Local Public Investment and Competition for a Firm

Most of the work in the field of competition between jurisdictions for the attraction of a large plant focuses on financial offers, bids or tax holidays. In this paper we add to the competition game an initial stage in which jurisdictions can invest in an infrastructure capital to enhance their attractiveness and modify the outcome of the competition stage. We characterize the Nash equilibrium of this game. In an example we show how the parameters of the model change the outcome of the game. In particular, the size of a jurisdiction is a powerful attraction force for the firm but it can be bypassed by a well specialized infrastructure capital, even if the competing jurisdiction is big.

A low-temperature dynamic mode scanning force microscope operating in high magnetic fields

A scanning force microscope was implemented operating at temperatures below 4.2K and in magnetic fields up to 8T. Piezoelectric quartz tuning forks were employed for non optical tip-sample distance control in the dynamic operation mode. Fast response was achieved by using a phase-locked loop for driving the mechanical oscillator. Possible applications of this setup for various scanning probe techniques are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to "Review of Scientific Instruments

What’s new in a new competence regime?

This editorial will pursue this notion of competence as a governing regime in discussion of what’s new by highlighting some distinctive material circumstances which have supported its dominance. We trace the wider emergence of lifelong learning in the European policies of the 1990s from discourses from outside education. We argue that this reflected and fueled scepticism over whether education could fulfill societal needs. Education, before and after the Second World War had been seen as a force for social change. But after Reagan and Thatcher in the 1990s, and now coming from groups who gained influence in the development of neo-liberal policy agendas, this skepticism supported a turn to the market. Education was understood to need to become more flexible and functional in support of the labour market. Knowledge and skills became the ‘objects’ of value and disappointed expectations of the potential of education to transform societies paved the way for a new discursive constellation. The velocity of wider social and economic change, an older relative shift towards post-Fordist work production mechanisms and the new European Union agenda of monitoring and comparing skills and competencies combined to support a new governing regime. (DIPF/Orig.

Industrial Clusters and the Knowledge Based Economy : from open to distributed structures ?

Document de Travail GREQAM ; 2007-07During the recent years, clusters have been at the heart of a vast literature supposed to bring new arguments and perspectives to local development preoccupations. Two complementary factors are stressing for firms and territories the importance of governing the interactions of industrial actors: the globalisation of the economy and the technology and the emergence of a knowledge based economy. In local systems, agents are mostly connected with agents situated in their spatial proximity, while these local networks, as open systems, benefit from the long distance connections that some of their members are able to activate. Co-location of actors in a geographical proximity by itself is not a sufficient condition for co-ordination but can contribute to its efficiency, provided the existence of other shared dimensions among agents: organic level, representations, projects, ... As far as efficiency and performances of "classical" clusters are not only the result of the intensity and quality of internal but also external interactions and coordination, into which extent can we still consider the relevance of interaction structures restricted to bounded geographical areas? In this paper we turn our attention to the way industrial actors take into account the question of the local-global articulation for the strategic building of their own ego-network, that is the set of links they may build in order to achieve efficient interactions with partners and competitors. Thus interfaces between local and global relationships are a key feature that can be achieved through different approaches. To this aim we introduce the two concepts of knowledge gatekeeper and temporary proximity that appear as providing alternative approaches of actors partnering, likely to provide a better flexibility in the local-global trade-off. We will then present the basic form of the ego-networks on which the individual firm is able to build her relational neighbourhood. This raises the question of the combination of individual ego-networks into a consistent networked structure into which local networks are articulated by the way of local-global interfaces. On this basis we present a typology of the basic new forms of clustering where time and space can be alternatively and complementarily combined in order to achieve more flexibility and costs reduction of the localisation game

The emergence and renawal of forms of industrial coordination in the Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur (PACA) région

Disponible en version françaiseDynamique territoriale; Reconversion industrielle; Système productif localisé; District industriel; Comparaison; Industrie de la microélectronique; Gardanne; Industrie de la construction navale; La Ciotat; Industrie aromatique et de la parfumerie; Grasse; Industrie agroalimentaire; Vallée du Rhône; Région PACA; France

Dynamics of quartz tuning fork force sensors used in scanning probe microscopy

We have performed an experimental characterization of the dynamics of oscillating quartz tuning forks which are being increasingly used in scanning probe microscopy as force sensors. We show that tuning forks can be described as a system of coupled oscillators. Nevertheless, this description requires the knowledge of the elastic coupling constant between the prongs of the tuning fork, which has not yet been measured. Therefore tuning forks have been usually described within the single oscillator or the weakly coupled oscillators approximation that neglects the coupling between the prongs. We propose three different procedures to measure the elastic coupling constant: an opto-mechanical method, a variation of the Cleveland method and a thermal noise based method. We find that the coupling between the quartz tuning fork prongs has a strong influence on the dynamics and the measured motion is in remarkable agreement with a simple model of coupled harmonic oscillators. The precise determination of the elastic coupling between the prongs of a tuning fork allows to obtain a quantitative relation between the resonance frequency shift and the force gradient acting at the free end of a tuning fork prong.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 2 Table

Température des enrobés in situ et en laboratoire

La température correspond à un paramètre clé intervenant à de nombreux stades de la durée de vie d’un enrobé. Que ce soit au niveau de la formulation d’un enrobé, du dimensionnement au gel d’une chaussée, de la production en centrale d’un enrobé, de l’impact sur les performances structurelles et fonctionnelles d’une chaussée, etc. la température est omniprésente. L’objectif de la présentation est de montrer et de discuter du phénomène de refroidissement des enrobés lors de la pose de ceux‐ci. Deux cas spécifiques sont analysés, soit la pose d’enrobés dans la halle‐fosse du LAVOC et la pose d’enrobés in situ sur un tronçon de la route H144 entre Rennaz (VD) et Les Evouettes (VS). Pour les deux cas, le phénomène de refroidissement a été observé et comparé pour deux types d’enrobés, soit un enrobé tiède et un enrobé à chaud. Les températures ont été récoltées à l’aide de sondes de températures installées dans les chaussées. A la halle‐fosse la pose d’une couche de base ainsi que d’une couche de roulement a été suivie et évaluée. Des conclusions sur les courbes de refroidissement et la comparaison entre le comportement thermique des enrobés des deux sites ont par la suite pu être exposées

Infrastructures publiques et politiques de développement décentralisées

This article provides a theoretical contribution on the issue of under-investment of public capitals. In a differential game of accumulation of capital between two jurisdictions, the open loop Nash equilibrium and the centralized solution converge towards their respective steady states. In the long run we characterize the inefficiency of the Nash equilibrium using as a benchmark case the utilitarian centralized outcome. When the stocks of infrastructures are strategic complements, the jurisdictions under-invest (over-invest) in situations with negative (positive) externalities. When the stocks are strategic substitutes the same results hold for similar jurisdictions. On the contrary when the cost structures of the jurisdictions are different enough, it is shown within an example that the low-cost jurisdiction under-invests whereas the high-cost jurisdiction over-invests. We then broach briefly the economic policy implications of these results. Cet article apporte une contribution théorique au débat sur le sous-investissement en capitaux publics. Il utilise pour cela un jeu différentiel d’accumulation de capitaux entre deux collectivités. Dans ce jeu l’équilibre de Nash en boucle ouverte et la solution centralisée du jeu convergent à long terme vers un régime stationnaire. Dans le long terme nous étudions la nature de l’inefficacité de l’équilibre de Nash en prenant comme référence la solution centralisée utilitariste. Lorsque les stocks d’infrastructures sont des compléments stratégiques, les collectivités surinvestissent (sous-investissent) en présence d’externalités négatives (positives). Lorsque les stocks d’infrastructures sont des substituts stratégiques, les mêmes résultats restent vrais si les collectivités sont similaires. En revanche, nous montrons dans un exemple que lorsque les collectivités ont des structures de coûts assez différentes, la collectivité qui a le coût le plus faible sous-investit tandis que la collectivité qui a le coût le plus fort surinvestit. Nous discutons ensuite brièvement les implications de ces résultats en termes de politiques économiques.

Applicabilité des enrobés drainants sur les ouvrages d'art

Certaines réserves sont apparues concernant la mise en place de revêtements en enrobé drainant sur les ouvrages d'art du réseau des routes nationales suisses. La susceptibilité supposée accrue de ces ouvrages aux variations de température a été l'élément principal entravant l'application de l'enrobé drainant en surface des ponts. Néanmoins, l'emploi d'un revêtement drainant sur un pont peut se justifier pour maintenir la sécurité du trafic lorsque la chaussée est mouillée ou pour des raisons de réduction du bruit. L'objectif de la présente étude a été d'évaluer l'applicabilité de l'enrobé drainant sur les ouvrages d'art en analysant le comportement hivernal du pont sur l'Arnon situé sur le km 10.050 de l'autoroute A5, ainsi que son écoulement d’eau de surface. Plusieurs sondes de mesure de température ont été installées à diverses profondeurs sur et dans le pont ainsi que dans la partie hors pont. Un appareil de mesure du rayonnement solaire et infrarouge a été installé sur un portique à proximité du pont en plus des sondes actives de surface induisant le déclenchement des alarmes lors d'un risque de gel. Les données ont été récoltées pendant deux hivers et utilisées dans un outil de modélisation prédisant l'évolution des températures de surface dans des situations extrêmes à partir des événements réels observés. L'emploi de cet outil a permis d'analyser un éventail de situations particulières