Investigating determinants of inter-regional technology transfer in China: a network analysis with provincial patent data

This study examines the determinants of trans-regional technology transfer within China with patent license data. The weighted exponential random graph model is employed for network analysis to investigate the potential impact factors. Our findings have two main streams: First, most technologies are transferred from provinces with greater R&D input, e.g., Beijing and Shanghai, to economically developed provinces, e.g., Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The economic gap between provinces, which is viewed by most researchers to be one of the keys for technology transfer, has insignificant effects. This finding may be because eastern and western provinces are making competing investments and east provinces are investing much less in the west, which is different from what we usually see between developed and developing countries. Because there are competing relationships between provinces, it is common to see repeated investment and similar industry structures between provinces in China, which impose barriers on technology transfer. Second, provinces with more technologies imported from overseas countries acquire more patents from other provinces within China, which indicates a complementary relationship between overseas and domestic technologies. This finding may be partly because provinces acquiring more overseas technology may be in greater demand of additional complementary technology and partly because of the reverse engineering of overseas technology, which may be conducted by provinces with greater R&D input. Our findings should resonate for policy makers seeking to encourage trans-regional technology interaction and boost innovation capabilities.     

Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption

This paper investigates an empirical puzzle in technology adoption for developing countries: the low adoption rates of technologies like hybrid maize that increase average farm profits dramatically. I offer a simple explanation for this: benefits and costs of technologies are heterogeneous, so that farmers with low net returns do not adopt the technology. I examine this hypothesis by estimating a correlated random coefficient model of yields and the corresponding distribution of returns to hybrid maize. This distribution indicates that the group of farmers with the highest estimated gross returns does not use hybrid, but their returns are correlated with high costs of acquiring the technology (due to poor infrastructure). Another group of farmers has lower returns and adopts, while the marginal farmers have zero returns and switch in and out of use over the sample period. Overall, adoption decisions appear to be rational and well explained by (observed and unobserved) variation in heterogeneous net benefits to the technology.     

Delayed creative destruction and the coexistence of technologies

Disruptive innovations often engage in a fierce battle with incumbent technologies for hegemony. Past studies on technological innovations are silent about factors that extend the duration of the ‘era of ferment’—that is, the period during which competing technologies fight for dominance. We argue that complexity of the underlying technology, ecological and institutional dynamics may permit coexistence of competing technology regimes. The paper illustrates such coexistence by discussing the persistence of disparate technologies in steel making and kidney disease treatment. We conclude that the process of ‘creative destruction’ can be delayed in certain settings.     

基于内生增长理论与GVAR模型的能源消费控制目标下经济增长与碳减排研究

本文通过引入使用可替代能源生产的中间产品,构建能源约束和碳排放约束下的内生经济增长模型,并运用全局向量自回归(GVAR)模型,实证分析了具有空间关联性的中国各省(区市)能源消费控制对经济增长和碳排放的动态影响。研究结果表明:在不影响经济增长且受碳排放约束条件下完成能源消费总量考核的目标,可以通过研发可再生能源、提高碳排放清洁技术水平、增加碳基能源的边际产出等实现;能源消费总量的考核目标对能源消费强依赖地区约束性较强,对其余地区的约束力较弱,其余地区可节能潜力较强;能源结构逆向调整的存在使得控制能源消费总量对少部分省(区市)无法达到减排效果。进一步地,本文实证分析了目前节能减排实施过程中可能存在的问题:科技进步对能源结构顺向调整效果不显著、可再生新能源的研究效率低下,技术进步对碳排放清洁方面无显著效果;依靠传统能源价格的调整虽能有效减排却会抑制经济增长。     

A MODEL FOR ALLOCATING LIMITED RESOURCES WHEN MAKING SAFETY-STOCK DECISIONS

This article describes the application of a goal programming model to set safety stocks in a fixed-interval, variable order-quantity inventory system. The firm is constrained by limited storage space and capital in the determination of inventory levels. The costs resulting from the use of the proposed model are contrasted with costs resulting from an alternative method based solely upon a forecasting model. The costs considered are holding costs, stock-out costs, and the costs of acquiring excess resources. Excess resources are required when safety-stock levels, determined by the forecasting model, would utilize more than the available capital and space. The proposed model eliminates the need for acquiring excess resources at the risk of increasing the frequency and size of stock outs. A trade-off occurs between the potential for greater stock-out costs versus the costs of acquiring excess resources-borrowing additional funds or renting additional space. The goal programming model was used to set safety stocks for 15 product groups over a 46 month evaluation period for a multiproduct firm. Significant reductions in costs can be realized if the proposed model is used.     

To What Extent Are Labor‐Saving Technologies Improving Efficiency in the Use of Human Resources? Evidence from the Banking Industry

With special reference to the banking industry, the objective of this study is to address managerial concerns over the impact of labor‐saving technologies on efficiency in the use of human resources. A bank is viewed as a collection of human, technology, and capital resources. Labor‐saving technologies are represented by two categories of technology resources—information technologies and patented in‐house process innovations. The estimation of a stochastic frontier manpower‐requirement function shows that, whereas information technology resources have a direct impact on efficiency in the use of human resources, in‐house process innovations have an indirect impact through spillovers. The reduction in labor costs resulting from a more efficient use of human resources is more than enough to cover the required increase in information technology expenditures. This cost‐reducing impact is stronger for firms currently employing a lower level of information technologies. The empirical findings also suggest a complementary relationship between information technologies and spillovers of in‐house process innovations. The empirical framework proposed in this study can help decision makers determine the optimal input mix of technology and human resources.     

Social Influence,Risk and Benefit Perceptions,and the Acceptability of Risky Energy Technologies: An Explanatory Model of Nuclear Power Versus Shale Gas

Risky energy technologies are often controversial and debates around them are polarized; in such debates public acceptability is key. Research on public acceptability has emphasized the importance of intrapersonal factors but has largely neglected the influence of interpersonal factors. In an online survey (N = 948) with a representative sample of the United Kingdom, we therefore integrate interpersonal factors (i.e., social influence as measured by social networks) with two risky energy technologies that differ in familiarity (nuclear power vs. shale gas) to examine how these factors explain risk and benefit perceptions and public acceptability. Findings show that benefit perceptions are key in explaining acceptability judgments. However, risk perceptions are more important when people are less familiar with the energy technology. Social network factors affect perceived risks and benefits associated with risky energy technology, hereby indirectly helping to form one's acceptability judgment toward the technology. This effect seems to be present regardless of the perceived familiarity with the energy technology. By integrating interpersonal with intrapersonal factors in an explanatory model, we show how the current “risk–benefit acceptability” model used in risk research can be further developed to advance the current understanding of acceptability formation.     

火力发电企业离散决策及其对碳排放权价格影响

随着碳交易市场的建立,对于参与减排企业,如何制定合理的减排决策从而降低减排成本成为了一个重要问题。在有效市场下,参与减排企业的边际成本将直接影响碳排放权价格的走势。以往研究大多基于连续时间模型,运用动态优化原理解决此类问题。而事实上,企业的决策过程是离散的,这是由于碳排放权不能跨期交易,如果简单连续化会使得企业有过度减排的可能,与现实不符。基于此,本文以电力企业为例,运用动态优化方法,建立电力企业的离散减排决策模型,从而得出企业的最优边际减排成本,为政府调控碳排放权市场提供理论指导。为了验证模型,本文采用深圳碳排放权的相关实际数据进行数值模拟。研究表明,当企业做出离散减排决策时,企业的减排成本及边际减排成本与初始排放量、配额、单位惩罚成本、减排决策次数等因素相关。企业的离散决策会使得企业的边际减排成本波动加大,进而可能引起碳排放权市场的动荡,但企业的离散决策更有利于企业完成减排任务。     

Globalisation and trends in international R&D alliances

The growth of collaborative activity is greatly influenced by the process of globalisation. This paper focuses on the narrow area of collaborative R&D activity, and takes a ‘macro,’ as well as a firm perspective of the effects of these developments. Globalisation has affected the need of firms to collaborate, in that firms now seek opportunities to cooperate, rather than identify situations where they can achieve majority control. The use of collaboration is particularly acute in capital- and knowledge-intensive sectors. These are also the sectors where firms have expanded internationally fastest, as they need to compete in various markets simultaneously, but also to exploit and acquire assets and technology that may be specific to particular locations. The increasing similarity of technologies across countries and cross-fertilisation of technology between sectors, coupled with the increasing costs and risks associated with innovation has led firms to consider R&D alliances as a first-best option in many instances.     

Strategies for Addressing the Nursing Shortage: Coordinated Decision Making and Workforce Flexibility

In this article, we present strategies to help combat the U.S. nursing shortage. Key considerations include providing an attractive work schedule and work environment—critical issues for retaining existing nurses and attracting new nurses to the profession—while at the same time using the set of available nurses as effectively as possible. Based on these ideas, we develop a model that takes advantage of coordinated decision making when managing a flexible workforce. The model coordinates scheduling, schedule adjustment, and agency nurse decisions across various nurse labor pools, each of differing flexibility levels, capabilities, and costs, allowing a much more desirable schedule to be constructed. Our primary findings regarding coordinated decision making and how it can be used to help address the nursing shortage include (i) labor costs can be reduced substantially because, without coordination, labor costs on average are 16.3% higher based on an actual hospital setting, leading to the availability of additional funds for retaining and attracting nurses, (ii) simultaneous to this reduction in costs, more attractive schedules can be provided to the nurses in terms of less overtime and fewer undesirable shifts, and (iii) the use of agency nurses can help avoid overtime for permanent staff with only a 0.7% increase in staffing costs. In addition, we estimate the cost of the shortage for a typical U.S. hospital from a labor cost perspective and show how that cost can be reduced when managers coordinate.     

“Not in (or Under) My Backyard”: Geographic Proximity and Public Acceptance of Carbon Capture and Storage Facilities

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an innovative technical approach to mitigate the problem of climate change by capturing carbon dioxide emissions and injecting them underground for permanent geological storage. CCS has been perceived both positively, as an innovative approach to facilitate a more environmentally benign use of fossil fuels while also generating local economic benefits, and negatively, as a technology that prolongs the use of carbon‐intensive energy sources and burdens local communities with prohibitive costs and ecological and human health risks. This article extends existing research on the “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) phenomenon in a direction that explores the public acceptance of CCS. We utilize survey data collected from 1,001 residents of the coal‐intensive U.S. state of Indiana. Over 80% of respondents express support for the general use of CCS technology. However, 20% of these initial supporters exhibit a NIMBY‐like reaction and switch to opposition as a CCS facility is proposed close to their communities. Respondents’ worldviews, their beliefs about the local economic benefits that CCS will generate, and their concerns about its safety have the greatest impact on increasing or decreasing the acceptance of nearby facilities. These results lend valuable insights into the perceived risks associated with CCS technology and the possibilities for its public acceptance at both a national and local scale. They may be extended further to provide initial insights into likely public reactions to other technologies that share a similar underground dimension, such as hydraulic fracturing.     

The Significance of Information Systems Research on Emerging Technologies: Seven Information Technologies that Promise to Improve Managerial Effectiveness*

Emerging information technologies are those excitingly novel advances that decision makers are just beginning to notice. These emerging products or processes may have been invented some time ago, but are only now beginning to reveal practical applications. This paper examines this collection of seven studies exploring emerging technologies, classifying them so the context of their results can be related to other emerging technologies. Once the research is classified and the contribution and managerial significance of the research is identified, it becomes apparent that certain barriers exist, holding back the technology from wider use and appreciation. Common obstacles include resistance to, or difficulty with, using the technology; uncertainty concerning the value of the technology; and the complexities involved with implementation. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research aimed at breaking down the barriers in order to move from the technological emergence phase to the technological sublime phase in which decision makers and other end users understand the technology, realize and appreciate its value, and put the technology to its best use.     

Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions

Prior research has provided valuable insights into how and why employees make a decision about the adoption and use of information technologies (ITs) in the workplace. From an organizational point of view, however, the more important issue is how managers make informed decisions about interventions that can lead to greater acceptance and effective utilization of IT. There is limited research in the IT implementation literature that deals with the role of interventions to aid such managerial decision making. Particularly, there is a need to understand how various interventions can influence the known determinants of IT adoption and use. To address this gap in the literature, we draw from the vast body of research on the technology acceptance model (TAM), particularly the work on the determinants of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, and: (i) develop a comprehensive nomological network (integrated model) of the determinants of individual level (IT) adoption and use; (ii) empirically test the proposed integrated model; and (iii) present a research agenda focused on potential pre‐ and postimplementation interventions that can enhance employees' adoption and use of IT. Our findings and research agenda have important implications for managerial decision making on IT implementation in organizations.     

A Study of Online Auction Sellers’ Intention to Switch Platform: The Case of Yahoo!Kimo Versus Ruten_eBay*

The study of consumers’ switching from one service provider to another has a long tradition in economics, information systems, and marketing. The emergence of electronic commerce presents new challenges in understanding consumers’ switching intentions in the context of e‐commerce in general and online auctions in particular. With the abundance of literature on online auctions, there is a surprising lack of research on auction sellers’ intentions to switch from one online auction platform to another. Using the competition between Yahoo!Kimo and Ruten_eBay, two leading auction platforms in Taiwan, as the backdrop, we developed a research model and collected empirical data based on this real case to study what factors influence auction sellers to switch to a competing service provider. We find that the higher the procedural switching costs, financial switching costs, relational switching costs, site design quality, or interaction quality, the lower the intention of an auction seller to switch to a competing auction service provider. A higher perceived transaction fee, however, leads to a higher switching intention.     

Challenges in Development and Implementation of Health‐Risk‐Based Soil Quality Guidelines: Turkey's Experience

Management of contaminated sites is a critical environmental issue around the world due to the human health risk involved for many sites and scarcity of funding. Moreover, clean‐up costs of all contaminated sites to their background levels with existing engineering technologies may be financially infeasible and demand extended periods of operation time. Given these constraints, to achieve optimal utilization of available funds and prioritization of contaminated sites that need immediate attention, health‐risk‐based soil quality guidelines should be preferred over the traditional soil quality standards. For these reasons, traditional soil quality standards are being replaced by health‐risk‐based ones in many countries and in Turkey as well. The need for health‐risk‐based guidelines is clear, but developing these guidelines and implementation of them in contaminated site management is not a straightforward process. The goal of this study is to highlight the problems that are encountered at various stages of the development process of risk‐based soil quality guidelines for Turkey and how they are dealt with. Utilization of different definitions and methodologies at different countries, existence of inconsistent risk assessment tools, difficulties in accessing relevant documents and reports, and lack of specific data required for Turkey are among these problems. We believe that Turkey's experience may help other countries that are planning to develop health‐risk‐based guidelines achieve their goals in a more efficient manner.     

Avoiding skill shortages in the new technologies

In many countries skill shortages are acting as a constraint on the development of the new technologies, such as information technology (IT), microelectronics and biotechnology. As the lead times to develop skilled people can be 5–10 years, the planning of future education and training provision to meet these needs can be extremely difficult. Drawing on current research in the U.K., this paper identifies the types of key skills needed to develop the new technologies and shows the critical role of higher education in providing the basic supply of skilled manpower. The extent of current shortages is considered as well as the likely direction of future demand. The past linkages between higher education and labour market demand are explored and directions for future policy to alleviate likely future shortages are suggested. The paper concludes that future supply and demand trends need to be monitored and better understood, and employment, education and training policies adjusted accordingly if skill shortages are not to be a recurring problem.     

Multiple Rhythmically Varying Prices,the Timing of Factor Demands and Induced Technological Change

ABSTRACT: This Paper the existing literature on optimal capital utilisation and shiftwork patterns by arguing that labour is not the only input to exhibit a price which varies over the time of day week or year Indeed in certain situations as in the w e of capital intensive industries which are heavy consumers of electricity labour costs may not even be the most important consideration The introduction of a second varying input price can completely alter the optimal operating times of production units Once this extension has been adopted it is a fairly easy final step to demonstrate that some firms face a strong inducement to develop technologies which allow them to use their capital and labour independently This type of technological change has become commonplace in recent years but largely unexplained by the existing literature These developments have important implications for the organisation of work patterns and the flexible use of the labour input     

基于非参数Copula-CVaR模型的碳金融市场集成风险测度

我国商业银行等金融机构在参与国际碳金融业务时面临复杂多变的市场环境,其风险评估及预警体系的构建需考虑风险因子的多源性与相依性,对碳金融市场集成风险进行科学测度具有重要意义。本文采用非参数核估计方法确定碳金融市场价格波动与汇率波动两类风险因子的边缘分布,并通过拟合优度检验选择最优Copula函数准确刻画风险因子之间非线性、动态的相依结构,实现对集成条件风险价值CVaR的有效测度。通过Kupiec回测检验及对比各类传统风险测度方法的优劣,发现非参数Copula-CVaR模型能够弥补传统风险测度方法在度量多源风险因子相依性时存在的局限性,避免参数法确定边缘分布时可能出现的模型设定风险与参数估计误差,充分考虑尾部风险,为碳金融市场集成风险测度提供新思路。     

The tradeoff between mutual fund and direct stock investments: a theoretical analysis involving different types of investors

We study the tradeoff between direct and indirect stock investments through equity mutual funds for a utility-maximizing investor. Whereas direct investments impose higher transaction costs on the formation of a well-diversified portfolio, mutual funds charge fees for their services. Our results show that the fee levels that make private investors indifferent between direct and indirect stock investments vary heavily according to risk aversion, the amounts invested, correlations between assets, transaction costs, and the length of investment horizon. In particular, our results suggest that for a wide range of actively managed mutual funds, the fees charged are too high for these mutual funds to appeal to a wide range of informed investors. However, accounting for search costs, such as costs for financial advice, can facilitate an understanding of the levels of management fees charged by mutual funds existing in the market.     

The Dynamics of International Competitiveness: First Results from an Analysis at the Industry Level

The paper uses the key role of technology as starting point in determining trade flows and international competitiveness at industry and country level as a growing number of theoretical contributions and empirical verifications have recognized over the past decade. The paper uses a set of new data on trade, production, technology and costs at industry level for a certain number of countries to relate trade performance to a set of different economic and technological factors across countries and industrial sectors since the early 1970s. A single model of trade specialization is applied to the data in order to establish the impact of innovation, costs and country specific factors to overall performance, both in the short run and the long run, via a panel data analysis. Model specification follows the cointegration approach, where a long-run cointegrating vector is estimated along with the dynamic adjustment towards long-run equilibrium. The paper presents some preliminary results, related to a certain number of different industrial sectors for the major industrialized countries.