes. Different ‘cultures’ of the university system emerge such as the ‘research elite’ and the ‘binary divide’.Peer reviewe
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Optimal incentives for income-generation in universities: the rule of thumb for the Compton tax
No full textIn this paper we propose a novel framework to model one of the key links between universities and industry—the undertaking of applied research. We postulate that a basic objective of universities is to undertake fundamental research and that they receive public funding to do so. Nevertheless, faced with tight budget constraints, universities may have incentives to allow their staff to devote some of their time to income-generating activities such as applied research or consultancy. This opens up two channels by which universities can ease their budget constraint: (i) by allowing academics to supplement their income, universities may be able to hold down academic salaries; (ii) universities can effectively ‘tax’ the income that academics raise through applied research or consultancy—for example, through the imposition of ‘overhead charges’. By easing their budget constraint, universities may be able to take on sufficient extra staff to more than offset the time that existing staff are spending on non-fundamental research and thus increase the amount of fundamental research that they can achieve with a given public budget. We develop a model of this link between universities and firms and use it to determine the optimal ‘tax’ that universities should impose on applied-research income. The Compton tax, used at MIT in the 1930s, is an early example of the use of this instrument
Concurrence, innovation et croissance : un modèle de création non destructrice.
No full textThe main objective of this paper is to analyze the links between product market competition, innovation
and growth. We capture the idea that firms innovate in order to try to escape -albeit temporarily - from
the pressure of competition exerted on them by their rivals. There are two ways in which competitive
pressure can be thought of as a driving force to innovate. In leveled industries where all the firms have
access to the same technological knowledge, the greater is the intensity of competition between the neck
by neck firms the lower will be their current profits. Thus, as the competitive pressure increases, these
firms will devote a higher ft&D effort to obtain a leadership and escape from the unprofitable state. In
unleveled industries, where one firm has obtained a technological lead, the greater is the intensity of
competition, the lower will be the current profit of the laggard firm. This should increase the incentive
of this firm to eliminate its disadvantage by catching-up or leapfrogging the current leader. We assume
that if a laggard firm succeeds in innovating, it will either leapfrog the leader with some probability or
catch-up its technology with the complementary probability. The dynamics of industry are thus more
complex than in pure leapfrogging models. By using a quadratic R&D cost function, we investigate
how innovation and growth are affected in the stationary state by the intensity of competition and by
the probability of leapfrogging.L'objectif de cet article est d'étudier les liens entre concurrence, innovation et croissance. L'idée essentielle qu'on cherche à capturer est que l'incitation à innover traduit le désir des entreprises d'échapper à la pression concurrentielle sur leurs marchés respectifs. On suppose qu'en innovant, une entreprise possédant un retard technologique sur son concurrent peut dépasser celui ci avec une certaine probabilité ou simplement le rattraper avec la probabilité complémentaire. L'effort de recherche par la firme retardataire est d'autant plus important que la probabilité de dépassement est élevée et que la pression concurrentielle est forte. De même, lorsque des entreprises ont accès à la même technologie, chacune d'elles cherche à gagner le leadership et fournit pour cela un effort de recherche qui croît avec la pression concurrentielle. La dynamique industrielle qui résulte alors du processus d'innovation est plus complexe que celle présente dans les modèles de croissance endogène d'inspiration Schumpeterienne. Au lieu d'une succession de monopoles innovateurs distincts, on obtient des structures de marché qui oscillent entre des états de concurrence technologique frontale et des états de dominance technologique, l'identité du meneur et du suiveur technologiques pouvant alterner au cours du temps. On caractérise à l'équilibre stationnaire du modèle la proportion d'industries qui sont en concurrence technologique frontale et le taux de croissance de l'économie. En utilisant une fonction de coût quadratique de la recherche, on parvient à montrer que les impacts de ia probabilité de dépassement et de l'intensité de la pression concurrentielle sur le taux de croissance sont tous les deux positifs.Encaoua David, Ulph David. Concurrence, innovation et croissance : un modèle de création non destructrice.. In: Cahiers d'économie politique, n°37, 2000. Qu'a-t-on appris sur la concurrence imparfaite depuis Cournot? pp. 155-176
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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