Ownership Structure and Innovation: Is There a Real Link?

This work intends to analyse the influence that several aspects internal to the firm have on the firms? innovative output. Although the theoretical model is based in the literature on innovation, it pays special attention on the impact of ownership structure, as stated by the theory of the agent. We test different hypothesis related to variables which explain how the ownership structure adopted by a firm can lead into different innovative efforts, a topic which has barely been studied so far. We are especially interested in considering the type of control in the firm (national or international), the group of control in the decision making process (owner or contracted managers) and the financing structure. The analysis is made for a sample of Spanish firms given by the Survey of Entrepreneurial Strategies, an annual survey that provides information on Spanish manufacturing firms from 1990 to 1999.

An analysis of inflation rates in the european union using wavelets: strong evidence against unit roots

In many fields of economic analysis the order of integration of some economic magnitudes is of particular interest. Among other aspects, the order of integration determines the degree of persistence of that magnitude. The rate of inflation is a very interesting example because many contradictory empirical results on the persistence of inflation rates can be found in the literature. Moreless, the persistence of inflation rates is of particular interest as much for the macro economy as for the taking of political decisions. Recently, Hassler and Wolters (1995) argue that these contradictions may be due to the fact that either process I(0) or I(1) are considered. In this paper we assume inflation rates in European Union countries may in fact be fractionally integrated. Given this assumption, we obtain estimations of the order of integration by means a method based on wavelets coefficients. Finally, results obtained allow reject the unit root hypothesis on inflation rates. It means that a random shock on the rate of inflation in these countries has transitory effects that gradually diminish with the passage of time, that this, said shock hasnt a permanent effect on future values of inflation rates.fractional integration, inflation rates, long memory

Regional Economic Growth and Human Capital: The Role of Overeducation

The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using various indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated with an increase in overeducation. In fact, measures of educational mismatch seem to be more strongly connected to regional economic performance than do other traditional measures of human capital stock.regional economic growth, human capital, educational mismatch, overeducation

The Effectiveness of Regional Active Labour Market Policies to Fight against Unemployment: An Analysis for Catalonia

The aim of this work is to assess the effectiveness of active labour market policies carried out by the Catalan Public Employment Services (SOC) during the year 2005. The results obtained from the application of matching techniques show that the probability of finding a job for an individual who participated in any of the analyzed SOC's actions is 5 percentage points higher in relation to those who did not participate. The individual analysis of the different programs has shown the effectiveness of the greater part of the actions carried out. Last, the results have also highlighted the further improvement of the combination of some of the actions.active labour market policies, unemployment, propensity score matching

Ownership structure and innovation: Is there a real link

This work focuses on the study of the relationship between ownership and control structure of the company and its innovative activity. Its aim consists of analysing the role that may be played by determinants within the company related to ownership structure when the decision to incur research and development activities is taken as well as on the output of this innovative process. Among these determinants we may think of issues such as who owns the firm and how the control of decision-making is distributed, the nature of this control and the level of concentration of ownership, among others. The study is carried out for the year 2001 using a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing industries.ownership and control structure, agency theory, research and development

Spacialisation in Europe and asymmetric shocks: potential risks of EMU

Most optimistic views, based on Optimum Currency Areas (OCA) literature, have concluded that the probability of asymmetric shocks to occur at a national level will tend to diminish in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) as a result of the intensification of the integration process during the most recent years. Therefore, since Economic Geography Theories predict a higher specialisation of regions, it is expected that asymmetric shocks will increase. Previous studies have examined to what extent asymmetric shocks have been relevant in the past using, mainly, static measures of asymmetries such as the correlation coefficients between series of shocks previously calculated from a structural VAR model (Bayoumi and Eichengreen, 1992). In this paper, we study the evolution of manufacturing specific asymmetries in Europe from a dynamic point of view (applying the model proposed by Haldane and Hall, 1991) in order to obtain new evidence about potential risks of EMU.structural var models, economic and monetary union, optimum currency areas, specialisation, asymmetric shocks, kalman filter

Design of Homogeneous Territorial Units: A Methodological Proposal

One of the main questions to solve when analysing geographically added information consists of the design of territorial units adjusted to the objectives of the study. This is related with the reduction of the effects of the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). In this paper an optimisation model to solve regionalisation problems is proposed. This model seeks to reduce some disadvantages found in previous works about automated regionalisation tools.contiguity constraint, zone design, optimisation, modifiable areal unit problem