Productivity growth and R & D expenditure in UK manufacturing firms

This paper analyses the relationship between productivity growth and R&D expenditure at the firm level. A Cobb-Douglas function is estimated for 170 UK quoted firms including R&D intensity as well as the capital to labour ratio. A positive and significant role is found for the firm’s own R&D expenditure in influencing productivity growth from 1988-1992; the relationship is no longer significant when sector fixed effects are included. To capture these sector effects, two spillover variables are included: the R&D expenditure of other firms in the same sector, and the weighted R&D expenditure of innovation-supplying industries. The former is found to play a large positive role in productivity growth, increasing it by around 1%, while no significant role is found for the latter. The variation in technological opportunity across sectors appears to play an important role in the efficacy of R&D expenditure.research and development ;

Technological competitiveness, trade and foreign direct investment

This paper seeks to assess the importance of country-level determinants in affecting the international competitiveness of a country, defined both by export shares and shares in FDI, within a common framework based on a neo-Schumpeterian approach which regards technology as playing a central role in competitiveness. The relationships are tested with data for 40 developing and industrialised countries, and country determinants are found to play a similar role in explaining both inward and outward investment and exports. However, the explanatory power of the model varies over countries, explaining almost all the variation in competitiveness of the developing countries and a much lower proportion of the variation for industrialised countries. Technological capabilities, and the level of development of the country, are found to be two of the key determinants of competitiveness. We conclude that country determinants are equally effective in explaining both trade and FDI, but that in the case of industrialised countries there are additional factors, such as firm specific competitive advantages, which are not related to country-specific characteristics, and are important determinants of competitiveness.economics of technology ;

The geological significance of natural linear features occurring in areas of superficial deposits, as revealed by air photographs

Imperial Users onl

The interaction between gas jets and the surfaces of liquids, including molten metals

Imperial Users onl

Fighting for Religious Freedom; Muhammad Ali and His Battle Against the U.S. Supreme Court

This thesis explores Muhammad Ali\u27s 1971 draft evasion court case and the implications that his religion, race/views on racial issues, and surveillance by the FBI had on judicial proceedings. The Supreme Court was tasked with determining the sincerity of Ali\u27s religious convictions and therefore if his claim to conscientiously object to war was valid. The combination of the different facets of Ali\u27s identity tested the court\u27s ability to be objective and thus, this thesis argues, his access to constitutionally granted religious freedoms were restricted

Book review: making a 21st century constitution: playing fair in modern democracies by Frank Vibert

In Making a 21st Century Constitution: Playing Fair in Modern Democracies, Frank Vibert explores the current state of constitutions, outlining why they have become outdated and suggesting ways in which they can be reworked to better meet the needs of democracies today. While readers may not agree with all of the book’s arguments, it provides interesting insight into how constitutions can overcome their democratic weaknesses and is a welcome addition to this increasing body of scholarship, finds Elyse Wakelin

A hyperbolic perspective on the Dehn surgery characterisation problem

As is the case for many questions in low-dimensional topology, the Dehn surgery characterisation problem is simple to state but difficult to solve. Given a non-trivial slope p/q, when does the oriented homeomorphism type of the 3-manifold obtained by Dehn surgery of slope p/q on a knot K in the 3-sphere uniquely characterise the knot K? A wide variety of techniques, ranging from Floer homology to more geometric approaches, have been successfully employed to find characterising slopes for certain knots; the construction of non-characterising slopes has also been studied extensively. However, there is currently no universal criterion to determine whether a slope is characterising or non-characterising for any given knot. This thesis investigates the Dehn surgery characterisation problem in the case where the knot complement has a hyperbolic outermost JSJ piece. The fundamental strategy involves comparing JSJ decompositions before and after Dehn filling: this allows us to reduce the problem at hand to one about hyperbolic geometry. Subsequently, two novel ideas - minimal geodesics (in the more general case) and minimal volumes (in the special case of Whitehead doubles) - can be used to determine explicit conditions which ensure that a slope is characterising. The limitations of this method are also illustrated via a construction of infinite families of pairs of multiclasped Whitehead doubles sharing a non-characterising slope.Open Acces

The Dehn surgery characterisation of Whitehead doubles

A slope $p/q \in \mathbb{Q}$ is characterising for a knot $K \subset \mathbb{S}^3$ if the oriented homeomorphism type of the manifold $\mathbb{S}^3_K(p/q)$ obtained by Dehn surgery of slope $p/q$ on $K$ uniquely determines the knot $K$. We combine analysis of JSJ decompositions with techniques involving lengths of shortest geodesics to find explicit conditions for a slope to be characterising for a certain class of satellite knots. Assuming that the list of 2-cusped orientable hyperbolic 3-manifolds obtained using the computer programme SnapPea is complete up to a certain point, we use hyperbolic volume inequalities to generate a refinement for the special case of Whitehead doubles. We also construct pairs of multiclasped Whitehead doubles of double twist knots for which $1/q$ is a non-characterising slope.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, 6 table