Making sense of the New Economy

Dit rapport presenteert een overzicht van de mogelijke definiërende, stuwende factoren achter de zogenaamde 'nieuwe economie'. Op basis van bedrijfskundige en economische literatuur worden vijf causale redenaties ('logica's') herleid. De causale redenaties beschrijven een aantal verbanden tussen informatie- en communicatietechnologieën en economische groei. Daarnaast wordt ingegaan op de effecten van ICT en een aantal prioriteiten voor toegepast onderzoek over ondernemerschap en ondernemingsgedrag.

Outsourcing and Insourcing Jobs in the U.S. Economy: Evidence Based on Foreign Investment Data

[Excerpt] The impact of foreign direct investment on U.S. employment is provoking a national debate. While local communities compete with one another for investment projects, many of the residents of those communities fear losing their jobs as U.S. companies seek out foreign locations and foreign workers to perform work that traditionally has been done in the United States, generally referred to as outsourcing. Some observers suggest that current U.S. experiences with outsourcing are different from those that have preceded them and that this merits legislative actions by Congress to blunt the economic impact of these activities. Other observers argue that investing abroad by U.S. multinational companies impedes the growth of new jobs in the economy and thwarts the nation’s investments in high technology sectors. Some opponents also argue that mid-career workers who lose good-paying manufacturing and service-sector jobs likely will never recover their standard of living. Economists and others generally argue that free and unimpeded international flows of capital have a positive impact on both domestic and foreign economies. Direct investment is unique among international capital flows because it adds permanently to the capital stock and skill set of a nation, but it also challenges the general theory of capital flows because of the presence of strong cross-border and intra-industry investment. Supporters contend that to the extent that foreign investment shifts jobs abroad, it is a minor component of the overall economic picture and that it is offset somewhat by the investment of foreign firms in the U.S. economy (referred to as insourcing), which supports existing jobs and creates new jobs in the economy. Broad, comprehensive data on U.S. multinational companies generally lag behind current events by two years and were not developed to address the issue of jobs outsourcing. Many economists argue, however, that there is little evidence to date to support the notion that the overseas investment activities of U.S. multinational companies play a significant role in the rate at which jobs are created in the U.S. economy. Instead, they argue that the source of job creation in the economy is rooted in the combination of macroeconomic policies the nation has chosen, the rate of productivity growth, and the availability of resources. This report addresses these issues by analyzing the extent of direct investment into and out of the economy, the role such investment plays in U.S. trade, jobs, and production, and the relationship between direct investment and the broader economic changes that are occurring in the U.S. economy. This report will be updated as events warrant

Digital technology-based solutions for enhanced effectiveness of secured transactions law:the road to perfection?

This article has two objectives. First, the article examines how the incorporation of specific digital technologies to the different stages of secured transactions could mitigate the imperfections of the secured transactions system and enhance its effectiveness. To begin with, an envisioned integrated ecosystem of smart property and self-executed smart contracts for security agreements could effectively reduce verification and monitoring costs. Next, a fully automatic electronic—maybe, blockchain-based—registry fed by a (IoT) network of interconnected assets would dramatically improve the accuracy of consistently-updated registered information. Furthermore, implanted AI-based solutions could be used to detect changes of circumstances and deviations from agreed provisions. Finally, AI-guided smart contracts could assist in decisionmaking to prevent breaches and automatically enforce remedies.8 Second, given this backdrop, the article focuses on some of the legal implications for secured transactions legal system and assesses whether the current legal framework is prepared to face the challenges inherent to these new technologies, to exploit the multitude of opportunities presented by the technologies, and to manage the involved risks. Alternatively, if the current system is incapable of taking on this challenge, this article will consider an appropriate legal response.Research Project Reform of Spanish Laws of Security Rights in an international context (DER201677695-P)

The Future Role of Banks in Electronic Commerce - Trust as the Crucial Factor of Success in Business Enabling

This paper is based on the hypothesis that digital business can only be conducted once the necessary institutional framework has been put in place. Trust – the cornerstone of all business activity – is an indispensable prerequisite to such a framework. This trust is created on the one hand by technology and, on the other hand, by institutions such as banks. And trust is one area in which the banks in particular – despite the threat of disintermediation and their precarious position in the world of e-commerce, brought about by services with such a substantial information content – can tap a vast store of marketing potential. The original reason why banks emerged several hundred years ago was an attempt to mediate between certain market imperfections and conflicts of interest. Banks are, therefore, institutions whose position in society has been built on precisely these imperfections. Accordingly, the banks in today\u27s digital economy will only be able to escape the threat of disintermediation if they once again adopt the role of business enabler . They will be able to hold their own on the market only if they assume the function of a trust mediary . This hypothesis derives from analyses of transaction cost theory, but is also based on two empirically representative studies conducted on the subject and which, given a conjoint analytical approach, permit concrete market simulations to be derived. From the point of view of Internet users, such simulations describe the role of the banks as trust mediaries who will in future operate in three dimensions: transformation, transaction cost reduction and trust

Some specific Austrian insights on markets and the "new economy"

In section 1 of this contribution, we will recall the usual arguments which are put forward to analyze the New Economy (NE) as the empirical realization of the Competitive Economic Equilibrium (CEE) model. After having stressed the limits of these arguments, we will try to show that some Austrian concepts and developments better fit to explain the economic impact of Information Technologies on present markets. This purpose is characterized in section 2 of this contribution. Finally, in section 3, we will refer to some concrete examples taken from the reality of electronic markets, in order to emphasize how these concepts and developments allow a better understanding of the working of markets in the NE, even if they exhibit some limitation.Austrian legacy, subjectivism, New Economy, economic analysis

Environmental and Social Accounting As An Alternative Approach To Conflict Resolutions In A Volatile and E-Business Environment

Profits and improvements in world social welfare are the main reasons for industrialization. However, while governments and business owners are striving to solve one social problem or the other, these same solution processes scoop up other problems along the line which inadvertently breed conflicts and confrontations between the host communities and the owners and operators of the organizations attempting the solution. This is the position which most oil producing companies in the Nigerian Niger Delta region as well as some manufacturing concerns have found themselves. In E-Business, market domination and monopolistic trade practices have pitched major world players in the information and communications technology industry against one another, engendering yet another type of social conflict. This paper believes that a lot could be done to douse the resulting conflagration and pacify those directly affected by applying palliative and preventive remedies using the process of environmental and social accounting aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a tool

Outsourcing and Insourcing Jobs in the U.S. Economy: Evidence Based on Foreign Investment Data

[Excerpt] The impact of foreign direct investment on U.S. employment is provoking a national debate. While local communities compete with one another for investment projects, many of the residents of those communities fear losing their jobs as U.S. companies seek out foreign locations and foreign workers to perform work that traditionally has been done in the United States, generally referred to as outsourcing. Some observers suggest that current U.S. experiences with outsourcing are different from those that have preceded them and that this merits legislative actions by Congress to blunt the economic impact of these activities. Other observers argue that investing abroad by U.S. multinational companies impedes the growth of new jobs in the economy and thwarts the nation’s investments in high technology sectors. Some opponents also argue that mid-career workers who lose good-paying manufacturing and service-sector jobs likely will never recover their standard of living. Economists and others generally argue that free and unimpeded international flows of capital have a positive impact on both domestic and foreign economies. Direct investment is unique among international capital flows because it adds permanently to the capital stock and skill set of a nation, but it also challenges the general theory of capital flows because of the presence of strong cross-border and intra-industry investment. Supporters contend that to the extent that foreign investment shifts jobs abroad, it is a minor component of the overall economic picture and that it is offset somewhat by the investment of foreign firms in the U.S. economy (referred to as insourcing), which supports existing jobs and creates new jobs in the economy. Broad, comprehensive data on U.S. multinational companies generally lag behind current events by two years and were not developed to address the issue of jobs outsourcing. Many economists argue, however, that there is little evidence to date to support the notion that the overseas investment activities of U.S. multinational companies play a significant role in the rate at which jobs are created in the U.S. economy. Instead, they argue that the source of job creation in the economy is rooted in the combination of macroeconomic policies the nation has chosen, the rate of productivity growth, and the availability of resources. This report addresses these issues by analyzing the extent of direct investment into and out of the economy, the role such investment plays in U.S. trade, jobs, and production, and the relationship between direct investment and the broader economic changes that are occurring in the U.S. economy. This report will be updated as events warrant

The future of the USO - Economic rationale for universal services and implications for a future-oriented USO

Universal service obligations (USO) in the postal sector currently enjoy considerable attention among politicians, practitioners and academics. The primary areas of interest have been the viability, costing and funding of the USO in a completely liberalized market. However, the purpose and the scope of the USO itself have so far not been questioned fundamentally. In this paper we first analyze the possible rationale for USO from an economic point of view. Then, we discuss the impact of converging postal and telecommunications markets on potential alternative means to provide USO in a more efficient way.Universal service, USO, covergence, postal sector