Tax Reforms as Capital Market Development Factor

The article presents the preconditions of Armenian capital market development. A few hypotheses are proposed concerning correlation between direct taxes (in particular, profit tax and income tax) and financial sector development mediated with shadow economy. On the basis of studied theories and our empiric research (regression analysis of key indicators), our hypotheses were proven. So for the further development of Armenian capital market we consider it necessary to depart from profit tax, concurrently reducing income tax and social security tax rates.     

Measuring the adoption of innovation. A typology of EU countries based on the Innovation Survey

Based on the Community Innovation Survey, this paper suggests new indicators of innovation adoption. The magnitude of innovation adoption is assessed for 22 EU countries and different industries. The most striking feature is the correlation between the innovation activities and the adoption rate. Countries with strong R&D and human resources and high innovation output exhibit the highest adoption rates. This supports the idea that innovation adoption requires an absorption capability. In addition, the specificities of each country regarding the prevailing types of innovation and adoption (product or process, cooperation-based adoption or internal adoption) allow us to draw up a typology of the EU countries, for which a specific geographical pattern is observed.     

Transformational leadership,organizational culture,and innovativeness in nonprofit organizations

This is an exploratory study of leadership, organizational culture, and organizational innovativeness in a sample of nonprofit human service organizations: Associations of Retarded Citizens. Although leadership has been held out as one of the most important predictors of innovation, this study found it was not correlated with organizational innovativeness. Examination of the relationships between leadership and cultural variables provided some alternative explanations for this finding. Positive relationships among transformational leadership, organizational values, and cultural consensus (degree of agreement among employees on those values) indicate that leadership practices employed in this sample created strong cultural consensus around values that may inhibit innovation. These findings suggest that examining the link between leadership and organizational culture is important for understanding how leadership and innovation are related. This article sets out practical implications, based on the results of the study, that may help nonprofit managers create workplaces supportive of innovation.     

Organizational innovativeness and its determinants in South Korean nonprofit human service organizations

This study compares the level of organizational innovativeness and its determinants in different types of nonprofit human service organizations. Based on theoretical conceptualizations of organizational innovation, it was hypothesized that community service organizations (CSOs) would be more innovative than residential service organizations (RSOs), and determinants of organizational innovation (such as organizations' characteristics, internal and external properties, and executive leadership) would influence innovativeness. Data from a survey of two types of human service organizations in South Korea (127 RSOs for children and 220 CSOs) revealed that the level of innovation in both types of organizations was not significantly different. The determinants of decentralization and formalization showed significant impacts on innovativeness in CSOs. Decentralization also had a significant positive effect on innovativeness in RSOs. However, executive leadership was a significant determinant of organizational innovativeness in CSOs only. Based on these results, administrative implications are suggested for the facilitation of organizational innovation in nonprofit human service organizations.     

Innovation evaluation model for macro-construction sector companies: A study in Spain

The innovativeness of the traditional construction sector, composed of construction companies or contractors, is not one of its strong points. Likewise, its poor productivity in comparison with other sectors, such as manufacturing, has historically been criticized. Similar features are found in the Spanish traditional construction sector, which it has been described as not very innovative. However, certain characteristics of the sector may explain this behavior; the companies invest in R+D less than in other sectors and release fewer patents, so traditional innovation evaluation indicators do not reflect the true extent of its innovative activity. While previous research has focused on general innovation evaluation models, limited research has been done regarding innovation evaluation in the macro-construction sector, which includes, apart from the traditional construction companies or contractors, all companies related to the infrastructure life-cycle. Therefore, in this research an innovation evaluation model has been developed for macro-construction sector companies and is applied in the Spanish case. The model may be applied to the macro-construction sector companies in other countries, requiring the adaption of the model to the specific characteristics of the sector in that country, in consultation with a panel of experts at a national level.     

Education,reputation or network? Evidence on migrant workers employability

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers’ beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply rooted in the hosting country; and high educational levels used as an indirect signal of productivity. On this last point, the immigrant status needs a stronger signal compared to that necessary for a native worker, and this may lead the immigrant to accept job qualifications which are lower than those achievable through the embodied educational level.The aim of the paper is to investigate whether the above mentioned mechanisms are adopted by immigrants in Italy, a crucial country for EU immigration flows, and if they are useful in increasing immigrants’ likelihood of employment. The empirical analysis has been conducted using the dataset from a national Labour Force Survey which provides information on thousands of documented immigrants. We estimate a logit model for immigrants’ likelihood of being employed, focusing on the above mentioned mechanisms: reputation, ethnic networks and educational level. Moreover we concentrate on the interaction effects of the mechanisms and investigate whether one of them wins on the others. Results show that each of the three mechanisms is statistically and economically significant and exerts positive influence: all factors contribute to increase the immigrant's probability of being employed. Anyway, a high level of education increases the probability of being employed more than the belonging to ethnic networks deeply rooted in Italy. The specific embodied capital of workers matter relatively more. This is relevant for labour public policies in this specific realm since the human capital lever is a possible direct target in various public policies and private human capital investments.     

DO NATURAL DISASTERS PROMOTE LONG‐RUN GROWTH?

In this article, we investigate the long-run relationships among disasters, capital accumulation, total factor productivity, and economic growth. The cross-country empirical analysis demonstrates that higher frequencies of climatic disasters are correlated with higher rates of human capital accumulation, increases in total factor productivity, and economic growth. Though disaster risk reduces the expected rate of return to physical capital, risk also serves to increase the relative return to human capital. Thus, physical capital investment may fall, but there is also a substitution toward human capital investment. Disasters also provide the impetus to update the capital stock and adopt new technologies, leading to improvements in total factor productivity.     

Basic relationships between human capital,migration and labour markets in the Western Balkans: An econometric investigation

The high outward mobility that characterises the countries in the Western Balkan region—already for three decades—is often seen as tightly linked to labour market imbalances and persistently low utilisation of human capital over time. To shed light on these issues we analysed the effects of labour market determinants and human capital endowment on migration and vice versa by estimating simultaneously a system of equations that accounted for such relationships in the context of WB countries. The period under analysis is 2007–2019 and the destination countries are the EU15. The empirical results confirm the importance of wage gaps and their changes as an important pull factor for driving emigration. In addition, gaps in human capital emerge as a powerful determinant for explaining emigration into countries where returns to human capital are relatively higher.     

Exploring the contributions of human and social capital to productivity

In this article we investigate how human and social capital contribute to individual productivity. We study three firms that complete all their tasks as projects. The employees in all firms initiate and organise their projects. We collected archival data from the firms on performance, human capital, tenure, gender and their project activities. Social network data are generated from interviews and a survey. We find that social capital is the most important factor to determine productivity. We found mixed effects from human capital; only in one firm did human capital have a noticeable effect on productivity; tenure has no effects on productivity.     

Innovativeness of social economy entities in Poland. An empirical study from the perspective of Positive Organizational Scholarship

The Polish system of tackling social exclusion is based on social economy entities, such as social integration centers and social cooperatives. The aim of the article is to define the essence and conditions of their innovativeness while answering the question to what extent the organizations can make use of management theories created for business entities. The empirical basis for the article are 3 focus group interviews with representatives of social integration centers and social cooperatives operating in Poland. The results suggest that low innovativeness of the entities is, among others, the effect of an authoritarian management style and a lack of care about positive relationships among employees.     

Connecting entrepreneurship with policy experimentation? The EU framework for social innovation

This article investigates how “social innovation” made its way onto the European Union (EU) agenda and how this notion has been creatively used to advance distinct policy goals. It does so by analysing the resources the EU provided to promote social innovation over the period 2006–2014. Three main conclusions arise. First, between 2006 and 2010 the label social innovation was rarely used, although several EU instruments and processes supported it. Second, throughout 2009–2010, the European Commission’s Bureau of European Policy Advisers played a key agenda setting role in flagging social innovation on the eve of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Consequently, and third, since 2010 social innovation has been explicitly mainstreamed into the EUs new growth strategy. This phase is characterized by a stronger emphasis on “social entrepreneurship” and “social experimentation”. As a result, social innovation has become an important tool in the European Semester’s focus on the reform of the welfare state.     

Social Innovation in Rural Regions: Older Adults and Creative Community Development*

Many so-called structurally disadvantaged rural regions are characterized by an ongoing demographic change, low economic productivity, and an insufficient infrastructure. Paradoxically, citizens of such regions are often urged to address local challenges by developing innovative ideas, products, or services. Innovation is becoming a “message of salvation” and imperative to local action due to a rise of an innovation regime that conceptualizes innovation as reflexive and ubiquitous. Unlike cities, however, disadvantaged rural regions are often seen as not conducive to innovation. And older adults are rarely ever regarded as potential innovators. This article will examine how innovations emerge in disadvantaged rural regions and what role older adults play in this context. It focuses on social innovation which is important for processes of rural renewal. Drawing on insights gained through the “Innovation in Rural Municipalities” research project, the paper illustrates the resourcefulness of older adults in the context of socially innovative community development. Older adults can in fact act as drivers of innovative projects, actively participate in and make use of social innovations. Their specific role, however, depends on their personal motives, community-related interests, and available resources.     

The Mobility of Entrepreneurs and Capital: Taiwanese Capital-Linked Migration

Much of the literature concerning international investment focuses on the movement of capital or trade flows and does not cover the persons who migrate with the capital, even though in a globalizing economic system new conditions emerge for the international migration of capitalists. On the one hand, capital owners have been recruited directly by business migration programmes in countries such as Canada, Australia, and the US. On the other hand, global economic restructuring, one part of which entails increasing foreign direct investment from a wider range of countries, has induced the migration of an entrepreneurial/managerial class. This article analyses the relation between the mobility of capital and of entrepreneurs by investigating Taiwan's capital-linked migrations. It aims to show that people can integrate migration and capital investment as a strategy to best serve their interests. Although their moves are mediated and constrained by different migration channels (governmental policies, recruitment agencies, transnational corporations, etc.), capital-linked migrants are not passive players in international migration systems. They actively position themselves with regard to migration channels and select active strategies that best suit their objectives. Sometimes immigration serves capitalists' interest in capital accumulation, at other times capital investment serves as the means for securing a second nationality. In this way, Taiwanese capitalist mobility has been incorporated into the open-ended logic of flexible capitalism itself. Such understanding of the processes of capital-linked migration and its implications contribute to new theories of the relationship between international flows of capital and international migration.     

Social Capital in the LEADER Initiative: a methodological approach

This paper focuses on the introduction of a suitable method for the measurement of social capital in the context of rural development policies. We present an empirical application of the method to four case studies from the south of Italy. In order to overcome some limits affecting previous empirical research, we have grounded the measurement framework upon a clear decomposition of the concept of social capital characterizing three main dimensions: structural, relational and cognitive. This has allowed us to build five direct indicators for the core components of social capital created within the EU local agencies for rural development (the Local Action Groups). Moreover we have set a synthetic measure capturing the specific configuration of the internal social capital of the groups as a whole.     

Sozioökonomische Entwicklung und Wertvorstellungen in elf Regionen der Türkei

Being an official EU candidate country since 2005 Turkey has also become an interesting object of investigation for empirical social science, especially in the field of value research. In this article we examine value orientations in different regions of Turkey. Contrary to previous country-comparing studies our regional approach accounts for the immense developmental gaps which exist within Turkey. In line with central assumptions of modernization theory we expect values of tolerance and individual autonomy in high developed regions and, on the other side, dogmatic beliefs, intolerance and authoritarian attitudes being predominant in weaker developed regions. First, regional stages of modernization are specified using macro indicators like GDP, education, urbanity, the occupational structure, and fertility rate from the official statistics of Turkey. The regional spectrum varies from extremely poor developed rural-agrarian regions in the east to industrialized regions with high degrees of urbanization up to the rich regions in the west with well developed infastructure and service sector. Second, Multiple Correspondence Analyses carried out with data from the European Values Study 2000 show that value differences concerning democratic culture, religiosity, secularity and sexual tolerance occur as expected according to socio-economic disparities between regions. Additionally, we find evidence that independent from socio-economic factors value orientations of people are also shaped by other influences like the minority situation or political stability in a region.     

中国人力资本存量结构的估算：基于教育基尼系数法

通过对中国31个省区1998～2008教育基尼系数的测算,描述了中国历年人力资本存量结构及变化规律：人力资本基尼系数和人力资本平均存量水平具有很高的负相关性,各区域人均受教育年限不断提高,人力资本基尼系数逐渐下降,但人力资本不平等的现状在三大区域间依然突出。     

European integration and external sustainability of the European Union: an application of the thesis of Feldstein and Horioka

The Feldstein–Horioka thesis was considered one of the greatest puzzles in economics. Formulated to measure international capital mobility, it has known a process of immunization to be conformed to empirical evidence and respect econometric knowledge. We apply to EU countries a formulation of this thesis which is adequate to test external sustainability and measure international capital mobility. Applying appropriate econometric methods we can accept the hypothesis of external unsustainability for the EU before the enlargement. The enlargement allows the external sustainability of the new EU. The lesser mobility of capital in the countries of the enlargement must be considered as a positive shock on EU industry of financial services.     

Social Capital and the Human Psyche: Why Is Social Life "Capital"?

In this article, we propose a revised definition of social capital, premised on the principles of evolutionary psychology. We define social capital as any feature of a social relationship that, directly or indirectly, confers reproductive benefits to a participant in that relationship. This definition grounds the construct of social capital in human nature by providing a basis for inferring the underlying motivations that humans may have in common, rather than leaving the matter of what humans use capital for unspoken. Discussions and empirical reviews are presented on the innateness of human sociability, sex differences in sociability, and psychological mechanisms that mediate sociability .     

长三角创新资源的空间错配与调整政策——基于次级和县级区域的实证研究

依据对长江三角洲次级和县级区域资源配置现状的实证研究发现：一是长江三角洲区域在经历高速重化工业化的同时，开始跨入了内生增长模式的门槛，人力资本的贡献日益显现；二是越来越多的次级区域工业生产能力和技术创新能力正在超越北京、上海以及省会城市，由此国家的科技资源和高等教育资源也应当流向这些区域，使产业、科技、教育资源能够融合在同一个空间，以大大提高整个国家技术创新投入的收益；三是转变经济发展方式和实施创新型国家建设战略的真正落脚点是支持和推动更多的次级和县级区域建立高等教育体系，创造更多的人力资本，开展更多的技术创新活动，使更多的区域采取基于技术进步的增长战略。充足的证据表明，现在到了需要采取一个重视创新资源效率的区域增长战略的时候了。     

A TIME SERIES TEST OF INNOVATION-DRIVEN ENDOGENOUS GROWTH

This article finds evidence that ideas and innovation are a key force explaining postwar growth in the U.S. economy. Utilizing data on patents issued since 1851, I construct a measure of the growth rate of knowledge. Capital stock estimates, human capital estimates, and real gross domestic product per worker growth rates are combined with the knowledge growth series to construct a time series test of endogenous innovation growth models. The results support the endogenous innovation approach but suggest that the accumulation of the per worker capital stock and changes in average human capital per worker are at least as important. (JEL 030 , C32 )