R&D Subsidization effect and network centralization. Evidence from an agent-based micro-policy simulation

This paper presents an agent-based micro-policy simulation model assessing public R&D policy effect when R&D and non-R&D performing companies are located within a network. We set out by illustrating the behavioural structure and the computational logic of the proposed model; then, we provide a simulation experiment where the pattern of the total level of R&D activated by a fixed amount of public support is analysed as function of companies’ network topology. More specifically, the suggested simulation experiment shows that a larger “hubness” of the network is more likely accompanied with a decreasing median of the aggregated total R&D performance of the system. Since the aggregated firm idiosyncratic R&D (i.e., the part of total R&D independent of spillovers) is slightly increasing, we conclude that positive cross-firm spillover effects - in the presence of a given amount of support - have a sizeable impact within less centralized networks, where fewer hubs emerge. This may question the common wisdom suggesting that larger R&D externality effects should be more likely to arise when few central champions receive a support

Poststructuralism against poststructuralism: Actor-network theory, organizations and economic markets

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2012 The Author.In recent years, actor-network theory (ANT) has become an increasingly influential theoretical framework through which to analyse economic markets and organizations. Indeed, with its emphasis on the power of social and natural concrete ‘things’ to become contingently enrolled in different networks, many argue that ANT successfully draws attention to the complex intermeshing of new technologies and social actors in organizations and markets across spatial divides from the local to the global. This article argues, however, that within its own method of abstraction and research methodology, ANT separates ‘concrete’ and ‘contingent’ economic markets and organizations from their abstract, necessary and virtual capitalist form. This means that ANT will tend to over-identify with how concrete-contingent actor-networks are performed in empirical economic markets and organizations at the expense of analysing how such empirical contexts are also internally mediated through abstract capitalist processes such as that of surplus value extraction. This, in turn, creates a number of difficulties in how ANT investigates economic markets and organizations. These critical points are made by recourse to the Marxist poststructuralism of Deleuze and Guattari as well as through conventional Marxist ideas

Land re-use, complexity and actor-networks: a framework for research

This paper will present a conceptual framework for the examination of land redevelopment based on a complex systems/networks approach. As Alvin Toffler insightfully noted, modern scientific enquiry has become exceptionally good at splitting problems into pieces but has forgotten how to put the pieces back together. Twenty-five years after his remarks, governments and corporations faced with the requirements of sustainability are struggling to promote an ‘integrated’ or ‘holistic’ approach to tackling problems. Despite the talk, both practice and research provide few platforms that allow for ‘joined up’ thinking and action. With socio-economic phenomena, such as land redevelopment, promising prospects open up when we assume that their constituents can make up complex systems whose emergent properties are more than the sum of the parts and whose behaviour is inherently difficult to predict. A review of previous research shows that it has mainly focused on idealised, ‘mechanical’ views of property development processes that fail to recognise in full the relationships between actors, the structures created and their emergent qualities. When reality failed to live up to the expectations of these theoretical constructs then somebody had to be blamed for it: planners, developers, politicians. However, from a ‘synthetic’ point of view the agents and networks involved in property development can be seen as constituents of structures that perform complex processes. These structures interact, forming new more complex structures and networks. Redevelopment then can be conceptualised as a process of transformation: a complex system, a ‘dissipative’ structure involving developers, planners, landowners, state agencies etc., unlocks the potential of previously used sites, transforms space towards a higher order of complexity and ‘consumes’ but also ‘creates’ different forms of capital in the process. Analysis of network relations point toward the ‘dualism’ of structure and agency in these processes of system transformation and change. Insights from actor network theory can be conjoined with notions of complexity and chaos to build an understanding of the ways in which actors actively seek to shape these structures and systems, whilst at the same time are recursively shaped by them in their strategies and actions. This approach transcends the blame game and allows for inter-disciplinary inputs to be placed within a broader explanatory framework that does away with many past dichotomies. Better understanding of the interactions between actors and the emergent qualities of the networks they form can improve our comprehension of the complex socio-spatial phenomena that redevelopment comprises. The insights that this framework provides when applied in UK institutional investment into redevelopment are considered to be significant

Where do prices come from? Sociological approaches to price formation

The article provides an overview of the state of the art of sociological research on price formation. The dominant trait of the sociological approach to prices is to understand price formation not as the outcome of individual preferences but as the result of the social and political forces operating within the market field. The article proceeds from the concept of market fields and is organized around the three dominant approaches in economic sociology: the network approach, the institutional approach, and the cultural approach. -- Der Artikel gibt einen Überblick über den Forschungsstand zum Thema Preisbildung in der Soziologie. Ausgangspunkt der Betrachtung von Preisen aus soziologischer Perspektive ist, diese nicht als das Resultat individueller Präferenzen zu verstehen, sondern als Ausdruck der sozialen und politischen Kräfte in Märkten. Der Artikel orientiert sich an dem Konzept der Marktfelder und ist anhand der drei Hauptrichtungen der Wirtschaftssoziologie strukturiert: des Netzwerkansatzes, des institutionellen Ansatzes und des kulturellen Ansatzes.

Market and Economic Modelling of the Intelligent Grid: End of Year Report 2009

The overall goal of Project 2 has been to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of distributed energy (DG) on the Australian Electricity System. The research team at the UQ Energy Economics and Management Group (EEMG) has constructed a variety of sophisticated models to analyse the various impacts of significant increases in DG. These models stress that the spatial configuration of the grid really matters - this has tended to be neglected in economic discussions of the costs of DG relative to conventional, centralized power generation. The modelling also makes it clear that efficient storage systems will often be critical in solving transient stability problems on the grid as we move to the greater provision of renewable DG. We show that DG can help to defer of transmission investments in certain conditions. The existing grid structure was constructed with different priorities in mind and we show that its replacement can come at a prohibitive cost unless the capability of the local grid to accommodate DG is assessed very carefully.Distributed Generation. Energy Economics, Electricity Markets, Renewable Energy

Land Re-Use, Complexity And Actor-Networks: A Framework For Research

This paper will present a conceptual framework for the examination of land redevelopment based on a complex systems/networks approach. As Alvin Toffler insightfully noted, modern scientific enquiry has become exceptionally good at splitting problems into pieces but has forgotten how to put the pieces back together. Twenty-five years after his remarks, governments and corporations faced with the requirements of sustainability are struggling to promote an ‘integrated’ or ‘holistic’ approach to tackling problems. Despite the talk, both practice and research provide few platforms that allow for ‘joined up’ thinking and action. With socio-economic phenomena, such as land redevelopment, promising prospects open up when we assume that their constituents can make up complex systems whose emergent properties are more than the sum of the parts and whose behaviour is inherently difficult to predict. A review of previous research shows that it has mainly focused on idealised, ‘mechanical’ views of property development processes that fail to recognise in full the relationships between actors, the structures created and their emergent qualities. When reality failed to live up to the expectations of these theoretical constructs then somebody had to be blamed for it: planners, developers, politicians. However, from a ‘synthetic’ point of view the agents and networks involved in property development can be seen as constituents of structures that perform complex processes. These structures interact, forming new more complex structures and networks. Redevelopment then can be conceptualised as a process of transformation: a complex system, a ‘dissipative’ structure involving developers, planners, landowners, state agencies etc., unlocks the potential of previously used sites, transforms space towards a higher order of complexity and ‘consumes’ but also ‘creates’ different forms of capital in the process. Analysis of network relations point toward the ‘dualism’ of structure and agency in these processes of system transformation and change. Insights from actor network theory can be conjoined with notions of complexity and chaos to build an understanding of the ways in which actors actively seek to shape these structures and systems, whilst at the same time are recursively shaped by them in their strategies and actions. This approach transcends the blame game and allows for inter-disciplinary inputs to be placed within a broader explanatory framework that does away with many past dichotomies. Better understanding of the interactions between actors and the emergent qualities of the networks they form can improve our comprehension of the complex socio-spatial phenomena that redevelopment comprises. The insights that this framework provides when applied in UK institutional investment into redevelopment are considered to be significant.chaos theory, complex systems, actor-networks, redevelopment, land re-use