ICT, corporate restructuring and productivity

Stronger productivity growth in the US than the EU over the late 1990s is widely attributed to faster, more widespread adoption of information and communication technology (ICT). The literature has emphasised complementarities in production between ICT and internal restructuring as an important mechanism. We investigate the idea that increased use of ICT has facilitated outsourcing of business services, and that these are complementary activities in production because they allow firms to focus on their core competencies. This is consistent with evidence from the business literature and aggregate trends, and we show evidence from microdata that is consistent with this idea

Outsourcing and offshoring of business services: how important is ICT?

This paper considers the impact that information and communication technology (ICT) has on firms' choices over organisational form. In particular, the decision over whether to produce in-house or outsource services, and the decision over the location of activity. ICT reduces the transaction and adjustment costs of moving activity outside the firm, and of carrying it out at greater geographic distance. We find that more ICT-intensive firms purchase a greater amount of services on the market and they are more likely to purchase offshore than less ICT-intensive firms

The location of innovative activity in Europe

In this paper we use new data to describe how firms from 15 European countries organise their innovative activities. The data matches firm level accounting data with information on the patents that those firms and their subsidiaries have applied for at the European Patents Office. We describe the data in detail

Experimental inhibition of a key cellular antioxidant affects vocal communication

1. There is substantial interest of evolutionary ecologists in the proximate mechanisms that modulate vocal communication. In recent times, there has been growing interest in the role of oxidative stress as a mediator of avian song expression. 2. Here, we tested whether the experimental inhibition of the synthesis of a key cellular antioxidant (glutathione) reduces song rate metrics of male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). We measured the effect of our treatment on total song rate and on its two components, undirected and nest-box-oriented song, outside the breeding season. 3. Treated males that did not own a nest-box (subordinate males likely to be of lower quality) suffered increased oxidative stress relative to untreated males, while treated males that owned a nest-box (dominant males likely to be of higher quality) did not. Treated non-owners also reduced their undirected song rate, whereas treated nest-box owners did not suffer any reduction in song rate. 4. Our results revealed that inhibition of a key cellular antioxidant results in decreased vocal communication in a social vertebrate, and that this effect is dependent on its social status (nest-box owner vs. non-owner). 5. This work provides support for the hypothesis that acoustic signals may honestly convey information about the individual oxidative status and capacity to regulate the oxidative balance. Our findings raise the possibility of hitherto unexplored impacts of oxidative stress on fitness traits in social species