POLICY SPACE: WHAT, FOR WHAT, AND WHERE?

The paper examines how developing countries can use existing policy space, and enlarge it, without opting out of international commitments. It argues that: (i) a meaningful context for policy space must extend beyond trade policy and include macroeconomic and exchange-rate policies that will achieve developmental goals more effectively; (ii) policy space depends not only on international rules but also on the impact of international market conditions and policy decisions taken in other countries on the effectiveness of national policy instruments; and (iii) international integration affects policy space through several factors that pull in opposite directions; whether it increases or reduces policy space differs by country and type of integration.

TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION, HUMAN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Technology Diffusion, Human Capital and Economic Growth in Developing Countries This paper (i) uses a newly constructed dataset on machinery imports from both developed and developing countries with significant domestic R&D expenditure to assess technology transfer to developing countries, and (ii) employs a cross-country, growth-accounting framework to analyse the impact of machinery imports, in association with human capital stocks, on economic growth. The findings suggest that machinery imports by developing countries have been higher over the past few years than during the 1970s and 1980s, and that such imports from technologically more advanced developing countries have gained considerably in importance. The growth-accounting results suggest that machinery imports combined with human capital stocks have a positive and statistically strongly significant impact on cross-country growth differences in the transition to the steady state. This gives support to earlier findings in the literature which suggest that the main role of human capital in economic growth is to facilitate the adoption of technology from abroad, rather than to act as an independent factor of production.

INDUSTRIALIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: SOME EVIDENCE FROM A NEW ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY PERSPECTIVE

The paper draws broad predictions from the developmental elements of new economic geography models and subjects them to empirical scrutiny. Industrial activity has spread from developed to geographically close developing countries in sectors that are intensive in immobile primary factors and not too heavily dependent on linkages with other firms. Only developing countries with an already established industrial base achieved industrialization in other sectors. The sizable change in both the size and structure of manufactured exports from developing countries has not been associated with corresponding changes in manufacturing value added. To benefit more from relocating industrial activities, developing countries need to create the critical mass of linkages that provide pecuniary externalities to industrial firms.

TRIPLING AFRICA´S PRIMARY EXPORTS: WHAT? HOW? WHERE?

Income growth in Africa sufficiently high to achieve the internationally agreed development goals implies a rise in the region’s per capita income by the early 2020s to about Latin America’s current level. This would be associated with roughly a tripling of Africa’s primary exports. Increased African supply on world commodity markets would tend to make prices lower, but not by much, given the smallness of its market shares. Rising global demand from sustained rapid growth in natural-resource-poor Asian countries, particularly China, would moderate, or even compensate, such a potential fall in prices and provide sizeable new opportunities for Africa’s primary exports. In Africa, extractive industries would be poised best to benefit directly from China’s rising imports, while exporters of agricultural products would be more likely to benefit indirectly from rising world market prices associated with Asia’s growing primary imports.

Discourse structure and information structure : interfaces and prosodic realization

In this paper we review the current state of research on the issue of discourse structure (DS) / information structure (IS) interface. This field has received a lot of attention from discourse semanticists and pragmatists, and has made substantial progress in recent years. In this paper we summarize the relevant studies. In addition, we look at the issue of DS/ISinteraction at a different level—that of phonetics. It is known that both information structure and discourse structure can be realized prosodically, but the issue of phonetic interaction between the prosodic devices they employ has hardly ever been discussed in this context. We think that a proper consideration of this aspect of DS/IS-interaction would enrich our understanding of the phenomenon, and hence we formulate some related research-programmatic positions

Moderne Führungsinformationssysteme — Anforderungen, Architektur und Umsetzungserfahrungen

Zusammenfassungen: Technikaffine Manager finden sich zunehmend auch auf den Führungsebenen von Unternehmen wieder. Sie hinterfragen den >>One-size-fits-all<<-Ansatz ihrer Führungsinformationssysteme (FIS). Aber auch eine komplette Individualisierung ist aus Effizienz- und Konsistenzgründen nicht sinnvoll. FIS sind heute situativ an die Nutzerpräferenzen dieser neuen Generation von Managern anzupassen. Aus den Ergebnissen einer empirischen Untersuchung konsolidieren wir dazu nicht nur die als wesentlich artikulierten Anforderungen, sondern es wird auch der Entwicklungsstand der gegenwärtig in den Unternehmen genutzten Informationssysteme dokumentiert. Hierauf aufbauend leiten wir eine durchgängige Business/IT-Architektur ab, pilotieren diese und fassen erste Umsetzungserfahrungen zusamme

DYNAMIC PRODUCTS IN WORLD EXPORTS

The values and market shares of three product categories have grown most rapidly in world exports during the period 1980–1998: electrical and electronic goods (including parts and components for such goods), goods which require high R&D expenditures, and labour-intensive products, particularly clothing. A strong geographical concentration in developing countries at both regional and country levels is discernable regarding the origin of these products. There appears to be a sustained movement in world exports towards the growing significance of a limited number of products and it would seem that there has been a rapid and sustained technological upgrading in the export composition of developing countries. However, since the involvement of developing countries is usually limited to the labour-intensive stages in the production process of technology-intensive goods in the context of international production sharing, simple measures of growth in gross export values are poor guides for an assessment of the nature of participation of developing countries in world trade.

Accommodating User-Group Characteristics to Improve the Acceptance of Executive Information Systems— State of the Art and User-Interface Components for Up Close and Personalized Configuration

In executive information systems (EIS) design, where idiosyncratic users must often be considered, understanding users andtheir preferences is important. Since user interfaces are a highly visible EIS component, they are an important lever for theiracceptance. To accommodate executives\u27 growing range of user preferences, this article develops building blocks for theuser-interface to make up close and personalized EIS possible. As this work represents a first step in a larger researchproject, we conduct a multidisciplinary literature review on how the EIS design process can accommodate user preferences,thus improving EIS acceptance with the right user interface. Based on three findings regarding their design, we proposebuilding blocks for user-interface design covering three clusters of components: information presentation, dialog control, andpredefined functions. Finally, we incorporate their components in an EIS prototype to start evaluating our proposal\u27s utility

Managing A Paradox–Design Principles for Executives’ IT Support

How are companies managed today and what part does state-of-the-art IT play? Executive information systems (EIS) should support top managers in managing their companies. But many executives complain that EIS bear little relevance to their management task (functional requirements) and fail even more to accommodate their working style (design requirements). This article focuses on the latter and contributes to new-generation EIS by identifying twelve principles for their design. The first step in doing so is to systematically develop requirements criteria for EIS design. On this point, our research revealed a twofold gap: as the rigor of scientific models (e.g. structural models of IS user satisfaction and technology acceptance) increases, they become less relevant for direct use in practice. At the same time, practitioner journals demonstrate relevance, but do not evidence strong rigor. Linking the requirements criteria with rigor and relevance, this article applies the principle of economic efficiency. In a second step, using that schema, design principles for new-generation EIS are derived. They are based on gaps identified in an empirical study and the findings of four instantiations within the chemicals, logistics, high-tech, and automotive supplier industries

Managing the Future—State-of-the-art Environmental Scanning Systems and Initial Design Principles for a New Generation

The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a sustainable impulse for improving environmental scanning systems (ESS).Although a rich body of knowledge exists, these concepts are not often used in practice. This article contributes a literaturereview addressing not only why this knowledge is not used, but what elements of it can be leveraged for the work on hand.The results are structured in terms of the elements of information system (IS) design theories and the research methodapplied. At the end, we derive six initial principles for reworked ESS that are more applicable than the state of the art. Theseprinciples should improve the grasp of weak signals and allow better incorporation of environmental scanning findings intothe executive decision-making process. Two instantiations helped us to highlight how current developments in IS contributeto successful design, implementation, and day-to-day operation of reworked ESS