Competition and Innovation: Pushing Productivity Up or Down?

This paper examines the relationship between competition, innovation and productivity for the Netherlands. We use industry level data aggregated from micro data as well as moments from firm level data for the period 1996-2006. We match innovation data from Community Innovation Survey with accounting data to link innovative activities with performance at the industry level. We find strong evidence for a positive impact of competition on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the industry level. Competition directly increases TFP by reducing X-ineficiencies and removing inefficient forms from markets, but also through more innovation. Nonetheless, there exists an inverted U- curve between competition and innovation for the Netherlands, at least for manufacturing industries. Yet, our results indicate that a negative effect of competition on productivity through lower innovation expenditures arises only at very high levels of competition.competition;innovation;profit elasticity;productivity

Lossy gossip and composition of metrics

We study the monoid generated by n-by-n distance matrices under tropical (or min-plus) multiplication. Using the tropical geometry of the orthogonal group, we prove that this monoid is a finite polyhedral fan of dimension n(n-1)/2, and we compute the structure of this fan for n up to 5. The monoid captures gossip among n gossipers over lossy phone lines, and contains the gossip monoid over ordinary phone lines as a submonoid. We prove several new results about this submonoid, as well. In particular, we establish a sharp bound on chains of calls in each of which someone learns something new.Comment: Minor textual edits, final versio

Tight bounds for break minimization

We consider round-robin sports tournaments with n teams and n − 1 rounds. We construct an infinite family of opponent schedules for which every home-away assignment induces at least 1/4 n(n−2) breaks. This construction establishes a matching lower bound for a corresponding upper bound from the literature

The inert firm; why old firms show a stickiness to their location

This paper investigates the tendency of older firms to show stickiness to their home-region or fixed location, with the increase of age (in years since founding), as found in earlier research. Empirical evidence supporting this argument is found from a telephone survey under the population of old firms in the Netherlands. In the current paper an analysis is done to determine which other firm characteristics -next to age in years-, influence this stickiness to place; such as innovative behaviour, network relationships, market, size (in number of employees), region and location type. This analysis is done on written questionnaires of 179 firms in the Netherlands, 37 of these firms are specifically labelled as ‘old firms’ (founded before 1851). Tested is whether inert behaviour, which according to the theory of structural inertia increases with age, also has an influence on the location of firms. Furthermore, the relationship between the spatial environment and other firm characteristics is investigated.

The Innovation Threshold

In this paper, we propose an economic model to analyse the sales out of new products. This model accounts for the fact that even among firms for which R&D is a permanent activity, a fraction of firms does not have sales of innovative products during a two-year observation period. We propose a model in which the fixed costs of introduction is a major concern in the decision making process. In a structural model we estimate the fixed costs of the market introduction of new products and explain subsequent sales of innovative products. We examine an indicator of innovative output, i.e. sales of products 'new to the firm'. We estimate fixed costs thresholds using data from the Dutch part of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) from 1998. R&D intensity, competition and market structure have a positive impact on sales of new products. The most important factors to decrease the fixed costs threshold of introduction are product related R&D investments, R&D subsidies and knowledge spillovers.Innovation;Product R&D;Threshold model

An empirical study on the relationship between the spatial environment and the survival of old firms in the Netherlands

This is an empirical research on old firms in the Netherlands where old firms are defined als those firms that were founded before 1851 and still exist today. The study is divided in two main parts. The first part is descriptive and provides information on the firm population at stake. The regional differences concerning age, size, sector and percentage of the total firm population are shown. In the second part, an analysis on the outcome of a survey conducted at the research population is presented. The analysis focuses on the relation between firm characteristics and the spatial environment and whether or not similarities can be identified in these old firms. Overall, economic theory suggests that forces external to the firm such as strong competition, lagging demand, or technological drawbacks are the dominant determinants of firm closure. In this line of reasoning it may be claimed that low competition, growing demand and innovative behaviour might stimulate survival chances of firms on the long run. There are few sources on firm's activities during the life course of individual firm and on the influence of the spatial environment on these firm activities. This study might shed some light on the relationship between the spatial environment, specific firm characteristics and long term survival of firms in the Netherlands. Insight in the background of 'long-term' survival of firms can be of importance to industrial organization research and firm demography and also to the economic and regional policymaking in understanding and stimulating regional dynamics. Furthermore it might help to identify indicators of more successful firm strategies.

Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in disordered topological insulator nanowires

A direct signature of electron transport at the metallic surface of a topological insulator is the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation observed in a recent study of Bi_2Se_3 nanowires [Peng et al., Nature Mater. 9, 225 (2010)] where conductance was found to oscillate as a function of magnetic flux $\phi$ through the wire, with a period of one flux quantum $\phi_0=h/e$ and maximum conductance at zero flux. This seemingly agrees neither with diffusive theory, which would predict a period of half a flux quantum, nor with ballistic theory, which in the simplest form predicts a period of $\phi_0$ but a minimum at zero flux due to a nontrivial Berry phase in topological insulators. We show how h/e and h/2e flux oscillations of the conductance depend on doping and disorder strength, provide a possible explanation for the experiments, and discuss further experiments that could verify the theory.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; v2. added data for weak antilocalizatio

Rotating saddle trap as Foucault's pendulum

One of the many surprising results found in the mechanics of rotating systems is the stabilization of a particle in a rapidly rotating planar saddle potential. Besides the counterintuitive stabilization, an unexpected precessional motion is observed. In this note we show that this precession is due to a Coriolis-like force caused by the rotation of the potential. To our knowledge this is the first example where such force arises in an inertial reference frame. We also propose an idea of a simple mechanical demonstration of this effect.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

The inert firm; why old firms show a stickiness to their location

This paper investigates the tendency of older firms to show stickiness to their home-region or fixed location, with the increase of age (in years since founding), as found in earlier research. Empirical evidence supporting this argument is found from a telephone survey under the population of old firms in the Netherlands. In the current paper an analysis is done to determine which other firm characteristics -next to age in years-, influence this stickiness to place; such as innovative behaviour, network relationships, market, size (in number of employees), region and location type. This analysis is done on written questionnaires of 179 firms in the Netherlands, 37 of these firms are specifically labelled as ‘old firms’ (founded before 1851). Tested is whether inert behaviour, which according to the theory of structural inertia increases with age, also has an influence on the location of firms. Furthermore, the relationship between the spatial environment and other firm characteristics is investigated