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on Business, Economic and Financial History |
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Issue of 2012‒07‒29
25 papers chosen by |
| By: | Price V. Fishback |
| Abstract: | I compare and contrast the relief efforts in response to the extraordinary employment of the Great Depression in the U.S. and Australia. The effectiveness of relief spending in America at the local level is discussed with reference to a series of studies that I have performed with a series of co-authors. To compare the U.S. demographic results with the impact of relief spending in Australia, I develop a panel data set for the Australian states from 1929 through 1939 and then estimate the relationship between relief spending by the states and various demographic measures, including infant mortality, the death rate, the crude birth rate, marriage rates, and the divorce rate. |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:005&r=his |
| By: | Tim Hatton |
| Abstract: | A country's most important asset is its people. This paper outlines the development of Britain's human resources since the middle of the 19th century. It focuses on four key elements. The first is the demographic transition - the processes through which birth rates and death rates fell, leading to a slowdown in population growth. The second is the geographical reallocation of population through migration. This includes emigration and immigration as well as migration within Britain. The third issue is labour supply: the proportion of the population participating in the labour market and the amount and type of labour supplied. Related to this, the last part of the chapter charts the growth in education and skills of the population and the labour force. |
| JEL: | J11 J12 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:004&r=his |
| By: | Michael N.A. Hinton (The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy) |
| Abstract: | I argue that the 19th century Canadian cotton textile industry was an extremely successful infant industry. Judging the industry’s performance by seven widely-employed measures of success – growth in output, contemporary opinion, size, the use of the most modern machinery, exports, and relative total factor productivity – it is shown that the growth of Canada’s cotton mills provides strong support for Chang’s provocative hypothesis that infant industry protection was the way the rich countries of today grew rich in the nineteenth century. |
| Keywords: | Infant Industry Protection, Total Factor Productivity, Cotton Textiles |
| JEL: | D24 L67 N60 N61 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:55_12&r=his |
| By: | Konzelmann, S. |
| Abstract: | The 2007/8 financial crisis has reignited the debate about austerity economics and revealed that it is a highly contested yet poorly understood idea. This article locates the debate in its historical context, tracing it from the early 18th and 19th century Classical debates, which focused mainly on the means by which fiscal deficits should be financed. As capitalism evolved, so did ideas and theories about the economics of austerity. Following World War One, concerns about high levels of government debt produced the 1920s 'Treasury view' - that government deficits are economically damaging and austerity is required to rein them in. During the 1930s Great Depression, when unemployment was the main concern, this perspective was challenged by the 'Keynesian view' - that government deficits could be economically beneficial during the slump, when the private sector was unable to generate sufficient effective demand to pull the economy out of depression. From this perspective, austerity was the policy prescription for the top of the business cycle, to prevent the economy from over-heating and igniting inflation. The 'stagflationary' crises of the 1970s challenged this view; and during the decades preceding the 2007/8 crisis, austerity was considered to be a policy for the bottom of the business cycle, when the excesses of a bubble-inflated boom had been revealed by its collapse. In the aftermath of the 2007/8 financial crisis, however, austerity no longer has the economic objective of macroeconomic stabilization. Instead, it has become the objective itself - demanded by actors in the international financial markets as evidence that governments are serious about managing their deficits and paying back their debts, thereby protecting the financial interests of investors in sovereign debt. However, if austerity undermines economic growth - as it is doing at present - markets are unlikely to remain loyal to those countries suffering the effect. It is therefore important that policy-makers and political leaders learn the lessons of the 2007/8 financial crisis with regard to the economics of austerity - before it is too late. |
| Keywords: | Austerity, Macroeconomic Policy, Financial Crises, Business Cycles |
| JEL: | B22 E32 E44 N10 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp434&r=his |
| By: | Bertocchi, Graziella; Dimico, Arcangelo |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the empirical relevance of de facto vs. de jure determinants of political power in the U.S. South between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. We apply a variety of estimation techniques to a previously unexploited dataset on voter registration by race covering the counties of Mississippi in 1896, shortly after the introduction of the 1890 voting restrictions encoded in the state constitution. Our results indicate that de jure voting restrictions reduce black registration but that black disfranchisement starts well before 1890 and is more intense where a black majority represents a threat to the de facto power of white elites. Moreover, the effect of race becomes stronger after 1890 suggesting that the de jure barriers may have served the purpose of institutionalizing a de facto condition of disfranchisement. |
| Keywords: | education; inequality; institutions; race; voting |
| JEL: | J15 N41 O43 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9064&r=his |
| By: | Martin, B.R. |
| Abstract: | This article examines the origins and evolution of the field of science policy and innovation studies (SPIS). In particular, it seeks to identify the key intellectual developments in the field over the last 50 years by analysing the publications that have been highly cited by other researchers. Along with other studies reported in this Special issue, it represents one of the first and most systematic attempts to identify and analyse the most influential contributions to an emerging field on the basis of highly cited books and articles. The analysis reveals how the emerging field of SPIS drew upon a growing range of disciplines in the late 1950s and 1960s, and how the relationship with these disciplines evolved over time. Around the mid-1980s, SPIS started to become a more coherent field centred on the adoption of an evolutionary (or neo-Schumpeterian) economics framework, and an interactive model of the innovation process, and (a little later) the concept of 'systems of innovation' and the resource-based view of the firm. The article concludes with a discussion of whether SPIS is perhaps in the early stages of becoming a discipline. |
| Keywords: | innovation studies, science policy, history, evolution, highly cited publications, key contributions |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O32 B25 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp432&r=his |
| By: | Ritschl, Albrecht |
| Abstract: | The severity of the Great Depression in Germany has sometimes been blamed on reparations in simplistic fashion. Alternative interpretations relied on American capital exports, the demise of the Gold Standard, or on malfunc¬tions of the domestic economy, such as excessive wage increases during the 1920s. This paper argues for a more subtle link between Germany's slump and these policies. I explain Germany’s foreign borrowing rush before 1929 from transfer protection under the Dawes Plan, which gave commercial credits seniority over reparations. I argue that the Young Plan of 1929 implied a reversal of this seniority scheme, causing a sudden stop and reversal in the German balance of payments that lasted throughout the Great Depression. Invoking basic results of sovereign debt theory, the paper identifies a sequence of reparation regimes with varying degrees of relaxation of Germany's participation con¬straint in international credit markets. Transfer protection under the Dawes Plan created an incentive for Germany (and her commercial creditors) to drive out reparations. I conclude that the Young Plan could only have worked in the absence of an international recession, and that attempts to salvage it in 1931 were necessarily futile. |
| Keywords: | Germany; Great Depressions; Reparations; Seniority; Sovereign Debt |
| JEL: | N14 N24 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9062&r=his |
| By: | Bénétrix, Agustín; O'Rourke, Kevin H.; Williamson, Jeffrey G |
| Abstract: | This paper documents industrial output growth around the poor periphery (Latin America, the European periphery, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa) between 1870 and 2007. We provide answers to the following questions: When and where did rapid industrial growth begin in the periphery? When and where did peripheral growth rates exceed those in the industrial core? When was the high-point of peripheral industrial growth? When and where did it become widespread? When was the high-point of peripheral convergence on the core? How variable was the growth experience between countries? And how persistent was peripheral industrial growth? |
| Keywords: | history; Third World industrialization |
| JEL: | F1 N7 O2 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9060&r=his |
| By: | Martin Eriksson |
| Abstract: | Issues such as regional interest group mobilization and the projection of regional claims on the national political arenas often occur during critical junctures of regional economic development. In many cases they have such impact on the outcome of a development process that they deserve economic history research. My paper will focus on the challenges of including such issues in regional economic history writing. Departing from research on the historical political economy of the Swedish Norrland region, I will discuss a number of research design challenges that the regional historian will need to manage and reflect upon. One such challenge concerns the use of theory. I will discuss how interest group theories may be used (and abused) to capture decisive relations and linkages between regional interest group demands on one hand and government decision-making on the other hand. I will also point at the importance of a critical attitude towards those myths, discourses and interpretations that may dominate the regional debate on a research field. In this respect, concepts and language may influence historical explanation to such an extent that they distort the understanding of the past. The historian will therefore need to confront those myths through a scientifically adequate research process. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1642&r=his |
| By: | Michael Fritsch; Luis F. Medrano E. |
| Abstract: | We analyze the spatial diffusion of laser-technology in Germany during the early phase of development, between 1960 and 2005. Research in this new technological field began in a few larger centers and then spread to other regions. In the early years, a large firm of the electronics industry located in Munich played a dominating role. The intraregional diffusion of the knowledge in laser technology was particularly high in those regions which have started laser research rather early. There is also no significant effect of regional knowledge in the field of laser technology on the number of regional laser-producers, what may be due to the rather early development stage of the system where not many producers entered the market. Mobility of persons as well as co-publications and co-patents between institutions played only a minor role in the period under investigation. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1099&r=his |
| By: | Gelderblom, O.; Jong, A. de; Jonker, J. |
| Abstract: | With their legal personhood, permanent capital with transferable shares, separation of ownership and management, and limited liability for both shareholders and managers, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and subsequently the English East India Company (EIC) are generally considered a major institutional breakthrough. Our analysis of the business operations and notably the financial policy of the VOC during the company’s first two decades in existence shows that its corporate form owed less to foresight than to constant piecemeal engineering to remedy original design flaws brought to light by prolonged exposure to the strains of the Asian trade. Moreover, the crucial feature of limited liability for managers was not, as previously thought, part and parcel of that design, but emerged only after a long period of experimenting with various, sometimes very ingenious, solutions to the company’s financial bottlenecks. |
| Keywords: | VOC;Dutch East India Company |
| Date: | 2012–06–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:1765032952&r=his |
| By: | Oguz Ozbek |
| Abstract: | The economic development in one region or locale can be associated with and explained by socio-cultural and socio-spatial factors. This premise is well-supported by an institutional and historical analysis. The increasing number of works on social embeddedness and formation of entrepreneurial culture highlight again a well-known phrase of institutional economics: history matters. Economic growth in one region can be closely associated with broad historical processes and initial advantages. The Turkish case offers a suitable context for this institutional analysis outlined above. The initial advantages that are most evident in the irreversible development trajectories of the commercial centres like Istanbul and Izmir are also expressive in the emerging regional and sub-regional growth centres like Anatolian Tigers. Anatolian Tigers refer a number of new growth centres that put up a good and consistent performance in manufacturing industry since the 1980s. Two Anatolian Tigers, Konya (well-known) and Karaman (less-known) locating in South-Central Anatolia constitute the geographical scope of this paper. The sub-region of Konya-Karaman is not only delineated by normative criteria but also defined historically and geographically. This makes the area a historical region of established commercial culture. Konya is an important regional centre of commercial, industrial, agricultural and service activities in Turkey especially with its nationally strategic industrial establishments and grain production. Since the 1980s, Konya has experienced an important development in the manufacturing industry. Karaman that is an important industrial and commercial centre of Central Anatolia at both provincial and urban levels is commonly not known or termed as an Anatolian Tiger but it displays a number of historical peculiarities (administrative, socio-economic and geographic) are crucial to comprehend the historical roots of recent commercial and industrial development of Tigers and other redeveloping centres in Anatolia. In the re-emergence of Konya and Karaman as regional growth centres, locational, social and political factors contributed positively to the perpetual socio-economic development in Anatolian Seljuk, Karamanogullari, Ottoman and Republican periods. In conclusion, from the perspective of institutional economics, this paper examines the role of historical-geographical factors in the formation of an entrepreneurial culture in the sub-region of Konya and Karaman. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1436&r=his |
| By: | Matthew Gentzkow; Jesse M. Shapiro; Michael Sinkinson |
| Abstract: | We use data on US newspapers from the early 20th century to study the economic incentives that shape ideological diversity in the media. We show that households prefer newspapers whose political content agrees with their own ideology, that newspapers with the same political content are closer substitutes than newspapers with different political content, and that newspapers seek both to cater to household tastes and to differentiate from their competitors. We estimate a model of newspaper demand, entry and affiliation choice that captures these forces. We show that competitive incentives greatly enhance the extent of ideological diversity in local news markets, and we evaluate the impact of policies designed to increase such diversity. |
| JEL: | L11 L52 L82 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18234&r=his |
| By: | Hannu Tervo |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes long-term spatial developments in Finland by focusing on two predictions of the new economic geography (NEG) models, the increasing persistence of locational patterns and the emerging agglomeration shadow, i.e. the rising dominance of growth centers. Pre- and post-war periods are distinguished to roughly express the shift from an agriculture-based economy to a post-industrial country. The analyses base on the assumption that each of the 19 Finnish regions has a center of its own and the rest of the region forms its local hinterland. The empirical analysis is based on regional population data from 1880 to 2004 at decade intervals. First, to analyze the persistence of locational patterns the variation in the rank of regions over time and the evolution in rank-size distributions at different stages of development are examined. Second, to analyze the dominance of centers and causal processes between cities and their local hinterland before and after WWII an extension of the Granger causality method using a panel framework is applied. The results indicated that persistence in locational patterns increased in Finland during the processes of industrialization and urbanization. Furthermore, in the pre-war period, centers and their hinterlands grew hand-in-hand, while the post-war period shows that cities cast an agglomeration shadow over their local hinterland. In all, the paper gives evidence in favour of the NEG predictions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p147&r=his |
| By: | Antonio Cubel (Universitat de València); Vicente Esteve (Universitat de València y Universidad de la Laguna); Juan A. Sanchis (Universitat de València y ERI-CES); María T. Sanchis (Universitat de València e Instituto Figuerola de Ciencias Sociales) |
| Abstract: | In this study we analyse the effect of both foreign and domestic technological innovation on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) for Spain in the second half of the XXth century. For this purpose we estimate an extended version of Coe and Helpman (1995) model including a general human capital variable. The foreign and domestic stock of knowledge have been approximated throughout several variables such as are the stock of R&D, the stock of patents and the expenses for using foreign licenses and patents. Our results suggest that the inflow of foreign technology had a positive and significant effect on the Spanish TFP, being this effect higher than the effect of the domestic stock of knowledge. Moreover, the openness to foreign trade has also favoured the arrival of foreign technology and the increase of productivity. Finally, it is interesting to highlight that our results indicate that human capital played also a relevant role on the evolution of TFP |
| Keywords: | España: segunda mitad del siglo XX; transferencia internacional de tecnología; patentes; productividad; técnicas de cointegración |
| JEL: | N14 O33 O47 O22 |
| Date: | 2012–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eec:wpaper:1212&r=his |
| By: | Juliana Jaramillo Echeverri; Julieth Parra Hincapié |
| Abstract: | Pese a los diferentes modelos de desarrollo implementados en el país durante las últimas décadas, no se ha logrado consolidar la industria como motor de crecimiento ni han disminuido las fuertes disparidades regionales. Este artículo estudia la reconfiguración de la industria colombiana antes, durante y después de la apertura de 1990. Utilizando la información suministrada por la Encuesta Anual Manufacturera, se elaboran algunos índices y coeficientes que permiten evaluar la evolución de la concentración y especialización industrial. Se concluye que la apertura ha influido poco en la estructura espacial de la industria, que la producción industrial es generada por muy pocos sectores y que, a pesar de los esfuerzos realizados, la producción y el trabajo continúan concentrados en los mismos departamentos. |
| Date: | 2012–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:009809&r=his |
| By: | Ron Boschma; Rik Wenting |
| Abstract: | There is little understanding of how clusters evolve, and where. While dynamic analyses of clusters hardly exist, this is especially true for spatial clustering of service industries. We take an evolutionary perspective to describe and explain why the Dutch banking cluster clustered in the Amsterdam region. This analysis is based on an unique database of all banks in the Netherlands that existed in the period 1850-1993, which were collected by the authors. We examine the extent to which spinoff dynamics, merger and acquisition activity and the location of Amsterdam had a significant effect on the survival rate of Dutch banks during the last 150 years. Doing so, we make a first step in providing an evolutionary explanation for why Amsterdam is the leading banking cluster of the Netherlands. Our analyses demonstrate, among other things, that Amsterdam banks were disproportionally active in acquiring other banks, leading to a further concentration of the banking sector in the Amsterdam region. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1158&r=his |
| By: | Schmitt, Carina; Obinger, Herbert |
| Abstract: | For many years, comparative welfare state research has been afflicted with a sort of methodological nationalism in the sense that countries were treated as independent units. In line with the recent spatial turn in comparative public policy studies, this paper examines with regard to three welfare state programmes whether, in the postwar period, the provision of social rights in 18 Western democracies was shaped by benefit generosity in other countries. We show that diffusion is present but varies by programme and over time. Rather surprisingly, we find that policy diffusion was particularly relevant during the Golden Age. -- |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zeswps:022012&r=his |
| By: | Fabio Sánchez Torres; Irina España E. |
| Abstract: | La urbanización y desarrollo económico asociado con este proceso experimentó en Colombia un cambio significativo a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Utilizando información de los censos poblacionales en Colombia desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX hasta el año 2005 este documento analiza las tendencias del proceso de urbanización y su relación con las variables asociadas al desarrollo económico y social como la pobreza, cobertura a servicios públicos, precios del suelo, PIB, diversificación y especialización de la producción en las ciudades entre otras. El trabajo muestra que a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX se incrementó la concentración de la población en las áreas urbanas aunque con grandes diferencias por tamaño y región. Las áreas urbanas presentan una mayor dinámica de sus variables sociales y económicas que se reflejaron en menores niveles de pobreza, mayor cobertura de servicios públicos domiciliarios y de educación así como participación del PIB y de la actividad económica. |
| Date: | 2012–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:009821&r=his |
| By: | Geoffrey Brennan (Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Australia - Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA - University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA); Michael Brooks (School of Economics and Finance, University of Tasmania, Australia) |
| Abstract: | Our object is to explicate Buchanan's conception of individual liberty and to trace its connection to the 'working themes' in his corpus-anarchy, contract, constitution, Pareto optimality, 'public choice' and so on. In doing so, we investigate a number of tensions in Buchanan's conception-between a libertarian affinity with anarchy and constitutional contractarianism; and that between procedural liberalism and classical liberalism. |
| Keywords: | Freedom, Liberty, Anarchy, Constitutional Contractarianism |
| JEL: | D63 D79 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2012-10-ccr&r=his |
| By: | Jonatan Svanlund |
| Abstract: | Both national and regional studies of economic change are often depending on aggregated variables such as GDP levels, wages or population development. In this paper I will discuss how data concerning individual firms can be used in studying regional economic change. This material can also be used to shed light in differences regarding male and female entrepreneurship in a regional and historical perspective. The paper will focus on how different types of data and databases can be used and linked together in order to shed more light on the regional economic development. Therefore this paper will have a more explorative character rather then trying to answer any hypothesis. The point of departure will be how the Census of Enterprises can be used in studying regional economic change and how his material can be linked to other databases such as the Housing and population census. The Census of Enterprises was conducted in Sweden on three occasions in 1931, 1951 and 1972. From these studies one can analyse questions regarding firm size, capital intensity, differences regarding male and entrepreneurship and how this develops over time in different regions. Finally, a discussion will be in the paper on how the structure and changing composition of enterprises on a regional level can be linked to other variables such as regional population- and employment development and regional GDP development. By studying the micro-level, (firm level) and looking at questions concerning entrepreneurship, adaptation to technology and globalisation hopefully more can be said about the mechanism behind different development in different regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1644&r=his |
| By: | Veronika Killer; Kay W. Axhausen; Christian Holz-Rau; Dennis Guth |
| Abstract: | This study points out the effect of road infrastructure improvement between 1970 and 2005/06 and the resulting change of travel time in Germany and Switzerland. Reconsidering the interaction between the transportation system and land use, the paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about induced travel and infrastructure capacity. The impact of highway capacity expansion on land use has been studied worldwide focusing on urban areas. This study goes one step further. We detect changes in suburban and rural areas by this national comparison. The generation of a historical travel time dataset applies a method developed for Switzerland in previous studies and is adjusted for Germany according to its political, structural and topographical situation. The method is based on a historical network and estimated mean car speeds on different road types varying between densely or sparsely populated areas. Travel time matrices between all municipalities in Germany and Switzerland are calculated and validated by a regional comparison. Three indexes are developed to detect regional effects of travel time. The results are regionally segmented by a spatial cluster analyses named Getis-Ord’s Gi* statistics. The spatial overview of the three travel time indexes takes into account the national and regional level. The historical travel time dataset is successfully validated. This useful data is needed for later investigation on commuting behaviour. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1017&r=his |
| By: | Alberto José Figueras; Hernán Alejandro Morero |
| Abstract: | Los últimos años han sido propicios para discutir la polémica sobre la “cuestión de la tierra”, en Argentina y en el mundo, por los precios de los productos agrícolas, las burbujas inmobiliarias y el valor de los campos. En esta temática, un nombre obligado en el pensamiento es Henry George. En marzo de 1879, publica a su costa su obra principal: “Progress and Poverty”, que en 2009 llegó a su aniversario número 130 de su publicación. Entendemos, que la presente es una gran oportunidad para recordar su figura, su obra; y, en especial, su famosa propuesta de “impuesto único”. El método que seguiremos será una lectura analítica y guiada de su más famosa obra. |
| Date: | 2012–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:009805&r=his |
| By: | Erik Stam |
| Abstract: | This paper is an inquiry into the role of entrepreneurship in evolutionary economic geography. The focus is on how and why entrepreneurship is a distinctly spatially uneven process. We will start with a discussion on the role of entrepreneurship in the theory of economic evolution. Next, we will review the empirical literature on the geography of entrepreneurship. The paper concludes with a discussion of a future agenda for the study of entrepreneurship within evolutionary economic geography. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p1267&r=his |
| By: | Edward Bergman |
| Abstract: | Difficulty in extracting scientific and research findings from EU universities and placing such knowledge at the commercial disposal of innovation-dependent firms and industries is a cause for grave concern by the European Commission and many of its member states and regions, particularly when contrasted with the notable success enjoyed by U.S. universities. A review of literature from the perspective of EU knowledge-seeking firms and knowledge-generating universities reveals a striking asymmetry: firms presently seek mainly public science outputs, while universities pursue proprietary science opportunities more heavily in their dealings with business and industry. At the same time knowledge flows are being promoted far more aggressively, universities are being totally restructured, harmonised in many respects and decentralized regarding governance and accountability. Results from a web-survey of 1798 EU academics posted in Europe’s universities listed in the Shanghai TOP 500 reveal several important findings of interest. First, EU and U.S. respondents have quite similar views of what is considered reasonable with regard to public vs. private science. The exceptions reveal a generally stronger approval by EU academicians for their universities to be more proactive regarding commercialization, particularly university support of research-based start-up firms, with some differences based on respondents’ discipline [(1) biological sciences, 2) physics, 3) computer science, 4) chemical engineering, 5) economics and 6) history]. Further investigation shows those who have already undertaken or investigated commercialization opportunities tend to approve a battery of commercialization measures taken by their universities, and those who: a. have worked on externally-funded research projects with colleagues from industry, b. see regional business leaders influencing university commercialization policies, c. are heavily engaged in public service activities, and have collaborated with industry colleagues on research projects. (submitted to Uddevalla) |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p363&r=his |