The Black Box of Business Dynamics

Research in business dynamics has been advancing rapidly in the last years but the translation of the new knowledge to industrial policy design is slow. One striking aspect in the policy area is that although research and analysis do not identify the existence of an specific optimal rate of business creation and business exit, governments everywhere have adopted business start-up support programs with the implicit principle that the more the better. The purpose of this article is to contribute to understand the implications of the available research for policy design. Economic analysis has identified firm heterogeneity as being the most salient characteristic of industrial dynamics, and so a better knowledge of the different types of entrepreneur, their behavior and their specific contribution to innovation and growth would enable us to see into the ‘black box’ of business dynamics and improve the design of appropriate public policies. The empirical analysis performed here shows that not all new business have the same impact on relevant economic variables, and that self-employment is of quite a different economic nature to that of firms with employees. It is argued that public programs should not promote indiscriminate entry but rather give priority to able entrants with survival capacities. Survival of entrants is positively related to their size at birth. Innovation and investment improve the likelihood of survival of new manufacturing start-ups. Investment in R&D increases the risk of failure in new firms, although it improves the competitiveness of incumbents.Industrial dynamics, industrial policy, creative destruction, business demography.

Executive Compensation and Product Market Competition

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of product market competition on the explicit compensationpackages that firms offer to their executives. In order to measure the net effect of competition we use twodifferent identification strategies. The first exploits cross sectoral variation in concentration ratios and thepanel nature of the dataset. The second uses as a quasi-natural experiment the deregulations that occurredin the banking and financial sectors in the nineties and estimates differences in differences coefficients. Ourresults show that a higher level of product market competition increases the performance pay sensitivity ofexecutive compensation schemes, and they hold through a number of performance measures such as stockoptions or bonus. The results are robust to a number of specification checks.Executive compensation, product market competition, performance related pay

“Horn Of Plenty” Revisited: The Globalization Of Mediterranean Horticulture And The Economic Development Of Spain, 1850-1935

This paper analizes the impact of the globalization of Mediterranean horticultural products (MHP). From 1850 onwards, the Mediterranean countries took advantage of the new opportunities that arose to increase their production and trade in MHP. The Spanish case shows how the high elasticity of supply with respect to prices helps to explain the enormous increase of its production and trade in MHP, that became the most dynamic sector of Spanish agriculture. The analysis of the counterfactual case of the non-existence of US MHP emphasizes the cost of this increasing competition to the traditional producers from the end of the nineteenth century.Globalization, International Markets, Spanish Economic Development, International Trade, Mediterranean Horticultural Products.

Expectations and Forward Risk Premium in the Spanish Power Market

To analyse the forward risk premium in the Spanish electricity market, we adopt not only an ex post approach, but also an ex ante. We find that the sign of the ex post forward premium depends on the unexpected variation in demand and on the unexpected variation in the hydro-energy capacity, and that the ex ante forward premium varies with the expected demand in tight market conditions, showing that the participation of forward dealing agents in the Spanish market responds to risk considerations. Moreover, we find support for the implications derived from the Bessembinder & Lemmon (2002) equilibrium model.

Thermoelectric relations in the conformal limit in Dirac and Weyl semimetals

In the Fermi liquid description of metals, electrical and thermoelectric transport coefficients are linked by robust relations which can be challenged by strong interactions or when the electron liquid enters a different regime. These relations have been very powerful in the characterisation of novel materials. We show that Dirac and Weyl semimetals at zero doping and zero temperature (the conformal limit) have a very singular behavior due to a quantum anomaly. Away from this point, a Mott relation can be established

From Locational Fundamentals to Increasing Returns: The Spatial Concentration of Population in Spain, 1787-2000

Does population follow the same inverted-U pattern of concentration/dispersion that has been found in the case of economic activity in the long run? In this paper we present the evidence for eight European countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and find that, contrary to the inverted-U hypothesis, population has shown a steady, long-run trend towards concentration. After that, we estimate population density and population growth equations for the case of one of these countries, Spain from 1787 to 2000. Our results suggest that locational fundamentals (such as natural endowments) explain the distribution of population before industrialization and that industrialization reinforced the pre-existing regional population disparities, especially as the share of increasing-returns sectors in the Spanish economy became significant (that is, mainly during the twentieth century).economic geography, population history, locational fundamentals, increasing returns

Employability of graduates in Sciences Education: similarities and differences in Ibero-America

El campo profesional de las Ciencias de la Educación es caracterizado como heterogéneo, difuso y fragmentado debido a las tendencias de diversificación de los espacios de inserción profesional en Iberoamérica. En este sentido, el presente estudio pretende aportar datos sobre las características comunes y diferentes de los mecanismos de inserción profesional y del campo profesional de las Ciencias de la Educación en el plano internacional. Para ello, se lleva a cabo un análisis comparativo de fuentes secundarias a partir de las siguientes dimensiones: I) la situación de empleabilidad, II) el tiempo que tardaron en conseguir el primer empleo, III) las formas de ingreso a los espacios de trabajo IV) la formación recibida.The professional field of Sciences Education is characterized as heterogeneous, diffuse and fragmented due to diversification of the employment spaces in Iberoamerica. The present study aim is to provide data on the common and different features of mechanisms employability and professional field of Educational Sciences at the international level. For that purpose, this study developed a comparative analysis of secondary sources around the following dimensions: I) the situation of employability, II) the time that graduates get the first job, III) the forms of access to the employment spaces, and IV) training.Fil: Vicente, María Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales; Argentin

Perfis e trajetórias dos ingressantes a Ciências da Educação na Universidad Nacional de La Plata

El artículo es un trabajo de investigación que tiene como propósito aportar al conocimiento de las características de los ingresantes a la universidad. En primer lugar, se analizan los distintos enfoques sobre las políticas de ingreso a la universidad, como así también las condiciones y condicionantes individuales e institucionales presentes en el momento del ingreso. En segundo lugar, se analizan los perfiles socio-educativos de 168 ingresantes entre los años 2010 y 2011 a la carrera de Ciencias de la Educación de la UNLP. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de un cuestionario y son analizados en relación a las expectativas de los ingresantes, sus imaginarios sobre los estudios universitarios, las trayectorias laborales y educativas.The aim of this quantitative research was to contribute to the knowledge of the characteristics shown by students at university entrance. We first analyzed the different policy approaches to university entrance, as well as the individual and institutional conditions presented at that time, and then we focused on the socio-educational profiles of 168 students at the entrance to the career of Education Sciences in the Universidad Nacional de La Plata during 2010 and 2011. Data were collected through a questionnaire and were analyzed in relation to the expectations of the students, their imaginary about studying and their educational and working trajectories.Fil: Vicente, María Eugenia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales; Argentin