Technology Transfer in the Global Automotive Value Chain. Lessons from the Turkish Automotive Industry

The automotive industry is one of the main contributors to value added, employment and exports of the Turkish economy and it has undergone major changes since the mid-nineties. Most of the automotive manufacturers in Turkey are either joint ventures or wholly-owned affiliates of multinational companies. Literature on global value chains point to the possibility of technology transfer occurring through backward linkages from automotive manufacturers to their suppliers. We test for the existence and the importance of different types of knowledge and technology transfer mechanisms in the Turkish automotive industry. In addition, characteristics of local suppliers impacting on these transfers and their impact on firm performance are analyzed.Asurvey based on a detailed questionnaire was administered to production/R&D managers of the 158 automotive suppliersoperating in Turkey in 2010. Logistic and ordinal regressionsare used to examine the aforementioned issues. Findings confirm the existence of transfers from customers to their local suppliers on co-design and co-development activities, designing of production tools, development/improvement of quality control methods, cost reduction and design of materials. In addition, econometric analysis points to the fact that these transfers exert a positive effect on the performance of supplier firms.Automotive Industry, Knowledge and Technology Transfer, Multinational Companies (MNCs), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Innovation, Research and Development (R&D)

House Allocation with Existing Tenants: An Equivalence

In this paper we analyze two house allocation mechanisms each of which is designed to eliminate inefficiencies in real-life house allocation problems where there are both existing tenants and newcomers. The first mechanism chooses the unique core allocation of a "sister" exchange economy which is constructed by assigning each existing tenant her current house and randomly assigning each newcomer a vacant house. The second mechanism -top trading cycles mechanism- first chooses an ordering from a given distribution and next determines the final outcome as follows: Assign first agent her top choice, next agent her top choice among remaining houses and so on, until someone demands house of an existing tenant who is still in the line. At that point modify the queue by inserting her at the top and proceed. Similarly, insert any existing tenant who is not already served at the top of the queue once her house is demanded. Whenever a loop of existing tenants forms, assign each of them the house she demands and proceed. Our main result is that the core based mechanism is equivalent to an extreme case of the top trading cycles mechanism which orders newcomers before the existing tenants.

Foreign Direct Investment and Technology Spillovers in the Turkish Manufacturing Industry

Technology spillovers from foreign to domestic firms in emerging economies are considered to be the most important channel through which Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) influence the host economy. Empirical evidence about the existence, magnitude and direction of FDI-related spillovers in these countries is contradictory pointing to the necessity of conducting more econometric studies using firm-level data. We conduct an econometric analysis to assess the impact of FDI-related horizontal technology spillovers on output growth of domestic firms in the Turkish manufacturing industry over 2003-2006. When a broad definition of foreign ownership is adopted, our findings suggest that horizontal spillovers occur from foreign to local firms in the sector of activity. Export-oriented firms do not benefit from these spillovers in contrast to firms producing mainly for the domestic market. However, when foreign ownership is defined according to whether the minority or majority of capital is detained by the foreign partner, horizontal spillovers seem to originate from foreign firms with majority or full foreign ownership while no such effect is associated with minority-owned foreign firms.Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), multinational corporations, foreign ownership, productivity, technology spillovers, knowledge spillovers, horizontal spillovers, Turkey.

Pairwise Kidney Exchange

The theoretical literature on exchange of indivisible goods finds natural application in organizing the exchange of live donor kidneys for transplant. However, in kidney exchange, there are constraints on the size of feasible exchanges. Initially, kidney exchanges are likely to be pairwise exchanges, between just two patient-donor pairs, as these are logistically simpler than larger exchanges. Furthermore, the experience of many American surgeons suggests to them that preferences over kidneys are approximately 0-1, i.e. that patients and surgeons should be largely indifferent among healthy donors whose kidneys are compatible with the patient. This is because, in the United States, transplants of compatible live kidneys have about equal graft survival probabilities, regardless of the closeness of tissue types between patient and donor. We show that, although the pairwise constraint eliminates some potential exchanges, there is a wide class of constrained-efficient mechanisms that are strategy-proof when patient-donor pairs and surgeons have 0-1 preferences. This class of mechanisms includes deterministic mechanisms that would accomodate the kinds of priority setting that organ banks currently use to allocate cadaver organs, as well as stochastic mechanisms that allow distributive justice issues to be

Orta-Üstü Düzeydeki İngilizce Öğrencilerinin Yazılarındaki Yazım Hataları: Kuram Ve Niceliksel Bir Çözümleme

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of an un-elicited corpus of English spelling errors from Turkish learners. It focuses on the issues raised by an earlier corpus-based analysis of errors made by native speakers and on the theoretical significance of the findings of both these studies.A review of the theoretical background to spelling error analysis is followed by a quantitative analysis of spelling mistakes made by upper intermediate level Turkish learners of English. The results indicate that native and foreign writers share a number of cognitive and perceptual processes in the production of English spellings, notably those concerning a degree of independence of orthography from phonology, sensitivity to word length, and the relative perceptual salience of segmental positions within the word.Bu çalışma Türk öğrencilerin yaptığı İngilizce yazım hatalarından oluşan bir bütüncenin niceliksel bir analizini yapmaktadır. Çalışma, anadili İngilizce olanların yaptığı yazım hatalarına dayalı bir analizin ortaya koyduğu sorunlar ve bu çalışma ile daha önceki bir çalışmanın bulgularının kuramsal önemi üzerine odaklaşmaktadır. Çalışmada, yazım hatalarına ilişkin kuramsal bir arka plan incelemesini, İngilizceleri orta-üst düzeydeki öğrencilerin yaptığı yazım hatalarının niceliksel bir analizi izlemektedir. Elde edilen sonuçlar, yazımın sesbilimden bağımsızlık derecesi, sözcük uzunluğuna duyarlılık ve sözcük içindeki parçaların göreli algılanabilirliği ile ilgili konular başta olmak üzere, bilişsel ve algılama süreçlerinde anadili İngilizce olanlar ile anadili Türkçe olanların İngilizce yazım üretiminde ortak yanları olduğunu göstermektedir

Integration and Divergence of Patent Systems across National and International Institutions

Based on a framework grounded in the institution-based view, this paper addresses the extent of global patent system integration and development. Our findings suggest that nations’ patent systems have yet ‘met’ the ‘international standards’, despite national and international endeavor toward this goal. The impact of international institutions on national institutions is reflected in the process rather than the outcome. Among the three components of patent systems across 88 nations, conformity is the strongest for ‘patent mechanism\u27, operations is the most diverse for ‘patent administration’ and ‘patent enforcement’ does not form a cross-nation divide due to most nations being moderate enforcers

Marks and Brands: Conceptual, Operational and Methodological Comparisons

People tend to use brands and marks interchangeably due to their similarities. However, they are often nonsubstitutable to each other. This paper systematically examines the similarities and differences of these two terms in conceptual, operational and methodological manners taking account of history and international dimensions. Such clarification is important given the increasing significance of marks and brands for all stakeholders (rather than consumers only). The paper starts with the definitional understanding about the two terms. It then focuses on the history of these two terms to reveal how their evolvement has been. Next, it discusses their similarities and differences, including the concepts, operations and measurements. The paper concludes with the implications of these clarifications for research and education, and for relevant stakeholders, such as managers, policy makers and consumers

Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in a Markets with Compatibility-Based Preferences

Patients needing kidney transplants may have donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other pairs only when there is a “double coincidence of wants.” Developing infrastructure to perform three-way as well as two-way exchanges will have a substantial effect on the number of transplants that can be arranged. Larger than three-way exchanges have less impact on efficiency. In a general model of type-compatible exchanges, the size of the largest exchanges required to achieve efficiency equals the number of types.Economic

A Kidney Exchange Clearinghouse in New England

Economic