The UNIDO World Productivity Database: An Overview

This article introduces a new unique database, the World Productivity Database (WPD), which contains information on levels and growth of aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) for up to 112 countries, covering the period 1960 to 2000. At its core are numerous measurement methods, variations in functional forms and specifications — including schooling and health — of the production function, constant and variable returns to scale, as well as measures of technical progress and change in technical efficiency. In addition, five labour and four capital stock measures are used to derive a variety of TFP measures. Another significant feature is TFP forecasts for the period of 2001-2010.Productivity, total factor productivity, labour input, capital input, cross-country comparison

Why Development Levels Differ: The Sources of Differential Economic Growth in a Panel of High and Low Income Countries

Average income per capita in the countries of the OECD was more than 20 times larger in 2000 than that of the poorest countries of sub-Sahara Africa and elsewhere, and many of the latter are not only falling behind the world leaders, but have even regressed in recent years. At the same time, other low-income countries have shown the capacity to make dramatic improvements in income per capita. Two general explanations have been offered to account for the observed patterns of growth. One view stresses differences in the efficiency of production are the main source of the observed gap in output per worker. A competing explanation reverses this conclusion and gives primary importance to capital formation. We examine the relative importance of these two factors as an explanation of the gap using 112 countries over the period 1970-2000. We find that differences in the efficiency of production, as measured by relative levels of total factor productivity, are the dominant factor accounting for the difference in development levels. We also find that the gap between rich and most poor nations is likely to persist under prevailing rates of saving and productivity change. To check the robustness of these conclusions, we employ different models of the growth process and different assumptions about the underlying data. Although different models of growth produce different relative contributions of capital formation and TFP, we conclude that the latter is the dominant source of gap. This conclusion must, however, be qualified by the poor quality of data for many developing countries.

Om kommersialiseringsprocessen för företag inom miljöteknik och cleantech

Syftet med denna artikel är att ge ett inspel i frågan om miljöteknikföretag har en längre kommersialiseringsprocess (från idé till ett livskraftigt tillväxtföretag) än andra tillväxtföretag. Det är en viktig fråga för alla intressenter till miljötekniksegmentet, från entreprenörer som utvecklar miljöteknik och finansiärer som finansierar dessa företags utveckling till forskare som vill skapa förståelse till policymakers som vill behöver informationen för att kunna justera och anpassa de politiska instrument som behövs för att stimulera detta viktiga segment. Sammanfattningsvis säga att kommersialiseringsprocessen för miljöteknik generellt kan sägas vara längre än för andra tillväxtföretag på grund av generellt sett fler risker och barriärer för dessa företag än andra tillväxtföretag, men att detta samtidigt påverkas starkt av vilket segment man arbetar inom. De miljötekniksegment som framförallt har långa processer är segment med hög kapitalintensivitet i kombination med hög teknologisk risk

The Role of Experience of Practice for Perceptions of a new Technology – The Case of Building Information Modelling

This research in progress paper aims at exploring how the role of experience of practice influence users’ perceptions of an information system. The technology under study is Building Information Modelling (BIM), a technology, or methodology, which has been in focus in the building and construction industry during the last decade. The data is collected via a survey to practitioners, with and without BIM-experiences, in medium sized contractor companies, and last year’s bachelor students in civil engineering. The total number of respondents was 205. The results show that students perceived usefulness of BIM-applications is significantly higher than users’, but both groups make similar rankings of the applications. Moreover, students’ evaluation of benefits and potential obstacles shows mixed results when compared with users. Surprisingly, both groups make similar evaluations of need for structural changes if the potential of technology would be use

Changing frames of mobility: the Stockholm congestion tax

The introduction of a congestion tax was a significant moment in the management of mobility in Stockholm. After several decades of lobbying and political conflict, the tax was introduced as a trial 2006, consented to by citizens through a referendum, and then adopted permanently in the summer 2007. Consensus on addressing the problems caused by the car in the city appeared to have been reached, and the final scheme was introduced to international acclaim. This paper critically examines this apparent consensus on confronting car based mobility by analysing how mobility was framed at key stages in policy making since the 1970s through to the trial in 2006 and subsequent implementation. The analysis centres on the place of the car in successive framings of mobility. Changing targets and objectives for urban traffic management are compared, and an attempt is made to trace winners and losers in relation to motility and environmental quality. Overall the paper attempts to show how congestion taxation was framed and reframed to produce dramatically different possible mobility interventions. This analysis is used to argue that the framing of future mobility changed fundamentally by the time the final scheme was adopted, and that a moment of ambivalence about the car, during the trial, was not used to confront car based mobility. Instead a persuasive story of successful implementation has allowed a new car oriented mobility regime to slip into place under the veil of a progressive policy intervention

Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms

Start-up firms in high-tech sectors normally engage in networking to overcome their lack of resources, knowledge, and competence constraints. A newly established firm’s network can provide a source of social capital, which may enhance its growth prospects. In this study, 241 new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in Sweden are studied during their early formative years to investigate how entrepreneurial networks and the geographical proximity to actors in these networks affect the early performance of these firms in terms of growth. Three underlying factors are identified in the analysis: geographical proximity and professional and consultative networks. This study finds that professional networks have a positive and significant effect on NTBFs’ growth, which indicate that utilizing these networks benefit the growth of both young and growing firms. NTBFs in initial stages can acquire business opportunities by constructing professional networks. In addition, several formal links positively affect growth, such as regional business partners, incubator networks, and links to universities

Bayesian detection of periodic mRNA time profiles without use of training examples

BACKGROUND: Detection of periodically expressed genes from microarray data without use of known periodic and non-periodic training examples is an important problem, e.g. for identifying genes regulated by the cell-cycle in poorly characterised organisms. Commonly the investigator is only interested in genes expressed at a particular frequency that characterizes the process under study but this frequency is seldom exactly known. Previously proposed detector designs require access to labelled training examples and do not allow systematic incorporation of diffuse prior knowledge available about the period time. RESULTS: A learning-free Bayesian detector that does not rely on labelled training examples and allows incorporation of prior knowledge about the period time is introduced. It is shown to outperform two recently proposed alternative learning-free detectors on simulated data generated with models that are different from the one used for detector design. Results from applying the detector to mRNA expression time profiles from S. cerevisiae showsthat the genes detected as periodically expressed only contain a small fraction of the cell-cycle genes inferred from mutant phenotype. For example, when the probability of false alarm was equal to 7%, only 12% of the cell-cycle genes were detected. The genes detected as periodically expressed were found to have a statistically significant overrepresentation of known cell-cycle regulated sequence motifs. One known sequence motif and 18 putative motifs, previously not associated with periodic expression, were also over represented. CONCLUSION: In comparison with recently proposed alternative learning-free detectors for periodic gene expression, Bayesian inference allows systematic incorporation of diffuse a priori knowledge about, e.g. the period time. This results in relative performance improvements due to increased robustness against errors in the underlying assumptions. Results from applying the detector to mRNA expression time profiles from S. cerevisiae include several new findings that deserve further experimental studies

The Knowledge-based resources of Venture Capital firms’ and Born Global firms’ internationalization

This study analyzes how venture capital firms’ (VCs’) value-added activities affect the speed and scope of the internationalization and growth of born global firms. The existing literature has gaps in terms of the resources that facilitate the development of born global firms and how VCs may contribute certain knowledge-based resources in this development. This study received a response rate of 26% to questionnaires sent to 593 VC-backed entrepreneurs in Sweden. The study complements the survey data with four years of annual report data and tests the relationship between VC value-added activities and the born global firms’ speed and scope with multivariate statistics. The results show that while born global firms are prevalent among Swedish VC-backed firms, there is no significant evidence that VC firms contribute to their speed and scope of internationalization through their knowledge-based resources