R&D cooperation between firms and universities: some empirical evidence from Belgian manufacturing.

This paper presents an econometric analysis of firm and industry characteristics conducive to cooperation with universities, using Community Innovation Survey data for Belgium. We find that large firms are more likely to have cooperative agreements with universities. These agreements are formed whenever risk is not an important obstacle to innovation and typically serve to share costs. Consistent with the open science paradigm, we find no evidence for the importance of the capacity to appropriate the returns from innovation for explaining cooperative agreements with universities. We do argue that cooperating with universities is complementary to other innovation activities such as performing own R&D, sourcing public information and cooperative agreements with suppliers and customers. Therefore, the decision to cooperate with universities cannot be analyzed in isolation from the overall innovation strategy of the firm.Agreements; Belgium; Characteristics; Classification; Community; Cooperation; Cooperation with universities; Costs; Data; Decision; Firms; Industry; Industry-science links; Information; Innovation; Innovation strategy; Manufacturing; Open; R&D; Risk; Science; Sourcing; Strategy; Suppliers; University;

An Analysis of Primary Teacher Education in Trinidad and Tobago: Multi-Site Teacher Education Research Project (MUSTER), Country Report Four

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Tax Evasion and Trust

Tax evasion is typically analyzed in a principal/agent framework, the government (principal) trying to provide agents with the incentives to pay their taxes. However, evading sales, excise or trade taxes requires the cooperation of at least two taxpayers. When individuals evade taxes, they face two potential costs. One is that tax evasion may be detected and sanctioned; the other is that their partner in crime might cheat. An increase in the sanction for tax evasion leads to a direct increase in the expected cost of a transaction in the illegal sector. However, it may also reduce the incentive to cheat. It may then be that a small increase in the sanction reduces the total cost of transacting in the illegal sector. Tax evasion may increase as a result. Il est habituel d'analyser l'évasion fiscale dans le cadre de modèles principal-agent, le gouvernement jouant le rôle du principal et le payeur de taxe potentiel celui de l'agent. Pourtant, l'évasion fiscale n'est fréquemment possible que si plusieurs agents coopèrent ensemble. Une telle coopération est par exemple nécessaire pour l'évasion des taxes de vente et d'assise. Lorsque plusieurs agents décident d'un commun accord de ne pas payer une taxe, ils doivent prendre deux coûts en considération. Le premier est que malgré tous leurs efforts pour que leurs activités d'évasion demeurent secrètes, il est possible qu'elles soient détectées et qu'ils soient sanctionnés. Le second est que le ou les partenaires peuvent ne pas fournir l'effort attendu (i.e. tricher) pour que les activités demeurent secrètes, augmentant alors la probabilité de détection. Une augmentation de la sanction pour évasion fiscale a alors deux effets. Elle augmente tout d'abord, de façon directe, le coût espéré de transiger illégalement. Mais elle peut également réduire l'incitation à tricher des partenaires impliqués dans une transaction illégale. En conséquence, un accroissement de la sanction peut réduire le coût total de certaines transactions illégales et mener à une augmentation de l'évasion fiscale.Tax Evasion, Cooperation, Sanctions

Which firms have cooperative R&D agreements with universities? Some empirical evidence from Belgian manufacturing.

This paper presents an econometric analysis of firm and industry characteristics conducive to cooperation with universities, using Community Innovation Survey (I) data for Belgium. We find that large firms are more likely to have cooperative agreements with universities. These agreements are formed whenever risk is not an important obstacle to innovation and typically serve to share costs. Consistent with the open science paradigm, we find no evidence for the importance of the capacity to appropriate the returns from innovation for explaining cooperative agreements with universities. We argue that cooperating with universities is complementary to other innovation activities such as performing own R&D, sourcing public information and cooperative agreements with suppliers and customers. Therefore, the decision to cooperate with universities cannot be analyzed in isolation from a firm's overall innovation strategy.industry-science links; cooperation universities; innovation strategy;

The Foundation Center 2003 Annual Report

In 2003, the demand for information on institutional philanthropy reached the highest level in decades. The weak economy resulted in reduced giving by foundations, prompting renewed public interest in their activities. Faced with limited resources, grantmakers reassessed their strategies and programs to seek the greatest impact, while nonprofits tackled a difficult fundraising climate to sustain vital programs and services. As the need for resources intensified, the Foundation Center played a crucial role for both these audiences by connecting them to current and authoritative information on U.S. grantmakers and their giving

Cooperating to Resist Coercion: An Experimental Study

This study sheds light on the difficulties people face in cooperating to resist coercion. We adapt a threshold public goods game to investigate whether people are able to cooperate to resist coercion despite individual incentives to free-ride. Behavior in this resistance game is similar to that observed in multi-period public goods games. Specifically, we observe "out-of-equilibrium" outcomes and a decrease in successful resistance in later periods of a session compared to earlier ones. Nevertheless, cooperation remains relatively high even in the later periods. Finally, we find that increasing the resistance threshold has a substantial negative effect on the probability of successful resistance.

R&D cooperation and spillovers: Some empirical evidence

This paper provides some first empirical evidence on the relationship between R&D spillovers and R&D cooperation. The results suggest disentangling different aspects of know-how flows. Firms which rate incoming spillovers more importantly and who can limit outgoing spillovers by a more effective protection of know-how, are more likely to cooperate in R&D. Our analysis also finds that cooperating firms have higher incoming spillovers and higher protection of know- how, indicating that cooperation may serve as a vehicle to manage information flows. Our results thus suggest that on the one hand the information sharing and coordination aspects of incoming spillovers are crucial in understanding cooperation, while on the other hand, protection against outgoing spillovers is important for firms to engage in stable cooperative agreements by reducing free-rider problems. Distinguishing different types of cooperative partners reveals that while managing outgoing spillovers is less critical in alliances with non-commercial research partners than between vertically related partners, the incoming spillovers seem to be more critical in understanding the former type of R&D cooperation.Research and development, cooperation, spillovers

R&D cooperation and spillovers: some empirical evidence.

This paper provides some first empirical evidence on the relationship between R&D spillovers and R&D cooperation. The results suggest disentangling different aspects of know-how flows. Firms which rate incoming spillovers more importantly and who can limit outgoing spillovers by a more effective protection of know-how, are more likely to cooperate in R&D. Our analysis also finds that cooperating firms have higher incoming spillovers and higher protection of know-how, indicating that cooperation may serve as a vehicle to manage information flows. Our results thus suggest that on the one hand the information sharing and coordination aspects of incoming spillovers are crucial in understanding cooperation, while on the other hand, protection against outgoing spillovers is important for firms to engage in stable cooperative agreements by reducing free-rider problems. Distinguishing different types of cooperative partners reveals that while managing outgoing spillovers is less critical in alliances with non-commercial research partners than between vertically related partners, the incoming spillovers seem to be more critical in understanding the former type of R&D cooperation.Cooperation; R&D; R&D cooperation; Spillovers;