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on Network Economics |
| By: | Marge Seppo |
| Abstract: | The awareness of business networks and skilled use of resources available through them make it possible to accelerate the process of internationalization and also increase the success from movement into a foreign market. The role of business networks in the internationalization of the firms is analyzed in this working paper on the example of Estonian small and medium-sized chemical industry enterprises. For studying the role of business networks in the internationalization of Estonian chemical industry enterprises seven Estonian chemical firms will be monitored using case study method. Research shows that business networks have an important role in the internationalization of Estonian small and medium-sized chemical firms. The main positive impact from a business network to a firm entering a foreign market is the provision of support and information about the target market. The negative impact comes from firms on a dominating position in a business network (mainly competitors and holding companies), who constrain firm’s internationalization. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:50&r=net |
| By: | Lourdes Trujillo (Department of Economics, City University, London and DAEA, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); Beatriz Tovar |
| Abstract: | Because of their critical strategic role, ports have all traditionally been subject to some form of government control even if the legal form and the intensity of this control have varied across countries. The member countries of the European Union have not been different from the rest of the world in this respect. A significant difference however is the recurrent effort to integrate, in a coordinated way, the port sector in a transeuropean transport network (TEN-T) through the adoption of a common legal framework. In this context, if the objective of the reforms is to ensure that port networks, integrated in combined transport networks, become competitors of the road network, the concept of port efficiency becomes central. This paper provides an overview of the evolution of the European Port Legislation and shows how comparative economic measures can be used to highlight the scope for port efficiency improvements, essential to allow short sea shipping transport to compete with road transport in Europe. To our knowledge, this paper is also the first effort of estimating technical efficiency of European Port Authorities. The average port efficiency in 2002 was estimated to be around 60%, denoting that ports could have handled 40% more traffic with the same resources. |
| Keywords: | Technical efficiency, European ports regulation, Trans-European transport networks, motorways of the sea |
| JEL: | C6 L9 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cty:dpaper:0705&r=net |
| By: | Haddad, Mona |
| Abstract: | Production networks have been at the heart of the recent growth in trade among East Asian countries. Fragmen tation trade, reflected mainly in the trade in parts and components, is expanding more rapidly than the conventional trade in final goods. This is mainly due to the relatively more favorable policy setting for international production, agglomeration benefits arising from the early entry into this new form of specialization, considerable intercountry wage differentials in the region, lower trade and transport costs, and specialization in products exhibiting increasing returns to scale. The economic integration of China has deepened production fragmentation in East Asia, countering fears of crowding out other countries for international specialization. International production fragmentation in East Asia has intensified intraregional trade but has depended heavily on extraregional trade in final goods. While production networks centered on China have contributed significantly to growth in East Asia, they also breed vulnerabilities. They have not automatically led to technology spillovers and have led to an extreme interdependence across East Asian countries. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory & Research,Free Trade,Trade Policy,Trade Law,Technology Industry |
| Date: | 2007–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4160&r=net |
| By: | Giorgio Fagiolo (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa); Marco Valente (University of L’Aquila); Nicolaas J. Vriend (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | Schelling (1969, 1971a,b, 1978) considered a simple proximity model of segregation where individual agents only care about the types of people living in their own local geographical neighborhood, the spatial structure being represented by one- or two-dimensional lattices. In this paper, we argue that segregation might occur not only in the geographical space, but also in social environments. Furthermore, recent empirical studies have documented that social interaction structures are well-described by small-world networks. We generalize Schelling’s model by allowing agents to interact in small-world networks instead of regular lattices. We study two alternative dynamic models where agents can decide to move either arbitrarily far away (global model) or are bound to choose an alternative location in their social neighborhood (local model). Our main result is that the system attains levels of segregation that are in line with those reached in the lattice-based spatial proximity model. Thus, Schelling’s original results seem to be robust to the structural properties of the network. |
| Keywords: | Spatial proximity model, Social segregation, Schelling, Proximity preferences, Social networks, Small worlds, Scale-free networks, Best-response dynamics |
| JEL: | C72 C73 D62 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp589&r=net |