Corn Price Behavior – Volatility transmission during the boom on futures Markets

Since 2000 a number of factors impacted agricultural markets drastically. Among these are structural changes in global demand and repeated supply constraints that supported the observed positive development of agricultural prices. Given the increasingly interdependent global markets, the question arises of in how far an isolated view of a single market, when analysing price volatility, is sufficient? The paper is a contribution to the debate on the recent commodity price bubble and the relationship among commodity futures markets for agricultural raw materials. More particularly, the transmission of price volatility between commodity future markets is analysed. The background question is whether and to what extent the volatility of agricultural commodity prices at different market places have been transferred during the drastic price changes of 2008. In this analysis the volatility of the maize future price at three different commodity futures exchange is modelled as a multivariate GARCH - process. By doing so, interactions between stock markets in different venues are incorporated. The results of the econometric analysis are discussed against the background of the developments in agricultural and biofuel policy.Commodity Futures, Corn, Time Series, Price volatility transmission, multivariate GARCH, Agricultural and Food Policy,

A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Conditions of Knowledge Transfer by New Employees in Companies

The availability of knowledge is an essential factor for an economy in global competition. Companies realise innovations by creating and implementing new knowledge. Sources of innovative ideas are partners in the production network but also new employees coming from another company or academia. Based on a model by HECKATHORN (1996) the conditions of efficient knowledge transfer in a team are analysed. Offering knowledge to a colleague can not be controlled directly by the company due to information asymmetries. Thus the management has to provide incentives which motivate the employees to act in favour of the company by providing their knowledge to the rest of the team and likewise to learn from colleagues. The game theoretic analysis aims at investigating how to arrange these incentives efficiently. Several factors are relevant, especially the individual costs of participating in the transfer. These consist mainly of the existing absorptive capacity and the working atmosphere. The model is a 2x2 game but is at least partly generalised on more players. The relevance of the adequate team size is shown: more developers may increase the total profit of an innovation (before paying the involved people) but when additional wages are paid to each person a greater team decreases the remaining company profit. A further result is that depending on the cost structure perfect knowledge transfer is not always best for the profit of the company. These formal results are consistent with empirical studies to the absorptive capacity and the working atmosphere.Die Verfügbarkeit von Wissen und die Fähigkeit zur schnellen Anwendung von wissenschaftlichen Neuerungen stellen heute einen zentralen Erfolgsfaktor von Volkswirtschaften dar. Unternehmen machen mit Wissensgenerierung und -umsetzung Innovationen. Anregungen dazu kommen von Partnern im Produktionsnetzwerk, aber auch von neuen Mitarbeitern, die aus der Wissenschaft oder einem anderen Unternehmen in das Unternehmen kommen. Auf einem Modell von HECKATHORN (1996) basierend werden die Bedingungen effizienten Wissenstransfers in einem Team untersucht. Da Wissensweitergabe aufgrung von Informationsasymmetrien nicht kontrolliert werden kann, muß das Unternehmen entsprechende Anreize setzen. Diese lassen sich spieltheoretisch ermitteln. Mehrere Faktoren spielen eine Rolle, besonders wichtig sind die Kosten des einzelnen, die ihm bei der Teilnahme am Wissenstransfer entstehen. Das Absorptionsvermögen und die Arbeitsatmosphäre bestimmen die Kosten in erster Linie. Das Modell ist ein 2x2-Spiel, das anschließend teilweise auf mehrere Spieler verallgemeinert wird. Die Relevanz der Teamgröße wird gezeigt und das vollständiger Wissenstransfer bei hohen individuellen Kosten nicht unbedingt gewinnmaximierend für das Unternehmen ist. Diese formalen Ergebnisse unterstützen vorhandene empirische zu Absortionsvermögen und Arbeitsatmosphäre

University-owned Patents in West and East Germany and the Abolition of the Professors' Privilege

This paper analyses the development of universities' patent applications in Germany before and after the abolition of the 'professors' privilege' in 2002. By means of a database with all patent applications of German universities with professors among the inventors (1990-2006), systematic changes in the trend are investigated. There are contrasts in the patenting patterns of universities with or without long patenting experience. A structural break at the point of the new legislation is found only for universities without patent activities in the past. This indicates the importance of collecting patenting experience and that the amount of patents is path-dependent

Patent Productivity of German Professors over the Life Cycle

The paper studies the patent productivity of scientists over their life cycle. The incentives for patenting and for publishing are compared and how they shape life cycle productivity. In most empirical studies, publication productivity decreases at the end of the scientific career. In contrast, the analytical model given here suggests an increase of patent productivity over the life time. In the empirical part the patents of nearly 1000 German patent active professors are analyzed. The empirical findings support the theoretical prediction that patent productivity does not decline for older scientists

GAPsi simulations updated baseline and EU enlargement under the Mid-Term-Review scenario

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The impact of the mid-term review on the German agricultural sector

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Technology transfer offices and university patenting: a review

This policy paper on science-industry technology transfer has four emphases: the rationale of recent changes in German science policy, the contribution of diverse transfer channels to economic development as well as the role of IPR in that context, the differences in the institutional framework between Europe and USA regarding academic patenting, and the organisational design of technology transfer offices (TTOs). The extensive literature review highlights the importance of TTOs, the necessity of supporting manifold transfer channels, and continuous government funding of intermediaries. Important open research questions are the relative importance of transfer channels and the optimal size of TTOs

EU-Trade Agreements - What Are They Dealing With?

International Relations/Trade,

Struktur und Potentiale des Agraraußenhandels Mittel- und Osteuropas

Dieses Diskussionspapier analysiert die Agrarhandelsstruktur der mittel- und osteuropäischen Länder (MOEL) seit dem Beginn des Transformationsprozesses und schätzt die Potentiale im Agrarhandel insbesondere im Hinblick auf einen Beitritt dieser Länder zu Europäischen Union (EU) ab. Die Messung der relativen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Agrarsektors zeigt, daß die MOEL insgesamt einen komparativen Vorteil im landwirtschaftlichen Sektor besitzen. Insbesondere für den Fall einer Angleichung des Protektionsniveaus zwischen MOEL und EU dürften diese komparativen Vorteile zu einer deutlichen Stärkung der Agrarhandelsposition beitragen. Der zu erwartende politische Druck einer solchen Entwicklung dürfte auch insofern erheblich sein, als zwischen EU und Ländern der ersten Beitrittsrunde wie Ungarn und Tschechien eine starke Wettbewerbsintensität im Agrarhandel herrscht. Potentiale im Agrarhandel lassen sich durch grundlegende Faktoren wie Einkommen, Bevölkerung und Boden abschätzen. Mit Hilfe eines Gravitationsmodells konnte die Erklärungskraft dieser Faktoren sowie der Einfluß der Entfernung zwischen Handelspartnern und ihrer Zugehörigkeit zu Integrationsblöcken für den Agraraußenhandel gezeigt werden. Durch diesen ökonometrischen Ansatz wurde weiterhin die Hypothese eines langfristig großen Agrarhandelspotentials der MOEL mit der EU gestützt. Es zeigt sich, daß insbesondere ein erhebliches Export der MOEL in die EU besteht, während mit einer deutlichen langfristigen Ausweitung der Agrarimporte der MOEL aus der EU nur bei einem Beitritt zu rechnen ist.This paper analyzes agricultural trade developments in the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) since the beginning of the transformation process, and estimates CEEC agricultural trade potentials. The competitiveness of the agricultural sector as a whole is quantified using revealed comparative advantage indices. These indicate a comparative advantage for the CEEC in the agricultural sector. This strength is likely to accelerate CEEC agricultural trade growth which started in 1993. Such a development could yield in high political pressure since some of the countries of the first EU accession round like Hungary or the Czech Republic show a high complementarity in their agricultural trade with EU. Some basic factors such as income, population and agricultural land can explain agricultural trade potentials. This could be shown using a gravity model, which reveals the significance and direction of the variables mentioned and others such as distance and membership of regional blocs. The gravity model is then used to roughly estimate the long-term trade potentials of trade between the CEEC and the EU. Export potentials are relatively high, whereas agricultural imports are likely to increase only in an EU accession scenario potential

Academic Inventors' Choice of Transfer Channels Dependent on Commercialisation Experience - a Theoretical Model

Academic inventions have to be transferred to industry to become an innovation. Scientists face multiple options for this transfer, from informal knowledge transfers to patents, licences, and spin-offs. These transfer channels require different efforts and inhibit different degrees of complexity. We want to theoretically explain the inventor's choice of a certain transfer channel. Under the assumption that (i) dealing with complexity is similar to facing risk, and (ii) scientists are risk averse, we show that the chosen transfer channels are path-dependent: with increasing commercialisation experience inventors choose more complex channels, up to a certain limit of complexity