Knowledge Spillovers and Employment Growth in Great Britain

The importance of knowledge spillovers for achieving innovation and economic growth is widely recognised. It is not straightforward which type of spillovers is most effective: intra-sectoral spillovers or inter-sectoral spillovers. We investigated this controversy using a model of regional growth. The model also deals with the impact of local competition on innovation and growth. The model is estimated using sectoral data for 60 British regions. A positive effect of local competition on economic growth is found for several sectors of the economy, while a positive effect of diversity (a proxy for inter-sectoral spillovers) is found only for the production sector. We found no effect for specialisation (a proxy for intra-sectoral spillovers).

Knowledge spillovers and employment growth in Great Britain

Dit rapport beschrijft, aan de hand van enkele modellen, de impact van kennisoverdracht tussen bedrijven in de diverse sectoren in Groot-Brittannië in de periode 1981-1998.

Monumentenzorg tijdens de bezetting. Een zoektocht naar nationaalsocialistisch restaureren in Nederland 1940-1944

Between 1940 and 1943, during the German Occupation, restoration activities continued unabated in the Netherlands. Existing studies have already shown that, in the context of a reorganization of cultural policy and legislation, the occupier attached great importance to heritage preservation. There was an attempt (ultimately fruitless) to introduce a national historic buildings act and the National Socialists interfered actively in reconstruction and restoration matters in the (exceptional) case of Middelburg. They also set up the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer and the Nederlandsche Kultuurraad with the aim of reorganizing the cultural sector along National Socialist lines. Yet there has been scarcely any research into the possible influence of this ideology on ‘ordinary’ restoration work in the Netherlands during the Occupation. The author hopes that this article will encourage further research into ‘National Socialist restoration’ in the Netherlands. The author argues that in the long term, the Gleichschaltung (in effect, Nazification) of cultural organizations like the Kultuurkamer and the Kultuurraad had hardly any impact on institutional heritage preservation or restoration practice. Nor did the National Socialist tendencies of restoration architects like Jan Gratama, C.B. van der Tak and G.A.C. Blok affect restoration practice during the Occupation. Finally, an analysis of the National Socialist cultural journal De Schouw indicates that although attention was paid to restoration issues, no specifically National Socialist restoration principles were advanced that might have served as guide for Dutch heritage preservation. Based on these sources, the author concludes that there was little sign of any clearly defined National Socialist restoration principles in the Netherlands in the 1940s, let alone any that would have been relevant to heritage preservation, and draws a parallel with the continuity of 1920s conservative restoration ideas in Germany after 1933

Monumentenzorg tijdens de bezetting. Een zoektocht naar nationaalsocialistisch restaureren in Nederland 1940-1944

Between 1940 and 1943, during the German Occupation, restoration activities continued unabated in the Netherlands. Existing studies have already shown that, in the context of a reorganization of cultural policy and legislation, the occupier attached great importance to heritage preservation. There was an attempt (ultimately fruitless) to introduce a national historic buildings act and the National Socialists interfered actively in reconstruction and restoration matters in the (exceptional) case of Middelburg. They also set up the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer and the Nederlandsche Kultuurraad with the aim of reorganizing the cultural sector along National Socialist lines. Yet there has been scarcely any research into the possible influence of this ideology on ‘ordinary’ restoration work in the Netherlands during the Occupation. The author hopes that this article will encourage further research into ‘National Socialist restoration’ in the Netherlands. The author argues that in the long term, the Gleichschaltung (in effect, Nazification) of cultural organizations like the Kultuurkamer and the Kultuurraad had hardly any impact on institutional heritage preservation or restoration practice. Nor did the National Socialist tendencies of restoration architects like Jan Gratama, C.B. van der Tak and G.A.C. Blok affect restoration practice during the Occupation. Finally, an analysis of the National Socialist cultural journal De Schouw indicates that although attention was paid to restoration issues, no specifically National Socialist restoration principles were advanced that might have served as guide for Dutch heritage preservation. Based on these sources, the author concludes that there was little sign of any clearly defined National Socialist restoration principles in the Netherlands in the 1940s, let alone any that would have been relevant to heritage preservation, and draws a parallel with the continuity of 1920s conservative restoration ideas in Germany after 1933

Link anchors in images: is there truth?

While automatic linking in text collections is well understood, little is known about links in images. In this work, we investigate two aspects of anchors, the origin of a link, in images: 1) the requirements of users for such anchors, e.g. the things users would like more information on, and 2) possible evaluation methods assessing anchor selection al- gorithms. To investigate these aspects, we perform a study with 102 users. We find that 59% of the required anchors are image segments, as opposed to the whole image, and most users require information on displayed persons. The agreement of users on the required anchors is too low (often below 30%) for a ground truth-based evaluation, which is the standard IR evaluation method. As an alternative, we propose a novel evaluation method based on improved search performance and user experience

New Survey Methods

Surveys are widely used by scholars, companies, and public policymakers to generate invaluable insights. Despite the popularity of surveys, there are several biases that can affect the validity of self-reported data. In his inaugural address, Martijn de Jong discusses how new survey methods can help to extract valid information from surveys. Several examples are presented that showcase the relevance of better research design and careful statistical modeling of the response process. In addition, De Jong addresses some commonly held perceptions about the ability to make causal inferences with survey data

Modeling CLV:A test of competing models in the insurance industry

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of the key metrics in marketing and is considered an important segmentation base. This paper studies the capabilities of a range of models to predict CLV in the insurance industry. The simplest models can be constructed at the customer relationship level, i.e. aggregated across all services. The more complex models focus on the individual services, paying explicit attention to cross buying, but also retention. The models build on a plethora of approaches used in the existing literature and include a status quo model, a Tobit II model, univariate and multivariate choice models, and duration models. For all models, CLV for each customer is computed for a four-year time horizon. We find that the simple models perform well. The more complex models are expected to better capture the richness of relationship development. Surprisingly, this does not lead to substantially better CLV predictions