Industrial Policies in Europe in Historical Perspective

This research paper provides a solid historical overview of European industrial policy during the post-WWII era, extending the time horizon up to the 1990s. Our research focus is the EU 15. Unlike previous publications, this paper outlines the most important characteristics and drivers of European industrial policy in a comparative and transnational perspective in order to provide some conclusions about policy impacts, historical policy continuities and national policy convergence, looking at changing institutional settings especially in transition periods and asking finally how these historical lessons could be fruitful for further research on future effective political action. This paper provides unequivocal evidence that state industrial policy in Europe after 1945 had been always one of the most controversial policy fields and that its scopes and instruments differed greatly between countries and changed over time. Industrial policy was not a novel phenomenon of the postwar era. Beyond the immediate goals, it was part of what can be considered the economic culture of every country. National traditions, historical legacies and path-dependencies did play an important role and may explain the enormous differences between nations and regions in Europe, even when they had to face similar challenges. The paradigm shift towards an interventionist industrial policy approach implemented in most European countries after 1945, which persistently prevailed until the 1990s, fostered economic structural change and was partially very effective in supporting high economic growth during the prosperity years, but had often led to an inefficient allocation of national economic resources in many countries in the longer run. The more important and effective factors that enhanced industrial productivity in the long run, were, firstly, industrial policies establishing national and/or regional promising effective incentive structures for the private sector, and secondly industrial policies encouraging openness to trade and investment, by creating an international environment favourable to competition, innovation and technology transfer. For Western Europe, it was increasing trade and investment openness, largely, but not exclusively, under the heading of European integration

Der regionalwirtschaftliche Stellenwert von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen an der Saar zur Zeit der "Großen Depression" - Eine Unternehmensstatistik

In diesem Beitrag wird erstmals eine Vollständigkeit anstrebende Zusammenstellung der in der Phase des krisenhaften Strukturwandels zwischen 1873 und 1895 in der Saarregion existierenden Klein- und Mittelunternehmen der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht. Mit der wirtschaftshistorisch-statistischen Rekonstruktion des KMU-Bereichs an der Saar ist das Ziel verbunden, das bislang vorherrschende Bild von der Saarregion als einem ausschließlich schwerindustriell geprägten Industrierevier zu Gunsten des "vergessenen" unternehmerischen Mittelstandes zu relativieren

Using ultra fast analog memories for fast photo-detector readout

International audienceThe recent progresses in the field of photo-detection have pushed the performances of the detectors toward the picosecond scale. Currently existing electronics dedicated to precise charge and time measurement is mainly based on the use of high-end oscilloscopes. Numerous test benches are also based on both Charge-to-Amplitude Converters and Constant Fraction Discriminators (CFD) associated with Time to Digital Converters (TDC). The time resolution obtained with some commercial modules is very good (Time to Analog Converters ~ 5 ps rms after amplitude correction), but said modules house very few channels. Some TDC boards offer a higher number of channels, based on a coarse measurement performed by a digital counter associated with a fine measurement (interpolation) using Delay Line Loops, but their overall resolution is only of the order of 30 ps rms. Recently, alternative methods based on digital treatment of the analogue sampled then digitized detector signal have been developed. Such methods permit an easy calculation of the charge and amplitude, and achieve a timing resolution far better than the sampling frequency. Digitization systems have followed the progress of commercial ADCs, but the latter have prohibitory drawbacks like their huge output data rate and power consumption. Conversely, high speed analog memories now offer sampling rates far above 1GHz at low cost and with low power consumption. The new 16-channel WaveCatcher board has been designed to provide high performances over a short time window. It houses sixteen 12-bit 500-MHz-bandwidth digitizers sampling between 400 MS/s and 3.2 GS/s. It is based on the patented SAMLONG ASIC, a high-performance low-power analog circular memory designed in a cheap pure CMOS 0.35µm technology. The board offers a lot of functionalities like smart trigger configurations and embedded charge integration. It houses 480 Mbits/s USB and 1.5Gbits/s optical link interfaces. The board will soon been tested in different test benches dedicated to the characterization of fast MCP-PMTs or SiPMs, but a reproducible time precision better than 10 ps rms has already been demonstrated. The WaveCatcher board thus seems to be a powerful tool for photo-detector characterization and high-scale readout

Große Nationalökonomen zwischen Glorifizierung und Verachtung: einige Überlegungen zum Zusammenhang von Rezeptions-, Wissenschafts- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert

Die vorliegende Untersuchung setzt sich aus wissenschaftsgeschichtlicher, wirtschaftsgeschichtlicher und kulturhistorischer Sicht mit der Bedeutung großer Nationalökonomen für die Wirtschaftspolitik auseinander. Die Verfasserin vertritt die These, dass Theorien als solche keinen Einfluss auf die Wirtschaftspolitik haben. Vielmehr werden die Hoffnungen und Enttäuschungen der Rezipienten auf ökonomische Theorien projiziert. Diese Projektionen entfalten ihre praktische - politökonomische - Relevanz in der Interaktion mit verschiedenen Interessen- und Wachstumskonstellationen als mythische Vergrößerungen. Hieraus resultiert ein selten beachtetes Problem für die Untersuchung der Wirtschaftsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts: die Rezeption ökonomischer Theorien im Spannungsfeld von Glorifizierung und Verachtung. Drei von besonderer Fluktuation geprägte Rezeptionsgeschichten werden untersucht: die Rezeption von Marx, Keynes und Schumpeter. Darüber hinaus wird die Frage aufgeworfen, in wie weit eine methodologische Gewichtsverlagerung wirtschaftstheoretischen Denkens von logischen Rationalitätskriterien zu historisch variablen realen Gegebenheiten die praktische Bedeutung der Wirtschaftswissenschaften erhöhen kann. (ICEÜbers)'The aim of this contribution is to expound - on behalf of economics - on the field of tension characteristic for modern history of science between rationalist thought and social practice. More specific, it is the relevance of great political economists for economic policy that will be discussed from the point of view of history of science, economic history and cultural history. We shall argue that theories as such do not influence economic policy directly. It is rather the case that hopes and disappointments of recipients are projected into economic theories. These projections unfold their practical - i.e. econo-political - relevance in interaction with varying constellations of interest and growth as mythical magnifications. Accordingly, the reception of economic theories that waver between glorification and contempt constitutes a problem for the analysis of twentieth century economic history that has rarely been acknowledged by historical research. This problem will be illustrated by examining the reception of Marx, Keynes and Schumpeter, which has been particularly prone to fluctuations. At the same time we shall raise the question to which extent a methodological shift of emphasis of economic theoretical thought from formal logic criteria of rationality to historically varying conditions of reality can increase the practice relevance of economics.' (author's abstract

Study on the Properties of Waste Apatite Phosphogypsum as a Raw Material of Prospective Applications

Waste and Biomass Valorization, Vol. 0, iss. 0 (2018) (online first)This paper presents the results of the study on chemical and the physical properties of waste phosphogypsum (PG) of apatite origin from the former chemical plant Wizow, Poland which are important for further processing and economic use. The research was carried out to verify whether the waste might be useful as a raw material for rare earth elements (REE) recovery and the manufacture of building materials. The following methods were chosen: X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy with an energy-dispersive X-ray detector, atomic absorption spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma spectrometry, differential thermal analysis, thermogravimetry, and gamma spectrometry with natural radioactive contamination analyzer. It has been proven that the chemical physical properties of phosphogypsum provide an opportunity to utilize this waste material as a source of REE and raw material for building purposes. PG contains an overall amount of REE in the interval of 0.343–0.637% by mass and does not show radioactivity level which would exclude it from construction purposes. The presented results serve as the basis for currently available technological directions in the management of apatite PG for useful trade products, which creates a chance for the elimination of its storage necessity by further processing

The SAMPIC Waveform and Time to Digital Converter

Sce ElectroniqueInternational audienceSAMPIC is a Waveform and Time to DigitalConverter (WTDC) multichannel chip. Each of its 16 channelsassociates a DLL-based TDC providing a raw time with an ultrafastanalog memory allowing fine timing extraction as well asother parameters of the pulse. Each channel also integrates adiscriminator that can trigger itself independently or participateto a more complex trigger. After triggering, analog data isdigitized by an on-chip ADC and only that corresponding to aregion of interest is sent serially to the DAQ. The association ofthe raw and fine timings permits achieving timing resolutions of afew ps rms. The paper describes the detailed SAMPIC0architecture and reports its main measured performances

Development of a sampling ASIC for fast detector signals

International audienceIn the context of the Large Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) pro ject the motivation to measure time-of-flight at the picosecond reso- lution has pushed towards a faster signal rise-time (below 100 ps) and a higher bandwidth output (higher than 1 GHz) detector, thus, leading to a new signal development and integrity studies of Micro-Channel Plates (MCP) photo-detectors. Similarly, the signal path, is being simulated and characterized, from the anodes to the input of the readout electronics, to minimise losses. Furthermore, to acquire the detector fast pulses a new 10 Gs/s high input bandwidth, 130 nm CMOS sampling chip is being de- veloped

Perceived stress as a risk factor for peptic ulcers:a register-based cohort study

BACKGROUND: The association between stress and peptic ulcers has been questioned since the discovery of helicobacter pylori. This study examined whether high perceived everyday life stress was associated with an increased risk of either receiving a triple treatment or being diagnosed with a peptic ulcer. METHODS: Cohen’s perceived stress scale measured the level of stress in a general health survey in 2010 of 17,525 residents of northern Jutland, Denmark, and was linked with National Danish registers on prescription drugs and hospital diagnoses. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate the risk of either receiving a triple treatment or being diagnosed in a hospital with a peptic ulcer, in relation to quintiles of stress levels. RESULTS: A total of 121 peptic ulcer incidents were recorded within 33 months of follow-up. The lowest stress group had a cumulative incidence proportion of either receiving triple treatment or being diagnosed with peptic ulcer of approximately 0.4%, whereas the highest stress group had a cumulative incidence proportion of approximately 1.2%. Compared with that of the lowest stress group, those in the highest stress group had a 2.2-fold increase in risk of either receiving triple treatment or being diagnosed with peptic ulcer (HR 2.24; CI 95% 1.16:4.35) after adjustment for age, gender, socioeconomic status, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug use, former ulcer and health behaviours. There was no difference in risk between the four least stressed quintiles. Subgroup analysis of diagnosed peptic ulcer patients revealed the same pattern as the main analysis, although the results were not significant. CONCLUSION: The highest level of perceived everyday life stress raised the risk of either receiving triple treatment or being diagnosed with peptic ulcer during the following 33 months more than twice compared with that of the lowest level of perceived stress

Der regionalwirtschaftliche Stellenwert von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen an der Saar zur Zeit der "Großen Depression" - Eine Unternehmensstatistik

In diesem Beitrag wird erstmals eine Vollständigkeit anstrebende Zusammenstellung der in der Phase des krisenhaften Strukturwandels zwischen 1873 und 1895 in der Saarregion existierenden Klein- und Mittelunternehmen der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht. Mit der wirtschaftshistorisch-statistischen Rekonstruktion des KMU-Bereichs an der Saar ist das Ziel verbunden, das bislang vorherrschende Bild von der Saarregion als einem ausschließlich schwerindustriell geprägten Industrierevier zu Gunsten des "vergessenen" unternehmerischen Mittelstandes zu relativieren