Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing the American Economy

The future of the American economy rests on our ability to innovate and invent the new products that will define the global economy in the decades ahead. This report seeks to highlight one key aspect of this challenge that is often overlooked: the crucial role that foreign scientists, engineers, and other researchers play in inventing the products and dreaming up the ideas that will power the American economy in the future. As the magnet for the world's brightest minds, America has prospered greatly from the global innovators who have come here to do research and invent products. However, many of these innovators face daunting or insurmountable immigration hurdles that force them to leave the country and take their talents elsewhere. The problem is particularly acute at our research universities, where we train the top minds, only to send them abroad to compete against us.This report aims to quantify both the role that foreign-born inventors play in the innovation coming out of US universities, and the costs we incur by training the world's top minds and sending them away. University research is responsible for 53% of all basic research in America. Much of this research leads to patented inventions, new companies, and jobs for American workers

Romania's Development towards the Knowledge Economy: the ICT Dimension

This paper attempts to contribute to the existing research by providing new data and information about Romania's advance towards the knowledge economy. In particular, two research questions will be envisaged. First, the role of information and communications technologies in economic development will be discussed in connection with its relevance for assessing the progress in knowledge economy. Second, Romania's position both in ITC and knowledge economy will be examined in a European and international context. With this aim in view a series of literature insights will be combined with a methodological framework and relevant statistical data analysis.Knowledge Economy Index, ICT Index, Romania's basic scorecard

Official Regulations and the Shadow Economy: A Labour Market Approach

This work revisits the role of regulations in emergence o f the shadow economy. In particular, it supplements the previous theoretical research that mainly ignored the fact that the decision to “go underground” is essentially a result of both employers and employees interacting in the labour market. We adapt a job search approach (see, e.g. Acemoglu 2001) to model a transitional economy with an informal sector. We apply and develop the idea first documented inter alia by Loayaza (1996) that there are two types of regulations that influence the size of the informal labour market through two different channels. Red tape and bureaucratic extortion (bribing) make starting a new business officially a not very attractive option and can lead new firms to the informal sector. On the other hand, taxes and redundancy pay make official firms offer lower wages which drives potential employees away into underground jobs. Depending on various combinations of policy parameters equilibria with different share of the informal economy are possible. The paper draws conclusions regarding the role of unemployment benefits in reducing the size of the informal economy. Policy implications are offered.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39909/3/wp524.pd

From Anti-equilibrium to The Socialist System and Beyond

This essay attempts to understand János Kornai’s works from a political economy perspective. It argues that Kornai has significantly contributed to the formation of a new paradigm of political economy. The main endeavor of Kornai has been the combination of analytical concepts of economics with the empirical description of real economies. After a certain period of theoretical experimentation János Kornai formulated his research program that can be called the shortage economy explanation of the socialist system. The Economics of Shortage and The Socialist System have created a new theoretical paradigm in a framework in which it has become possible to establish a connection between the analytical and empirical, universal and historical aspects of the theory studying the socialist system as a real economic entity. János Kornai has built his analysis of the socialist system on the primary role of politics in the creation of economic institutions. In his present work on capitalism he has extended this thesis to the capitalist system. This seems to be an important contribution of his to a new political economy paradigm that is just in the process of formation

TOWARDS A COMPETITIVE LOW-CARBON ECONOMY: ON FIRMS’ INCENTIVES AND THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RESEARCH

This paper considers the prerequisites for implementing a competitive low-carbon economy in the European Union from the point of view of firms’ incentives, the role of policy and the contribution of public research. It suggests that the reduction of the environmental impact of energy can be a new competitiveness factor. Rather than being treated as a constraint and cost-aggravating factor, addressing climate change can offer economic opportunity and contribute to growth. The paper looks at both static (energy efficiency) and dynamic (innovation – new products, processes, technologies or sectors and consumption patterns) dimensions of competitiveness.Economic competitiveness; low-carbon economy; energy; technology; and public research.

Universities, regional policy and the knowledge economy

This article focuses on the spatial clustering dimension of new information and communications technology (ICT)-driven economic activity based on knowledge industries and especially the tacit knowledge synergies to be achieved through networking in geographical space. The article first details the new knowledge economy, reviewing claims made for its distinctiveness and its role in raising levels of productivity before turning to a brief study of the clustering effects of new ICT-driven economic activity and the development of policies designed to enhance regional development. The remainder of the article details a case study – Univercities: the Manchester Knowledge Capital Initiative – in the North-west of the United Kingdom based on recent research into the attempt to create a ‘Knowledge Capital’ within the Greater Manchester conurbation, which is designed to position Manchester at the heart of the knowledge economy

Evolution of the knowledge economy: a historical perspective with an application to the case of Europe

The goal of the article is to explore the evolution of original concept of knowledge economy based on science intensive production sectors toward service type economies which significantly changed the role of scientific research and technological innovation for economic growth. The paper argues that this transition is due not only to the structural changes in global production, but the theoretical evolution and aradigmatic shift of the concept of “knowledge economy” in general and “knowledge” in particular has played a significant role. The paper examines the different interpretation of knowledge within new types of intangible economies (e.g., new/Internet, weightless, service, creative, cultural economies) where knowledge is perceived to be generated not as a product of scientific research but as a service or creative activity and critically examined the role of scientific research in a service led knowledge economy. Additionally the paper argue how these phenomena, which marked the global economy in the last decades, enable the transition of the standard concept of knowledge economy originated from industrial production and manufacturing to a knowledge economy equalized with various types of expanding intangible economies, primarily those based on service and creative industries

New product development in an emerging economy: analysing the role of supplier involvement practices by using Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo technique

The research question is whether the positive relationship found between supplier involvement practices and new product development performances in developed economies also holds in emerging economies. The role of supplier involvement practices in new product development performance is yet to be substantially investigated in the emerging economies (other than China). This premise was examined by distributing a survey instrument (Jayaram’s (2008) published survey instrument that has been utilised in developed economies) to Malaysian manufacturing companies. To gauge the relationship between the supplier involvement practices and new product development (NPD) project performance of 146 companies, structural equation modelling was adopted. Our findings prove that supplier involvement practices have a significant positive impact on NPD project performance in an emerging economy with respect to quality objectives, design objectives, cost objectives, and “time-to-market” objectives. Further analysis using the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm, yielding a more credible and feasible differentiation, confirmed these results (even in the case of an emerging economy) and indicated that these practices have a 28% impact on variance of NPD project performance. This considerable effect implies that supplier involvement is a must have, although further research is needed to identify the contingencies for its practices

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, helped create the theory of markets with asymmetric information and was one of the founders of modern development economics. He played a leading role in an intellectual revolution that changed the characterization of a market economy. In the new paradigm, the price system only imperfectly solves the information problem of scarcity because of the many other information problems that arise in the economy: the selection over hidden characteristics, the provision of incentives for hidden behaviors and for innovation, and the coordination of choices over institutions.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,,Debt Markets,Financial Intermediation

Urban world: Mapping the economic power of cities

Until now, a lack of global data at the city level has prevented companies and policymakers from tracking the evolving role of cities in the global economy and positioning their business and policy activities accordingly. To help close this "white space" in our understanding of the global economy, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey & Company's business and economics research arm, has built on its extensive body of research on the urbanization of China, India, and Latin America to develop the MGI Cityscope, a database of more than 2,000 metropolitan areas around the world that we believe is the largest of its kind. By analyzing demographic, income, and household trends in these cities, the database offers actionable insights on the choices facing companies looking for new markets and policy makers seeking to improve their urban management and the alignment of their diplomatic efforts with their countries' trade interests