Search

Against the backdrop of the current political developments in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, such as Ukraine, Poland, and Romania, the question arises as to the role played by economic transformation and the resulting innovation linkages in these countries over the last 20 years. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of economic and institutional dimensions on the development of CEE countries, explicitly distinguishing between European Union (EU) members and non‐members, and thus reflecting the differences in institutions and path dependency. Furthermore, the paper contrasts the performance of CEE countries with that of Western European countries. To achieve these objectives, the impact of factors such as innovation, institutions, and political practices on the economic development of 37 European countries from 2000 until 2020 is followed using fixed effects regression and Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The results of the analysis show the importance of institutional factors such as low levels of corruption, political freedoms, and intellectual property. The effect of institutional variables was particularly pronounced in the case of non‐EU countries, which indicates the particular importance of the development of stable institutions for achieving higher levels of economic development for this category of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern communication technologies make information more easily and quickly accessible, leading to more transparent and competitive markets. Based on a theoretical model, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the potential impact of online search intensity on asymmetric cost pass‐through. Prices often move as 'rockets and feathers': they rise quickly in response to cost increases and they fall slowly in response to cost reductions. A panel threshold error correction model is applied to weekly producer and retail prices of chicken and mutton in Iran. The results suggest that the volume of online searches is associated with a more complete and less asymmetric cost pass‐through from farmgate to retail prices. Thus, online platforms and search engines have the potential to increase competition by bringing prices closer together and reducing profit margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of U.S. states have set targets for renewable energy, but the prospects for meeting most of these goals hinge on the willingness of local governments to allow large‐scale renewable energy projects in their communities. In this paper, I investigate how exposure to lobbying by wind developers and the actions of neighboring jurisdictions inform the adoption and design of rules for siting commercial wind farms. Using data collected from 1603 counties in 23 states, I find local policymakers are more likely to enact wind ordinances when they have more time to interact with wind developers and when neighboring counties have adopted wind ordinances or approved the construction of wind farms. I also observe that counties tend to adopt more stringent rules when more wind farms have been built in neighboring counties. This evidence suggests that efforts to scale up renewable energy generation may encounter increasing resistance from local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the extent to which cultural diversity induced by internal migration affects urban innovation in China. We measure cultural diversity by an index of "plurality" of provinces of origin. Using the 2000 and 2005 population census data, we find that innovative activities are higher in cities with a higher degree of cultural diversity. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that cultural diversity, not only of the highly skilled, but also of the low skilled, has a positive effect on innovation. Our study contributes to the scarce evidence on the effect of cultural diversity on innovation in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces convergent innovation (CI) as a form of meta-innovation-an innovation in the way we innovate. CI integrates human and economic development outcomes, through behavioral and ecosystem transformation at scale, for sustainable prosperity and affordable universal health care within a whole-of-society paradigm. To this end, CI combines technological and social innovation (including organizational, social process, financial, and institutional), with a special focus on the most underserved populations. CI takes a modular approach that convenes around roadmaps for real world change-a portfolio of loosely coupled complementary partners from the business community, civil society, and the public sector. Roadmaps serve as collaborative platforms for focused, achievable, and time-bound projects to provide scalable, sustainable, and resilient solutions to complex challenges, with benefits both to participating partners and to society. In this paper, we first briefly review the literature on technological innovation that sets the foundations of CI and motivates its feasibility. We then describe CI, its building blocks, and enabling conditions for deployment and scaling up, illustrating its operational forms through examples of existing CI-sensitive innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study challenges existing literature which maintains that technology latecomers usually depend on imported technologies to develop emerging high-tech sectors. This paper argues that the domestic institutional environment in facilitating networking might be more important for developing academia-industry ( A- I) networks. The co-evolution of institutions and the knowledge transfer process in the Taiwanese Biopharmaceutical Innovation System ( TBPIS) is a case in point. Far from relying purely on foreign technologies, several important institutional and policy changes, which transform the institutional environment from prohibiting A- I intertwining into encouraging A- I collaborations, have enabled domestic research institutes to influence the acquisition, creation, and diffusion of knowledge in the innovation network. Nonetheless, the country continues to struggle in commercializing domestic scientific research to step into a knowledge-based economy. Therefore, this paper suggests that more productive strategies would be helpful to advance domestic academic research, sustain A- I networks, and strengthen the innovation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the innovation and development literature, natural resources ( NR) are generally viewed as a curse for developing nations and NR-based industries as having little potential to innovate and drive long-term growth. This has led policy and development experts to opt for strategies to induce a shift in the pattern of specialization towards other sectors. This paper proposes a different approach. By exploring recent evidence from the Argentinean agricultural sector and the mining industry in Chile, it points to the window of opportunity that NR industries offer as a platform to develop knowledge intensive industries with which to support economic development in resource-endowed countries. The lessons drawn from these findings suggest that development strategies can also promote more innovative knowledge intensive NR-based industries rather than moving away from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's spectacular economic growth has been spatially uneven, with much development occurring in eastern coastal areas. In particular, three metropolitan 'super-regions' have become China's most competitive knowledge-based economies, consisting of the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Gulf Region. This paper benchmarks the competitiveness of these regions, with a view to exploring which region is best positioned to become the most dominant knowledge-based economy over time. Through the theoretical lens of dynamic comparative advantage, it is shown that each region has hugely increased its competitiveness through improvements in the capacity to absorb and diffuse knowledge. It is further shown that due to multi-dimensional advantages the Yangtze River Delta, incorporating the Shanghai metropolis, is best positioned to become the dominant hub of China's future knowledge economy. It is concluded that China's leading regions will require further economic policy adjustments in order to secure their future competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]