Veto Power and Wealth: Analysis of the Development of the Swiss Old Age Security

Switzerland was one of the last OECD-countries to introduce a program for old age security – the AHV. For many decades, expenditures both in absolute terms and as a portion of GDP remained low in OECD comparison. In the 1970ies however, expenditures exploded – within 10 years, the expenditures as a percentage of GDP doubled. This article explains this astonishing development by applying the veto player theory. Veto player theory is useful to determine changes in the policy stability. The higher the policy stability, the more difficult it is to move away from the political status quo. The lower the policy stability, the more probable it is that reforms and changes in government programs can be achieved. This article shows that the policy stability was particularly high in the constitution phase (from 1890 to 1947) and the consolidation phase (from 1974 to the present) and low in the phase in between (from 1948 to 1973), when the foundation for the expansion was set.Veto player theory, Political Institutions, Direct Democracy, Social Spending

Current Mobile Payment Procedures on the German Market from the View of Customer Requirements

The key to mobile payment acceptance is in the hands of customers. In this paper we use the results of the mobile payment survey MP1 in order to identify and roughly weigh the most relevant acceptance criteria. The outcome of the paper is an evaluation scheme containing the covered payment scenarios, important main criteria (security, costs and convenience) and additional functionality requirements for each MP procedure. The scheme is based on empirical results and can assess a given MP procedure with regard to customer acceptance as well as to compare different procedures. The operational MP procedures Paybox, I-mode and Vodafone m-pay are examined and compared according to the scheme. Finally, a prospect is given to possible further development of mobile payment procedures in the direction of an integrative universal mobile payment system (UMPS).

The regional embeddedness of small manufacturing and service firms: regional networking as knowledge source for innovation?

Information and knowledge are important prerequisites for innovation activity in firms. One important means of acquiring coplementary knowledge are innovation networks. Depending on their absortive capacity and knowledge base, firms develop different abilities to access and utilise external knowledge. These abilities might also be linked to firm size. Although size as such is not a decisive criterion for distinguishing between the innovative performance of firms, it can at least be used to classify firms according to common structural characteristics. It is objective of this paper to analyse whether the size of a firm significantly affects its innovative behaviour and cooperation pattern and whether there are differences between manufacturing firms and business-related service firms. Using data from a regional innovation survey carried out in Germany, we come to the conclusion that for structural firm characteristics, innovation strategies, information use and innovation network size matters. Small manufacturing and service firms mainly behave similar and are more regionally orientated in their market reach and knowledge acquisition than large firms- Especially small firms in intermediate and rural areas strongly depend on regionally available knowledge sources and are therefore discriminated compared to large firms which make a more frequent use of knowledge and information sources from outside the region. --

Business services as actors of knowledge transformation and diffusion: some empirical findings on the role of KIBS in regional and national innovation systems

Over the last years, there has been a significant increase in the attention paid to the activities of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). KIBS produce and duffus knowledge, which is crucial for innovation processes. The paper gives an overview of the role and function of KIBS in innovation systems and their knowledge production, transformation and diffusion activities. Focusing on innovation interactions between manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and KIBS; the empirical analyses gasps KIBS in position in five contexts. The analysis leads to the conclusion that innovation activities links SMEs and KIBS through the process of knowledge and diffiusion. --

Labor market rigidity, unemployment, and the Great Recession

Countries with very flexible institutions and labor market policies, like the U.S., experienced substantial increases in unemployment over the course of the Great Recession, while countries with relatively rigid institutions and strict labor market policies, like France, fared better. However, this better short-term performance comes with a tradeoff; evidence suggests that flexible labor markets keep unemployment lower in the long run.Labor market ; Unemployment ; Recessions

The performance of innovation networks in transition economies: An empirical study of Slovenia

Although the post-socialist countries in Eastern Europe experienced radical economic reforms, in many cases, the transformation of the industry sector has not been completed. As a result, the majority of enterprises is not internationally competitive and technological innovation is low. A model to foster innovation and competitiveness of Eastern European industries could be provided by western European regions with above-average growth rates during the last decades. The success of these regions, as is argued by an extensive literature on industrial districts, innovation networks and innovative milieux, relies on a special form of co-operation between companies from inside (and outside) the region. The aim of this paper is to assess the performance of networks and their impact on innovation activities in the transition context and to identify starting points for innovation policies. The empirical analysis is based on an extensive survey of industry and science in Slovenia. The theoretically guided empirical study of Slovenia further develops network analysis in the transformation context. Although Slovenia is one of the most developed transition economies, the socialist legacy, such as the fragmentation of research, applies to her as well. The first step assesses existing newly emerged and established networks in terms of type and quality of relations. As the opportunities of learning, technology transfer and innovating depend to some extend on the type of network, supplier-user relationships and horizontal networks between industry and science are distinguished. The quality of networks refers to their transactional and informational structure, trust relationships and regional dimensions. Special attention is on old versus new networks and their conduciveness to innovation: Whereas many actors in transition economies mourn about lost partnerships, these might hamper innovation. Therefore, the second step of this analysis documents the innovation performance of the sample. It relates the propensity of firms to engage in networks to the impact on process and product innovation. The third part is oriented towards policy recommendations. The Slovenian innovation policy is evaluated from the enterprises? point of view. This relies on the basis of the empirical analysis of the emergence of innovation networks and support by public programmes. The Ministry for Science and Technology has introduced various measures to realise the country?s innovation potential. The aim of the analysis is to suggest further improvements to effectively stimulate the development and consolidation of innovation networks. This benefits from extensive qualitative research carried out during the past years.