Bureaucratic corruption and macroeconomic performance

The objective of this paper is to analyze the welfare impact of corrupt bureaucratic behavior within the framework of a growth model. This allows to disentangle the interaction between static and dynamic bureaucratic efficiency. The economy is described by the following conditions: (i) The bureaucracy determines the provision of an input to individual production. This input might be congested. (ii) There are distortionary and non--distortionary taxes to finance the public input. Corruption is introduced as the bureaucrat maximizes its own utility at the cost of the utility of the individuals. (iii) The tax system is exogenous to the bureaucracy and might be interpreted as attempt to discipline the bureaucracy as argued within the Leviathan models. (iv) The bureaucracy maximizes the available budget. As the formal frame is a dynamic model the budget may be maximized either in the short, intermediate or the long run. It turns out that there is a trade--off between short--run and long--run budget that is crucially influenced by the design of the tax system and the bureaucratic preferences but not by congestion. The feature of congestion gains importance with respect to the welfare implications of corrupt bureaucratic behaviorgrowth, corruption, congestion

Governmental activity, integration, and agglomeration

This paper analyzes, within a regional growth model, the impact of productive governmental policy and integration on the spatial distribution of economic activity. Integration is understood as enhancing territorial cooperation between the regions, and it describes the extent to which one region may benefit from the other region's public input, e.g. the extent to which regional road networks are connected. Both, integration and the characteristics of the public input crucially affect whether agglomeration arises and if so to which extent economic activity is concentrated: As a consequence of enhanced intergation, agglomeration is less likely to arise and concentration will be lower. Relative congestion reinforces agglomerartion, thereby increasing equilibrium concentraion. Due to the congestion externalities, the market outcome ends up in subotimally high concentration.public inputs, agglomeration, integration

On the role of productive government spendings for convergence of a growing economy with heterogenous specialists

This paper employs a dynamic framework to compare the effects of alternative government activities on convergence of industrialized economies to the technology frontier. The government's Instruments include facilitating private investment and education policy. The latter enhances skills of heterogenous specialists and imply the decision on their respective shares. The analysis distinguishes between an isolated policy of a single economy and coordinated policies of various countries. Which policy maximizes the speed of convergence is crucially affected by the economy's state of development. A policy switch between the mentioned instruments while catching-up may be preferable. --Education policy,amount and structure of public expenditure,highlyskilled specialists

On the role of general purpose technologies within the Marshall-Jacobs controversy: The case of nanotechnologies

This paper investigates the role of nanotechnologies as a general purpose technology for regional development. Due to pervasiveness, nanotechnologies may be utilized in diverse applications thereby providing the basis for both localization and urbanization externalities. We carry out patent and publication analyses for the city state of Hamburg during the period 1990-2010. We find evidence that nanotechnologies are advanced in the context of regional knowledge bases and follow up prevailing specialization patterns. As nanotechnologies develop both industry specific and city specific externalities become effective leading to specialization deepening and specialization widening which both are functions of the increasing nano-knowledge base. --general purpose technology,nanotechnology,specialization,diversification,Marshall-Jacobs controversy,patent and publication analysis

Excludable and Non-Excludable Public Inputs: Consequences for Economic Growth

Many public goods are characterized by rivalry and/or excludability. This paper introduces both non-excludable and excludable public inputs into a simple endogenous growth model. We derive the equilibrium growth rate and design the optimal tax and user-cost structure. Our results emphasize the role of congestion in determining this optimal financing structure and the consequences this has in turn for the government’s budget. The latter consists of fee and tax revenues that are used to finance the entire public production input and that may or may not suffice to finance the entire public input, depending upon the degree of congestion. We extend the model to allow for monopoly pricing of the user fee by the government. Most of the analysis is conducted for general production functions consistent with endogenous growth, although the case of CES technology is also considered.excludable and non-excludable public goods, congestion, growth

Converging institutions. Shaping the relationships between nanotechnologies, economy and society

This paper develops the concept of converging institutions and applies it to nanotechnologies. Starting point are economic and socialogical perspectives. We focus on the entire innovation process of nanotechnologies beginning with research and development over diffusion via downstream sectors until implementation in final goods. The concept is applied to the nano-cluster in the metropolitan region of Grenoble and a possible converging institution is identified.converging institutions, converging technologies, nanotechnologies, systemic risks

Governmental activity and private capital adjustment

We analyze within a dynamic model how rms decide on capital investment if the accompanying adjustment costs are a function of governmental activity. The government provides a public input and decides on the degree of rivalry. The productive public input enhances private capital productivity and reduces adjustment costs. We derive the equilibrium in which capital and investment ratio are both constant, carry out comparative dynamic analysis and discuss the model's policy implications. Increasing the amount of the public input unequivocally spurs capital investment whereas the result becomes ambiguous with respect to the impact of rivalry. Since a reduction in congestion increases the individually available amount of the public input, crowding out effects may lead to a reduction in the equilibrium capital stock. Most of the analysis is conducted for general production functions, although the case of CES technology is also considered.Governmental activity, congested public inputs, adjustment costs

Convergence or mediation? Experts of vulnerability and the vulnerability of experts’ discourses on nanotechnologies – a case study.

Recent discussions about the evolvement of nanotechnologies criticize that the notion ‘risk’ is too abstract and an all-inclusive category. Moreover, the concept of risk is not precise enough to describe the potential issues related to the development of nanotechnologies. Instead, experts of technological development speak more about risk communication. Within the field of nanotechnologies, they even redefined this expression in February 2005 and related it to the question of the societal acceptance of nanotechnologies. Risk communication is about to gain stakeholder acceptance of policy decisions, whereas public and stakeholders are encouraged to participate actively in the communication process through public consultations, hearings, etc. Thus on the one hand, the category of risk has been pragmatically nuanced in order to better highlight the vulnerability of the communication on nanotechnologies. On the other hand, this vulnerable communication is not the result of a deficit of information. It is based on the idea of participation, where the vulnerability relies on the social groups specialized in the design, the application, and the diffusion of nanotechnologies within society. How is this participation possible, and what does it mean? We develop this question in the framework of a comparative survey on experts that are involved in the deployment of nanotechnologies in Grenoble (France) and Hamburg (Germany).nanotechnologies, society, risks, experts, collaboration.