Exploring ways to estimate endogenous productivity

This paper explores methods to assess the impact on firm productivity of the investment in innovation activities (endogenous productivity). It uses 23 years of firm-level data generated by the Spanish ESEE survey (1990-2012). We first apply traditional approaches to the measurement of productivity such as Solow Residual and Multilateral Index. We then replicate the estimation of the model in Doraszelski and Jaumandreu (2013) using more data now available. We briefly compare both approaches and discuss about the importance of treating inputs and productivity as endogenous. We then discuss ways to apply the model for endogenous productivity when there are no firm-level output price indices available, a limitation of many data bases. Including the demand of the firm in the estimation allows us to obtain a "composite" of productivity, demand elasticity, and demand heterogeneity. This unobservable, often called "revenue productivity", is the estimate of productivity used by most scholarly studies. We find that this composite does not behave as productivity and, in particular, neither is greater for firms that perform R&D nor its distribution shows stochastic dominance. Its persistence and returns also give misleading results. Our findings highlight the importance of producing more complete databases, especially if policy implications are to be drawn. They also suggest caution in interpreting the results based on revenue productivity

Endogenous productivity and unobserved prices

We discuss ways to apply the model for endogenous productivity when there are no firm-level output price indices available, a limitation of many data bases. Including the demand of the firm in the estimation allows us to obtain a "composite" of productivity, demand elasticity, and demand heterogeneity. This unobservable, often called "revenue productivity", is the estimate of productivity used by most scholarly studies. We find that this composite does not behave as productivity and, in particular, neither is greater for firms that perform R&D nor its distribution shows stochastic dominance. Its persistence and returns also give different results. Our findings highlight that results based on revenue productivity can be highly misleading about the returns of firm investments.First author draf

Efficient industrial policy for innovation: standing on the shoulders of hidden giants

Research and development is underprovided whenever it creates knowledge spillovers that drive a wedge between its total and private economic returns. Heterogeneity in the intensity of this market failure across technological areas provides an argument to vertically target public support for R&D. This paper examines potential welfare gains of such vertical industrial policy for innovation. It develops measures of private and spillover value of patented innovations using global data on patents and their citations. Our new method identifies a large number 'Hidden Giants' - i.e. innovations scoring higher on our new spillover measure than on the traditional forward citation count measure - which are shown to be particularly prevalent among patents applied for by universities. The estimated distributions of private values by technology area are then used to parameterize a structural model of innovation. The model permits estimation of the marginal returns to technology-area-specific subsidies that reduce innovators' R&D costs. Marginal returns are high when knowledge spillovers in the technology area are valuable, when private innovation costs are low, and when private values in a technology sector are densely distributed around the private cost. The results show large variation in the marginal returns to subsidy and suggest that targeted industrial policy would have helped mitigate underprovision of R&D over the time period studied. Variation in the extent to which knowledge spillovers are internalized within countries also makes a compelling case for supranational policy coordination, especially among smaller countries

Fatal case of hemolytic-uremic syndrome in an adult due to a rare serogroup O91 Entero hemorrhagic Escherichia coli associated with a Clostridium difficile infection. More than meets the eye

AbstractHemolytic-uremic syndrome due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, belonging to serogroup O91 has rarely been described. We report here a case of post-diarrheal HUS due to EHEC O91 in an elderly patient for whom diagnosis was delayed given a previously diagnosed C. difficile infection. This case highlights the usefulness of Shiga-toxin detection

Coccolithophores: Functional Biodiversity, Enzymes and Bioprospecting

Emiliania huxleyi is a single celled, marine phytoplankton with global distribution. As a key species for global biogeochemical cycling, a variety of strains have been amassed in various culture collections. Using a library consisting of 52 strains of E. huxleyi and an ‘in house’ enzyme screening program, we have assessed the functional biodiversity within this species of fundamental importance to global biogeochemical cycling, whilst at the same time determining their potential for exploitation in biocatalytic applications. Here, we describe the screening of E. huxleyi strains, as well as a coccolithovirus infected strain, for commercially relevant biocatalytic enzymes such as acid/alkali phosphodiesterase, acid/alkali phosphomonoesterase, EC1.1.1-type dehydrogenase, EC1.3.1-type dehydrogenase and carboxylesterase

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Repenser la croissance économique et le changement structurel : le rôle des frontières et des liens entre industries

Le développement économique est associé à des changements des structures de production et d'exportation. Chaque pays maîtrise un ensemble de capacités, c'est-à-dire un ensemble de tâches et de connaissances nécessaires à la réalisation de certains produits. La maîtrise de capacités supplémentaires permet aux pays de produire des produits ou des technologies plus complexes. Comprendre le développement économique implique de comprendre comment les pays peuvent ajouter de nouveaux produits à leur panier de production et d'exportation et développer des industries particulières. Chaque industrie a des caractéristiques spécifiques en termes de capacités,de technologies et de connaissances et en termes de nature de leur production. Dans cette thèse, je fournis des évidences empiriques de l'importance des frontières et des liens entre les industries pour comprendre le changement structurel et la dynamique de la croissance économique. Le chapitre 2 propose une nouvelle méthodologie pour identifier les patrons d'organisation des industries et leur évolution dans le temps. Pour ce faire, j'analyse la structure de cluster du réseau de produits construit à partir de données d'exportation. Les résultats montrent que les produits se regroupent selon différents facteurs : leur complexité et leurs domaines technologiques, l'abondance de main-d’œuvre peu qualifiée ou des ressources naturelles dont ils ont besoin, ainsi que les chaînes de valeur mondiales et l'intégration verticale de leur processus de production. De plus, les résultats montrent que les domaines technologiques et les frontières entre les industries ne sont pas toujours clairs et peuvent évoluer avec le temps.Dans le chapitre 3, j'étudie la dynamique de la croissance économique en examinant les caractéristiques et les déterminants des transitions entre les différents régimes de croissance à moyen terme (croissance rapide, croissance lente et récession) en utilisant un modèle semi-markovien. Les résultats indiquent que l'effet du secteur manufacturier sur la croissance économique est loin d'être uniforme et que la mesure de la structure économique importe également. De plus, les clusters de produits ayant une intensité technologique similaire jouent un rôle différent dans la dynamique de la croissance, et les chaînes de valeur mondiales (CVM) peuvent expliquer certaines de ces différences. En outre, bien que l'industrie textile soit souvent considérée comme un tremplin vers l'industrialisation, dans cette étude, l'effet de ce cluster est négatif dans de nombreux cas. Enfin, cette analyse met en évidence la présence de «pièges de récession», largement induits par une plus grande spécialisation des clusters manufacturiers basés sur les ressources naturelles. Les différences entre les industries affectent non seulement le processus de croissance du fait d’écarts de productivité, mais aussi à travers la stimulation qu'elles fournissent au reste de l’économie par le biais de liens en amont et en aval. Le chapitre 4 examine l'impact des interconnexions entre les industries sur les performances économiques, en se concentrant sur la dynamique de la demande (c'est-à-dire les liens en amont). L’assouplissement de deux hypothèses fortes associées au calcul traditionnel du multiplicateur de production permet d'estimer le degré de réponse aux chocs de demande des industries fournisseurs. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe des différences significatives entre les industries et les pays. Les industries manufacturières, et en particulier les biens de consommation finale, ont tendance à être moins sensibles aux chocs de la demande par rapport aux services. Des différences importantes sont également observées entre les pays, car les industries manufacturières des pays développés ont tendance à être moins sensibles aux chocs de la demande que dans les pays en développement.Economic development is associated with changes in production and export structures. Each country masters a set of capabilities, i.e. a set of tasks and knowledge necessary for the realization of some products. Mastering additional capabilities allows countries to produce more complex products or technologies. Understanding economic development involves understanding how countries can add new products to their production and export basket and develop particular industries. Each industry has specific characteristics in terms of capabilities, technologies and knowledge and in terms of the nature of their production. In this thesis, I provide empirical evidence of the importance of both boundaries and linkages between industries to understand structural change and the dynamics of economic growth. Chapter 2 proposes a new methodology for identifying patterns of organization of industries and their evolution over time. To do this, I analyze the cluster structure of the product network built from export data. Results show that products cluster according to different factors: their complexity and technological domains, the abundance of low-skilled labor or of natural resources they require, as well as global value chains and vertical integration of their production process. Moreover, I find that technological domains and boundaries between industries are not always clear-cut and can evolve over time. In chapter 3, I study the dynamics of economic growth by examining the characteristics and determinants of transitions between different medium-term growth regimes (rapid growth, slow growth and recession) using a semi-Markov framework. Results indicate that the effect of the manufacturing sector on economic growth is far from uniform and that the measure of economic structure also matters. In addition, clusters with similar technological intensity play a different role in the dynamics of growth, and, global value chains (GVCs) may explain some of these differences. Furthermore, although the textile industry is often seen as a steppingstone to industrialization, in this study the effect of this cluster is negative in many cases. Finally, this analysis highlights the presence of “recession traps”, which are largely driven by a greater specialization natural resources-based manufacturing clusters. Differences between industries affect not only the growth process through productivity gaps, but also the stimulation they provide to the rest of the economy through upstream and downstream linkages. Chapter 4 examines the impact of inter-industry interconnections on economic performance,focusing on demand dynamics (i.e. backward linkages). I relax two strong assumptions associated with the traditional calculation of the output multiplier, which makes it possible to estimate the degree of response to demand shocks from the supplying industries. Results show that there are significant differences across industries and countries. Manufacturing industries, and in particular final consumer goods ones, tend to be less responsive to shocks in demand relative to services. Significant differences are also observed between countries since manufacturing industries in developed countries tend to be less sensitive to demand shocks than in developing countries

Conflict of laws justice and material justice : relevance and sustainability of the distinction

D’origine doctrinale, la distinction entre justice conflictuelle et justice matérielle a permis de mettre en avant une idée déterminante pour la théorie générale du droit international privé. C’est l’idée, assez intuitive, que les rapports privés internationaux exigent un traitement particulier devant se traduire par une justice adaptée, dite conflictuelle. La justice conflictuelle se préoccupe ainsi de satisfaire les divers intérêts impliqués dans une relation privée internationale, celui des personnes et celui des ordres juridiques étatiques. Envisagée à travers le problème du conflit de lois, la justice conflictuelle s’exprime, sur le terrain méthodologique, par la règle de conflit de lois de facture classique, censée assurer la conciliation des intérêts en présence sans directement s’intéresser à l’aspect matériel de la situation. Exceptionnellement, la justice conflictuelle doit toutefois laisser place à des considérations substantielles. Une autre forme de justice, matérielle, prend alors le relais. L’articulation des justices en un rapport de principe à exception prétend ainsi fournir une grille de lecture de la discipline. Cependant, les frontières entre ces deux approches se sont peu à peu brouillées à la faveur d’un changement de physionomie de la matière. De plus en plus, les méthodes du droit international privé mélangent les logiques propres à chacune des justices, si bien que la distinction, telle que classiquement envisagée, en ressort ébranlée. L’étude se propose d’interroger la pertinence de la lecture offerte par la distinction entre justice conflictuelle et justice matérielle et l’opportunité de son maintien en droit international privé contemporain.The distinction between conflict of laws justice and substantive justice has its origin in an academic attempt to foster an idea that proved crucial to the general theory of private international law. This idea builds on the intuition that private international relations need to be processed specifically by the law, which implies in turn a customized conception of justice, namely conflict of laws justice. Conflict of law justice aims at fulfilling the diverse interests at stake in a private international relation, that of the different parties and that of the domestic legal systems. In the context of conflict of laws, conflictual justice manifests itself methodologically through the classical (“savignian”) conflict of laws rule, a rule that purports to accommodate those interests, without taking into account the substantive aspects of the situation. As an exception, conflictual justice may give way to substantive considerations. In that case, another conception of justice, one that is substantive, takes precedence. This articulation of the different conceptions of justice is usually presented as following a principle/exception organization, thus providing a framework for private international law. The borderland between the two conception of justice muddled, however, as a result of an evolution in the field of private international law. Increasingly, the diverse methods of regulation specific to this legal field have been seen to borrow routinely from both conceptions of justice, shaking the classical distinction. This research explores the remaining pertinence of the framework provided by the distinction between conflict of laws justice and substantive justice, and the appropriateness of its conservation in the field of contemporary private international law