The dynamics of research networks in Brite-Euram

Network formation within the BRITE-EURAM program is investigated. We describe the role of the hub of the network, which is defined as the set of main contractors that account for most of the participations. We study the effects that the conflict of objectives within European research funding between precompetitive research vs. European cohesion has on the formation of networks and on the relationship between different partners of the network. A panel data set is constructed including the second and third framework of the Brite–Euram program. A model of joint production of research results is used to test for changes in the behavior of partners within the two frameworks. The main findings are that participations are very concentrated, that is a small group of institutions account for most of the participations, but going from the second to the third framework the presence of subcontractors and single participants increases substantially. This result is reinforced by the fact that main contractors receive smaller spill-ins within networks, but spill-ins increase from the second to the third framework.mathematical economics and econometrics ;

European research funding and regional technological capabilities: Network composition analysis

We use network and correspondence analysis to describe the composition of the research networks in the European BRITE--EURAM program. Our main finding is that 27\% of the participants in this program fall into one of two sets of highly ``interconnected'' institutions --one centered around large firms (with smaller firms and research centers providing specialized services), and the other around universities--. Moreover, these ``hubs'' are composed largely of institutions coming from the technologically most advanced regions of Europe. This is suggestive of the difficulties of attaining European ``cohesion'', as technically advanced institutions naturally link with partners of similar technological capabilities.Management of technological innovation and R&D,government policy

The quality of the Catalan and Spanish education systems: A perspective from PISA

For Catalonia and Spain, public perception is that the PISA reports show that their education systems are underperforming. The goal of this chapter is to quantify how much of the Catalan and Spanish PISA score can be attributed to the education levels of parents and what part must instead be explained by other factors. To do so we use standard statistical techniques to examine how the Catalan and Spanish PISA score would have compared with other countries and regions if all had the same parental education levels and immigration levels. For Spain the main results show that there is a sizable increase in PISA scores relative to the rest of Europe when parental schooling is accounted for. But Spain's performance is rather poor to start out with and only rises to somewhat above average when accounting for parental education levels. For Catalonia accounting for parental education levels leads to small improvements in the PISA score compared to other Spanish regions and to Flanders, Lombardy, and Denmark. Moreover, immigration or the concentration of immigrants at some schools accounts for little of the below average performance of Catalonia.Catalan education systems; Spanish education systems;

Trade liberalization in Uruguay: Domestic and foreign firms

The reallocation of resources is one of the main impacts of trade liberalization processes. In the case of manufacturing industries resources will be reallocated from import--competing sectors to export--oriented sectors. This paper studies the effects that a more open economic environment has had on the entry conditions for foreign and domestic firms in Uruguayan manufacturing industries. We find significant differences in the behavior of foreign and domestic firms, both when they are incumbents or when they act as potential entrants. In general, foreign firms seem to be more successful in applying entry deterring strategies, due to advantages in foreign markets, deeper financial resources or better technological capabilities. They also appear to be more responsive to entry conditions when they face the prospects of entering a given industry.Production and market structure,industry studies

The Chemical Sector al System. Firms, markets, institutions and the processes of knowledge creation and diffusion

According to the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Production approach, the analysis of a specific sector has to describe its knowledge and technological base, existing complementarities among knowledge, technologies and products, the heterogeneity of agents, their learning processes and competencies, the role of non-firm organisations, and the presence of (co)evolutionary processes. This study applies this theoretical framework to the chemical industry, and examines evolution and co-evolution processes that have characterised this industry over its 200 years history. It emerges a strong dichotomy in industry dynamics. On the one hand, big discontinuities can be observed in knowledge and technological dimensions, which implied a major change in industry structure and a growing division of labour at the industry level. On the other hand, a big continuity can be observed as well, mainly in companies life. Indeed, one important feature of the chemical industry is that between small and large companies, markets, research institutions and other organisations there has been a continuous process of co-evolution, with firms playing the central role within the chemical system.Chemical Industry, Industry Dynamics, Networks, Markets for Technology, Division of Innovative Labour, Networks of Inventors, Patents, Technology Licensing.

Estimating learning models from experimental data

We study the statistical properties of three estimation methods for a model of learning that is often fitted to experimental data: quadratic deviation measures without unobserved heterogeneity, and maximum likelihood with and without unobserved heterogeneity. After discussing identification issues, we show that the estimators are consistent and provide their asymptotic distribution. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that ignoring unobserved heterogeneity can lead to seriously biased estimations in samples which have the typical length of actual experiments. Better small sample properties are obtained if unobserved heterogeneity is introduced. That is, rather than estimating the parameters for each individual, the individual parameters are considered random variables, and the distribution of those random variables is estimated.Estimation methods, learning, unobserved heterogeneity, Leex

The dynamics of research networks in Brite-Euram

Network formation within the BRITE--EURAM program is investigated. We describe the role of the hub of the network, which is defined as the set of main contractors that account for most of the participations. We study the effects that the conflict of objectives within European research funding between pre-competitive research vs. European cohesion has on the formation of networks and on the relationship between different partners of the network. \\ A panel data set is constructed including the second and third framework of the Brite--Euram program. A model of joint production of research results is used to test for changes in the behavior of partners within the two frameworks. \\ The main findings are that participations are very concentrated, that is a small group of institutions account for most of the participations, but going from the second to the third framework the presence of subcontractors and single participants increases substantially. This result is reinforced by the fact that main contractors receive smaller spill-ins within networks, but spill-ins increase from the second to the third framework.