Private Wealth and Public Goods: A Case for a National Investment Authority

Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States. Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA is an inherently hybrid, public-private entity that combines the unique strengths of public instrumentalities--their vast scale, lengthy investment horizons, and explicit backing by the public’s full faith and credit--with the micro-informational advantages of private market actors. By creatively adapting familiar tools of financial and legal engineering, the NIA overcomes obstacles that ordinarily impede or discourage private investment in critically necessary and even transformative public infrastructure goods. By channeling presently speculative private capital back into the real economy, moreover, the NIA plays an important role in enhancing the resilience and stability of the U.S. and global financial systems. The Article makes original contributions not only to contemporary policy debates over how to revive America’s productive prowess and bring its financial system back into the service of the real economy, but also to current theoretical understandings of “public goods,” “market failures,” and how to provide or address them. It offers an account of what it calls “collective goods”--a broader category than orthodox public goods--as solutions to collective action problems that pervade decentralized markets, hence as goods that can be supplied only through exercises of collective agency. Our NIA proposal operationalizes this theoretical insight by elaborating a specific institutional form that such collective agency can take

Private Wealth and Public Goods: A Case for a National Investment Authority

Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States. Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA is an inherently hybrid, public-private entity that combines the unique strengths of public instrumentalities--their vast scale, lengthy investment horizons, and explicit backing by the public’s full faith and credit--with the micro-informational advantages of private market actors. By creatively adapting familiar tools of financial and legal engineering, the NIA overcomes obstacles that ordinarily impede or discourage private investment in critically necessary and even transformative public infrastructure goods. By channeling presently speculative private capital back into the real economy, moreover, the NIA plays an important role in enhancing the resilience and stability of the U.S. and global financial systems. The Article makes original contributions not only to contemporary policy debates over how to revive America’s productive prowess and bring its financial system back into the service of the real economy, but also to current theoretical understandings of “public goods,” “market failures,” and how to provide or address them. It offers an account of what it calls “collective goods”--a broader category than orthodox public goods--as solutions to collective action problems that pervade decentralized markets, hence as goods that can be supplied only through exercises of collective agency. Our NIA proposal operationalizes this theoretical insight by elaborating a specific institutional form that such collective agency can take

The international competitiveness of the small European state in the 1980s: Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland.

This thesis tests the hypothesis that the degree of international competitiveness of the small European state in the 1980s resulted from its unique internal process of interaction derived from its industrial culture, developed from state priorities and societal values. Small European states, because of their position as international price takers, controlling relatively few product markets, were forced to rely on various forms of domestic intervention, such as monetary, labour market, and industrial policies, to stimulate international competitiveness. A systematised dialogue and communication process among internal economic actors due to geographic proximity and consequent actor familiarity was the small European state's competitive advantage necessary to compete for world markets against larger states possessing both natural and human resource advantages. The more systematised the internal interactive process was, however, the more flexible the internationally vulnerable small European state would be to respond to changing global political and economic conditions. In cases such as Sweden and Switzerland, the small European state was able to fashion this process of interaction into a system, where peak associations were able to communicate effectively to preserve a flexible industrial environment and where the principal actor maintained a key role in directing the national economy. The economic success of Sweden throughout the 1980s was facilitated by the trade unions, while in Switzerland the economy was guided by its financial institutions. Because of these principal actors, both states were highly independent, having developed oligopolised, high technology oriented industrial structures that featured powerful multinational corporations. However, during the 1980s, in small European states such as Denmark and Ireland, with weak industrial structures, high levels of international dependence on the European Community, and poor economic performances, confused consultation processes bred incoherent policy-making that resulted in low levels of international competitiveness. In both states, the State as the principal actor attempted to facilitate industrial adjustment, aspiring to modernise their relatively weak indigenous industrial structures. The thesis examines actor relations and policy-making in three functional areas: finance-industry relations and monetary policies; trade union-industry relations and supportive labour market policies; and state-industry relations and industrial policies. Given the myriad of policies that small state policy-makers employed during the 1980s, the thesis argues and illustrates that small European state interventionism was both state-specific and necessary because of the pressures of the world market

Becoming conspicuous : Irish travellers, society and the state, 1922-70

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Innovation management in a multi-national corporation's subsidiary of Ireland's evolving knowledge economy.

Innovation management is now seen as an important competitive advantage for Multi-national Corporation (MNC) subsidiaries located in Ireland's changing economy. This paper reports on the initial stages of a case study in the Operations division of American Power Conversion (APC) Ireland. The results of an innovation audit are presented that provide a reference point to begin the transformation to an innovative supply chain organization. The paper proposes the development of Networks of Practice to enable the diffusion of resulting innovations across the corporation.peer-reviewe

The spatial organisation of corporations : a case study of the multinational chemicals industry with specific reference to ICI

This thesis is about the spatial implications of multinational corporations. It is argued that a better understanding of these spatial impacts can be achieved only by focusing on the complex organisation of corporate structures. Such an emphasis provides a supplementary perspective which can be used to explain the emergence of a new international division of labour during the 1970s and 1980s, a phenomenon which must be viewed partially as the outcome of the multinational evolution and restructuring of individual enterprises. The chosen theoretical perspective requires that a framework be established which provides a means of linking macro- and micro-scale processes operating in space, integrating propositions relating the organisation and spatial structure of corporations. The business organisation itself, therefore, is taken as the appropriate unit of analysis to gain insights into the position particular geographical events occupy within corporate space. Consequently, the analytical framework is derived from theories concerning the structure of business organisations. The argument is conducted within the context of business organisations operating in the chemicals industry between 1970 and 1980, special attention being given to one corporation, ICI. In particular, several conceptual problems on corporate structure are identified and addressed, concerning differentiation between and within organisations, and the role space plays in establishing, maintaining and increasing structural inequalities. The analysis expands the general arguments of the thesis, but also underlines the importance of historical patterns of corporate development which are embodied in organisational structures. Furthermore, the analysis both clarifies and exposes factors influencing the creation of a changing spatial division of labour, by emphasising the need to address processes operating inside individual plant locations, as well as inside different types of business organisation

Evaluating a best practice model for an economic development agency

This thesis is concerned with evaluating effectiveness and performance in economic development agencies. Development agencies are typically quasi- public bodies that operate at metropolitan, sub-regional and local scales with the purpose of promoting and realising economic development in their areas. The aim of this thesis is to develop a best practice model for such agencies. The institutions that were studied as part of this project included a wide range of different economic development organisations located in Belfast, Berlin, Glasgow and London. Initially, the thesis discusses the history of economic development activity at sub-national scales in the UK and internationally, and explores the role that such agencies play. Aspects of organisational performance and effectiveness in the context of economic development agencies are further discussed. The research proceeds according to a framework of organisational analysis, describing and analysing the environment that agencies operate in, the most influential characteristics and factors for agency performance, and features of operational design and implementation. The basis for the original research in this thesis is data from a substantial number of qualitative interviews with individuals from development agencies and other interest groups. The thesis argues that there are a wide range of characteristics and factors that contribute to agency effectiveness and performance, and that these have been insufficiently explored in past research. Economic development agencies are also significantly influenced by the environment which they operate in. Overall, it is argued that in order to be successful at their task, economic development agencies need to be truly excellent organisations. This includes developing effective mechanisms for corporate management, staff development, and a market-led rationale for organisational philosophy and action. The concluding chapter of this thesis develops a framework for creating and sustaining excellence in economic development organisations

Inward and Outward FDI Country Profiles, Second Edition

This second edition contains a series of 77 standardized country profiles dealing with the inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) performance of 40 economies. The profiles have been peer-reviewed by a global network of experts. The publication is intended to contribute to the analysis of trends in foreign direct investment and policy issues related to them. More specifically, the individual profiles discuss FDI trends and developments (country-level developments, the corporate players); effects of the recent global crises; and the policy scene. Each profile contains a standard set of tables, including on FDI stocks and flows, sectoral and geographical FDI distributions, the largest M&As and greenfield investments, the principal foreign affiliates (for inward FDI), and the principal multinational enterprises (for outward FDI). The standardized template used to produce the profiles allows cross-country comparisons. The volume is meant to be a reference tool for anyone interested in foreign direct investment