How does money sent home build social capital in Burundi? How has the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme shaped the ICT sector? And how has aircraft manufacturing evolved, not only via Boeing and Airbus but also firms in developing countries? Just three of the questions tackled by UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance in July and August 2015. Our most recent publications are detailed below including two book chapters, four journal articles, and four research reports, among many more. Click here for the full list.
Book Chapters
The Contours of the Global Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing Industry is a contribution to the book entitled The Global Commercial Aviation Industry, which aims to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the changes and development of the civil international aircraft/aviation industry. It offers a fully up-to-date account of the international developments and structure in the aircraft and aviation industries from a number of perspectives, including economic, geographical, political and technological points of view. By Dr. Daniel Vertesy.
Infrastructure and the International Export Performance of Turkish Regions is a contribution to the book entitled The Region and Trade, which aims to shed light on key outstanding questions such as the role of external economies in shaping the pattern of interregional trade, the role of natural resources versus traditional factors of production such as labour and capital in driving interregional trade, the relationship between transport and interregional trade, “high value” interregional trade in services, and the role of interregional trade estimation in the construction of a multi-regional, input-output system. By Dr. Mehmet Guney Celbis et al.
Journal Issue
Introduction to Low-carbon Innovation and Development: Insights and Future Challenges for Research is a special issue of the Journal Innovation and Development, bringing together the fields of low-carbon development (LCD) and innovation studies. It contributes to the debate by addressing how the learning, innovation, and competence-building lens adds to the discussion about the development outcomes of climate change mitigation. By Dr. Michiko Iizuka et al.
Journal Articles
Does Too Much Work Hamper Innovation? Evidence for Diminishing Returns of Work Hours for Patent Grants. This journal article suggests that individual time is an important factor that needs to be considered in innovation research. Defining two types of time, work time and free time, the authors find that work time has a positive but diminishing effect on innovative output: after a certain point the innovation-enhancing role of work time is taken over by individual free time. They estimate that individuals should not work more than about 6.6 hours a day in order to maximise innovative output. By Dr. Mehmet G. Celbis and PhD fellow Serdar Turkeli.
The Determinants of National Pride of Ethnic and Immigrant Minorities in Europe. This journal article focuses on the determinants of national pride in relation to ethnic diversity and examines the impact of discrimination, poverty, and self-perceived social status on the feelings of national pride of individuals who belong to ethnic and immigrant minorities in Europe. Results show that, while national pride is generally low among minorities, it peaks when individuals who are members of ethnic and immigrant minorities are poor and when they themselves adopt discriminatory attitudes. These findings imply that the context of discrimination and poverty, when combined with the status of the ethnic and immigrant group in the country, serves as important mediating factors for the way minorities choose to identify with the nation. By Dr. Victor Cebotari.
Remittances, Bonds and Bridges: Remittances and Social Capital in Burundi. This journal article explores the effects of remittances on households’ structural social capital in urban Burundi. The results demonstrate that remittance-receiving households invest more in bridging social capital by participating in organisations (donating time), but make fewer monetary contributions, compared to non-receiving households. Remittances have mixed effects on bonding social capital: receiving households give significantly less gifts to family members and friends, but are more likely to send internal remittances, compared to non-receivers. The implications of these findings for post-conflict development are discussed. By Dr. Sonja Fransen.
Diverse and Uneven Pathways Towards Transition to Low-carbon Development: The Case of Solar PV Technology in China. This journal article reviews the literature that deals with sustainable transition towards low carbon development, in particular the multilevel perspective framework, to identify challenges specific to developing countries. After reviewing the literature, the paper looks at the case of Chinese solar photovoltaic technology to link the conceptual discussion with a practical example. By Dr. Michiko Iizuka.
Working Papers
Moving Beyond the UNSCR 1325 Framework: Women as Economic Participants During and After Conflict. This working paper examines the obstacles and opportunities encountered by women as economic participants during and after conflict. The theoretical framework is supported by a case study analysis on the recent conflict in Burundi. By PhD fellow Tamara A. Kool.
Migration, Entrepreneurship and Development: A Critical Review. This working paper provides an assessment of the state of scholarly and policy debates on migrant entrepreneurs in development. The authors find that the empirical evidence to support the notion of the migrant as a super-entrepreneur is weak. They argue that the evidence is less ambiguous on the general development contribution of migration over and above its contribution through entrepreneurship. The implication is that removal of discriminatory barriers against migrants and against migrant entrepreneurs in labour, consumer and financial markets will promote development in both sending and receiving countries, not least through reducing the shares of migrants that are reluctant entrepreneurs. By Prof. Wim Naudé, Dr. Melissa Siegel and PhD fellow Katrin Marchand.
Deindustrialisation, Structural Change and Sustainable Economic Growth. This working paper reviews the literature and empirical evidence on deindustrialisation, with a focus on premature deindustrialisation. The author argues that premature deindustrialisation is likely to have especially negative effects on growth. In addition to being influenced by the level of income per capita and share of manufacturing in the economy when deindustrialisation begins, the effects of deindustrialisation on growth are also expected to depend on whether or not it is policy induced and the nature of the activities that are relatively contracting and expanding. By Fiona Tregenna.
Analysis of the Spatial Dynamics of Intra- vs. Inter- research Collaborations Across Countries. This paper analyses the evolutionary pattern of international research collaborations. Decomposing international collaborations into two complementary types, intra-collaboration (within the same geographical area) and inter-collaboration (across different geographical areas), the authors find that the geographical concentration of international research collaborations is reducing. The formation of new network structure of international research collaborations is driven by the increase of inter-research collaborations of countries across different geographical areas rather than intracollaborations of countries within the same geographical area. By Dr. Lili Wang et al.
The Paradox of Openness Revisited: Collaborative Innovation and Patenting by UK Innovators. This working paper revisits the “paradox of openness” in the literature which consists of two conflicting views on the link between patenting and open innovation – the spillover prevention and the organisational openness views. The authors argue that both patenting and external sourcing (openness) are jointly-determined decisions made by firms. They develop a simple framework that allows them to formally derive the empirical implications of this hypothesis and test it by estimating whether the reduced form relationship between patenting and collaboration is stronger for leaders than for followers. By Dr. Can Huang et al.
Micro-evidence on Product and Labor Market Regime Differences between Chile and France. This working paper aims to contributing to the literature on estimating simultaneously product and labour market imperfections by quantifying industry differences in both types of imperfections using form-level data in Chile – a non-OECD member under the considered time period – and France. Consistent with differences in institutions and in the industrial relations system in the two countries, the authors find important regime differences across the two countries. In addition, they observe cross-country differences in the levels of product and labour market imperfections within regimes. By Dr. Rodolfo Lauterbach, Jacques Mairesse et al.
Comparing Micro-evidence on Rent Sharing from Three Different Approaches. This working paper aims to assess the extent to which employers share rents with their employees from three different approaches. The authors compare the labor economics approach of estimating the responsiveness of workers’ wages on firms’ ability to pay with two other approaches that rely on standard micro production data only: the productivity approach and the accounting approach. Their analysis makes clear that the three different approaches face important trade-offs and argue that empirical economists interested in establishing that profits are shared should select the appropriate approach based on the particular research question and on the data at hand. By Prof. Jacques Mairesse et al.
Product and Labour Market Regulations, Production Prices, Wages and Productivity. This working paper is an attempt to evaluate the effects of product and labour market regulations on industry productivity through their various impacts on changes in production prices and wages. In a first stage, the estimation of a regression equation on an industry*country panel, with controls for country*industry and country*year fixed effects, show that multi-factor productivity is negatively and significantly influenced by both indicators of industrial prices from same industry and weighted average of industrial prices from other industries, and by indicators of country wages weighted by industry labour shares for low and high skilled workers. In a second stage, an economic policy simulation of the implications of these results on the basis of their calibration by the OECD product and labour market anti-competitive regulation indicators suggests that nearly all countries could expect sizeable gains in multifactor productivity from deregulation reforms. By Prof. Jacques Mairesse et al.
Technological Upgrading in Global Value Chains and Clusters and Their Contribution to Sustaining Economic Growth in Low and Middle Income Economies. This working paper begins with a discussion of the role played by upgrading in the promotion of sustainable growth. Upgrading is discussed in two different contexts, that of industrial clusters and that of global value chains (GVCs). Drawing on global and African experiences, the paper addresses the upgrading agenda required to enable dynamic clusters to meet both domestic needs and progressively also needs in external markets. In the discussion of value chains, the paper distinguishes between vertically specialised and additive GVCs and shows how the upgrading agenda necessarily varies between these two families of GVCs. The paper concludes by briefly discussing two issues. The first is to distinguish between the upgrading agenda which is essential for sustaining economic growth and that which addresses the inclusivity (and thus sustainability) of the growth path. The second addresses the circumstances in which it may be possible to pursue these varied upgrading strategies simultaneously. By Prof. Raphael Kaplinsky.
The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts on Subsequent Employment Quality. This working paper examines whether the introduction of unemployment insurance savings accounts (UISA) in Chile in October 2002 had an impact on the differences in subsequent wages and contract types of (i) workers changing into a new employment, and (ii) workers experiencing a period of unemployment before re-entering the labour market. The findings suggest that the introduction of the UISA scheme had a small negative effect on the wage difference of formal private sector workers, but no effect on contract types. The paper therefore concludes that the effect of UISA affiliation on wage growth is slightly negative, but positive compared to a control group for workers experiencing a period of unemployment, leading to a marginally higher employment quality for this latter group. By PhD fellow Paula Nagler.
Precolonial Centralisation, Foreign Aid and Modern State Capacity in Africa. This working paper empirically explores the determinants of bureaucratic capacity in contemporary Africa. By connecting the aid-governance literature with the historical, political economy and anthropological literature on African state formation, the authors find that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between precolonial centralisation and bureaucratic quality in Africa from the mid-1990s onwards. Before the mid- 1990s there is no such relationship. We also find that the often negative and statistically significant effect of aid dependence on bureaucratic capacity disappears, once we control for precolonial centralisation. The results provide further evidence for the importance of precolonial centralisation in our understanding of present day economic and political developments on the continent. By PhD fellow Tobias Broich, Prof. Adam Szirmai et al.
Global Value Chains in Africa. This working paper provides evidence on the extent of Global Value Chain (GVC) participation by Africa as a region and for individual African countries. The authors find that Africa as a whole is heavily involved in GVCs, being more engaged in GVCs than many developing country regions as well as developed countries such as the USA. This overall finding hides the fact that much of Africa’s participation in GVCs is in upstream production, with African firms providing primary inputs to firms in countries further down the value chain. The possibility of upgrading within GVCs in Africa is therefore likely to be limited. Despite this, the authors observe a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of GVC participation and upgrading across African countries, with a number of African countries participating in GVCs to a relatively large extent. By Dr. Neil Foster-McGregor et al.
Reports
Inventory of the Patents and Publications of FP7 Projects in the Field of ICT. The inventory includes data on 295 patents and 18,158 publications resulting from FP7 funded projects in the field of ICT (ICT theme within Cooperation Programme and eInfrastructures within Capacities Programme) during the period 2007 – 2013. By Dr. Bulat Sanditov, Dr. Jojo Jacob, Alex Surpatean, Dr. René Wintjes, PhD fellows Simone Sasso and Ad Notten.
Irregular Migration Routes to Europe and Factors Influencing Migrants’ Destination Choices. The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review and extensive literature analysis of the existing knowledge on two aspects of irregular migration: 1) routes of irregular migrants to and within Europe, specifically to the Netherlands, and; 2) the factors that influence destination choice of irregular migrants, specifically to the Netherlands. By Dr. Katherine Kuschminder, Dr. Melissa Siegel et al.
Swiss Migration Partnerships: A New Tool for Bilateral Cooperation on Migration? This report provides an evaluation of the Swiss migration partnerships. Among other questions, the authors examine whether migration partnerships improve policy and institutional coherence, whether they help countries to promote the positive effects that migration can have while addressing its challenges constructively, whether they reflect an even balance of power between partner countries and whether they are a potential model for bilateral cooperation on migration. By Elaine McGregor, PhD fellow Katrin Marchand and Dr. Melissa Siegel.
Independent Evaluation of Swiss Migration Partnerships: Final Report. This report aims to provide the Swiss Federal Administration with an evidence-based, independent assessment of the results of the first five migration partnerships in order to draw lessons and highlight areas for future improvements and to provide information to an interested public audience. By Dr. Melissa Siegel, PhD fellow Katrin Marchand and Elaine McGregor.
MEDIA CREDITS
Flickr / P.Gronemann / D.Proffer