The relationship between internationalisation and innovation:internationalisation strategies, foreign firms', patenting behaviour and FDI spillovers

This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the relationships between internationalisation and innovation. Based on large comprehensive firm level data from China, this thesis comprises of three empirical chapters examining internationalisation from different aspects. Specifically, the first empirical work studies how firms internationalise. It links the choice of firms’ internationalisation strategies with firm characteristics. Additionally, it re-examines the stepwise internationalisation theory by distinguishing different foreign direct investment (FDI) motives. It proposes two pecking orders of firm performance in internationalisation strategies. The second empirical study investigates what kind of innovation activities internationalised firms do. It analyses the factors that drive foreign firms to patent in an emerging host country context. It stresses the importance of the intellectual property rights protection aspect of business environment at regional level in promoting patents, the role of industry dependence on external finance in shaping foreign firms’ patenting behaviour, as well as links foreign firms’ patent production with FDI motivation. The third empirical research examines the effect of internationalisation by examining the links between inward FDI and domestic innovation in a host country. It specifically examines technology spillovers from inward FDI through the direct lens of innovation (captured by grant patents), instead of adopting the indirect productivity approach widely employed by the literature. Distinguishing different types of innovation, it provides direct evidence of heterogeneous innovation spillovers from FDI.

OpenAIREplus

Directions the outcomes of the OpenAIRE project, which implements the EC Open Access (OA) pilot. Capitalizing on the OpenAIRE infrastructure, built for managing FP7 and ERC funded articles, and the associated supporting mechanism of the European Helpdesk System, OpenAIREplus will “develop an open access, participatory infrastructure for scientific information”. It will significantly expand its base of harvested publications to also include all OA publications indexed by the DRIVER infrastructure (more than 270 validated institutional repositories) and any other repository containing “peer-reviewed literature” that complies with certain standards. It will also generically harvest and index the metadata of scientific datasets in selected diverse OA thematic data repositories. It will support the concept of linked publications by deploying novel services for “linking peer- reviewed literature and associated data sets and collections”, from link discovery based on diverse forms of mining (textual, usage, etc.), to storage, visual representation, and on-line exploration. It will offer both user-level services to experts and “non-scientists” alike as well as programming interfaces for “providers of value-added services” to build applications on its content. Deposited articles and data will be openly accessible through an enhanced version of the OpenAIRE portal, together with any available relevant information on associated project funding and usage statistics. OpenAIREplus will retain its European footprint, engaging people and scientific repositories in almost all 27 EU member states and beyond. The technical work will be complemented by a suite of studies and associated research efforts that will partly proceed in collaboration with “different European initiatives” and investigate issues of “intellectual property rights, efficient financing models, and standards”.

International trade law, plain packaging and tobacco industry political activity:the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Tobacco companies are increasingly turning to trade and investment agreements to challenge measures aimed at reducing tobacco use. This study examines their efforts to influence the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major trade and investment agreement which may eventually cover 40% of the world's population; focusing on how these efforts might enhance the industry's power to challenge the introduction of plain packaging. Specifically, the paper discusses the implications for public health regulation of Philip Morris International's interest in using the TPP to: shape the bureaucratic structures and decision-making processes of business regulation at the national level; introduce a higher standard of protection for trademarks than is currently provided under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; and expand the coverage of Investor-State Dispute Settlement which empowers corporations to litigate directly against governments where they are deemed to be in breach of investment agreements. The large number of countries involved in the TPP underlines its risk to the development of tobacco regulation globally.

Shadow economy and entrepreneurial entry

The impact of the shadow economy on entrepreneurial entry across countries is analyzed utilising 1998-2005 individual-level Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data and national macro-economic variables. A simple correlation coefficient suggests a positive relationship between the size of the shadow economy and the likelihood of entrepreneurial entry. However, this masks more complex relationships, if, as argued, the shadow economy is an embedded social phenomenon. With appropriate controls and instrumenting for potential endogeneity, the impact of the shadow economy on entry in a linear specification is found to be negative. Further, there is evidence of a U-shaped relationship: entrepreneurial entry is least likely when the shadow economy amounts to about a quarter of gross domestic product (GDP). At the individual level, an extensive shadow economy has a more negative impact on respondents who are risk averse. In addition, in the economies where property rights are stronger, the negative impact of the shadow economy is weaker. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Institutions matter: essays on the determinants and consequences of socio-political institutions

ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT This thesis seeks to contribute to the socio-political literature. It comprises of three individual chapters examining the determinants and consequences of different social-political institutional factors. Specifically, the first study combines game theoretical and empirical techniques to examine how bureaucrats favour other agents within their social group and the effects this will have on the level of corruption in the economy. To this end, I develop a simple model of allocation of time between economic activities and leisure (time spent building social network ties), to illustrate the underlying causal mechanism between social network and corruption. It shows that large social networks and low levels of economic activities provides the condition for high levels of corruption. However, the ability of the government to punish corruption through well-established laws and property rights enforcement acts as a deterrent to corruption. he second work also combines game theoretical and empirical techniques. It aims to clarify the relationship between the degree of competition and political influence of firms, paying particular attention to the level of government regulations that exist in the countries in which the firms operates. The interplay between economic and political institutions is vital to any analysis on understanding the workings of political influence. The third study is purely empirical. It examines the role of two types of business network, namely, political connections and business group affiliations on a firm’s performance. Evidence was provided on Chinese firms’ performance during the 2008 financial crisis.

Os limites constitucionais ao exercício de direito de patente e seus reflexos na indústria do petróleo, gás natural e biocombustíveis

This dissertation deals with the constitutional limits on the exercise of patent rights and its effects on the oil, natural gas and biofuels. Held with the support of ANP / PETROBRAS, It seeks to show how the law will limit the exercise of industrial property, based on a reinterpretation of private law by the constitutional development perspective . Today it is a fact that Petrobras, a Brazilian joint venture, has the latest technology in various sectors of the oil industry, and is one of the highest investments in developing new technologies. The overall objective of this thesis is to establish the relationship between the public interest of the Petroleum Industry, Natural Gas and Biofuels and constitutional limits to the free exercise of patent rights, then confirm or refute our hypothesis that Article 71 on Industrial Property Law is contrary to the existing objectives in Article 3 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The research aims to examine the relevant aspects of the legal nature attributed to IPGN constitutionally confronting the constitutional limits on the free exercise of patent rights, with the purpose to outline the state of the performance limits in the regulation of the economy, in particular the application of feasibility limitations on the right of property in favor of national interest on the strategic energy industry. The aim is to confront the fundamental rights to property and economic development, against the public interest, limiting these first. As to the objectives, the research will be theoretical and descriptive and harvest of industrial property, respect the possible impact of regulatory standards and limiting the right of ownership in the oil industry. To establish how the state will mitigate the intellectual property right, we discuss, at first, a definition of public interest from the general theory of state and sovereign character in order to establish a new concept of national interest and popular interest, which will in turn the definition of our concept of public interest. In the second phase, will be addressed the issue of industrial property rights and how to will be free exercise thereof, in the constitutional sphere, infra, and demonstrating the use of industrial property rights with examples of market and IPGN . After situating the industrial property rights in the constitution and national legislation, establish their relationship with the national and regional development, will be addressed in this chapter in particular the patent law, as most usual form of intellectual property protection in IPGN. Used a study highlighting the number of patents in the area of the analyzed industry, demonstrating with hard data the importance of a sector for industrial development. The relationship between the social function of intellectual property and the constitutional objective of development was characterized to demonstrate the strategic nature of oil to Brazil in the national and international scene, and put into question the hypothesis of the research which provides that even with large investments the lack of legal certainty in the sector turns out not to have a considerable volume of investment as it could.

Small-scale Fisheries and the Global Economy: Understanding Common-pool Resource Governance in the Context of Market Pressures, Neoliberal Policies, and Transnational Institutions

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better understanding of how global seafood trade interacts with the governance of small-scale fisheries (SSFs). As global seafood trade expands, SSFs have the potential to experience significant economic, social, and political benefits from participation in export markets. At the same time, market connections that place increasing pressures on resources pose risks to both the ecological and social integrity of SSFs. This dissertation seeks to explore the factors that mediate between the potential benefits and risks of global seafood markets for SSFs, with the goal of developing hypotheses regarding these relationships.

The empirical investigation consists of a series of case studies from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This is a particularly rich context in which to study global market connections with SSFs because the SSFs in this region engage in a variety of market-oriented harvests, most notably for octopus, groupers and snappers, lobster, and sea cucumber. Variation in market forms and the institutional diversity of local-level governance arrangements allows the dissertation to explore a number of examples.

The analysis is guided primarily by common-pool resource (CPR) theory because of the insights it provides regarding the conditions that facilitate collective action and the factors that promote long-lasting resource governance arrangements. Theory from institutional economics and political ecology contribute to the elaboration of a multi-faceted conceptualization of markets for CPR theory, with the aim of facilitating the identification of mechanisms through which markets and CPR governance actually interact. This dissertation conceptualizes markets as sets of institutions that structure the exchange of property rights over fisheries resources, affect the material incentives to harvest resources, and transmit ideas and values about fisheries resources and governance.

The case studies explore four different mechanisms through which markets potentially influence resource governance: 1) Markets can contribute to costly resource governance activities by offsetting costs through profits, 2) markets can undermine resource governance by generating incentives for noncompliance and lead to overharvesting resources, 3) markets can increase the costs of resource governance, for example by augmenting monitoring and enforcement burdens, and 4) markets can alter values and norms underpinning resource governance by transmitting ideas between local resource users and a variety of market actors.

Data collected using participant observation, survey, informal and structured interviews contributed to the elaboration of the following hypotheses relevant to interactions between global seafood trade and SSFs governance. 1) Roll-back neoliberalization of fisheries policies has undermined cooperatives’ ability to achieve financial success through engagement with markets and thus their potential role as key actors in resource governance (chapter two). 2) Different relations of production influence whether local governance institutions will erode or strengthen when faced with market pressures. In particular, relations of production in which fishers own their own means of production and share the collective costs of governance are more likely to strengthen resource governance while relations of production in which a single entrepreneur controls capital and access to the fishery are more likely to contribute to the erosion of resource governance institutions in the face of market pressures (chapter three). 3) By serving as a new discursive framework within which to conceive of and talk about fisheries resources, markets can influence norms and values that shape and constitute governance arrangements.

In sum, the dissertation demonstrates that global seafood trade manifests in a diversity of local forms and effects. Whether SSFs moderate risks and take advantage of benefits depends on a variety of factors, and resource users themselves have the potential to influence the outcomes of seafood market connections through local forms of collective action.

Social economy, youth and employment

Organizations of the Social Economy in Spain accounted for 13% of employment and 12% of GDP in 2013, according to the Spanish Confederation fo Social Economy. Also, according to various institutions and studies, the role of Social Economy has become relevant due to they represent a model promoting the creation of collective business projects with greater sustainability and potential than models of individual self-employment. However, despite all this, there are few academic studies or sectoral reports analyzing employment in this sector, especially in the case of youth employment. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature analyzing the scared available data in order to show the numbers and characteristics of youth employment in this sector. Results show the weight of youth employment in the Social Economy is higher than the economy overall.

Auditoría integrada de Información + Conocimiento: aplicación en un caso de estudio

Se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de una metodología integradora de auditoría de información y conocimiento, llevada a cabo en un Centro de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la provincia de Holguín, Cuba, conformada por siete etapas con un enfoque híbrido dirigida a revisar la estrategia y la política de gestión de información y conocimiento, identificar e inventariar y mapear los recursos de I+C y sus flujos, y valorar los procesos asociados a su gestión. La alta dirección de este centro, sus especialistas e investigadores manifestaron la efectividad de la metodología aplicada cuyos resultados propiciaron reajustar la proyección estratégica en relación con la gestión de la I+C, rediseñar los flujos informativos de los procesos claves, disponer de un directorio de sus expertos por áreas y planificar el futuro aprendizaje y desarrollo profesional.

Argaric Sociology: Sex and Death

The detailed, rich and diverse Argaric funerary record offers an opportunity to explore social dimensions that usually remain elusive for prehistoric research, such us social rules on kinship rights and obligations, sexual tolerance and the role of funerary practices in preserving the economic and political organization. This paper addresses these topics through an analysis of the social meaning of Argaric double tombs by looking at body treatment and composition of grave goods assemblages according to gender and class affiliation. The Argaric seems to have been a conservative society, scarcely tolerant regarding homosexuality, and willing to celebrate ancestry associated to certain places as a means of asserting residence and property rights.

Commentary on Hinton v. Donaldson (1773)

The Scottish Court of Session, drawing upon principles of the civil law tradition, as well as arguments concerning broader national, social and cultural interests, reject the concept of copyright at common law - a decision that is in direct conflict with that of Millar v. Taylor (1769). Lord Monboddo provides the dissenting opinion, drawing upon the labour theory of property rights, and argues for a unified approach to the issue in relation to the common law of both England and Scotland.
Drawing upon Scottish Records Office archives the commentary explores the background to, and substance of, the decision. It suggests that, given the nature of the economic threat which the Scottish reprint industry posed to the London book trade, particularly in relation to an increasingly lucrative export market, Hinton undermined much of the value of the decision in Millar. The conflict between Millar and Hinton made it almost inevitable that the question of literary property would soon reach the House of Lords.

Setting the Rules of the Game: Mega-Regionals and the Role of the WTO

Faced with a WTO in a state of paralysis, large developed trading nations have shifted their attentions to other fora to pursue their trade policy objectives. In particular, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are now being used to promote the regulatory disciplines that were previously rejected by developing countries at the multilateral level. These so-called ‘deep’ or ‘21st century’ PTAs address a variety of issues, from technical norms, procurement, investment protection and intellectual property rights to social and environmental protection. Moreover, recently, developed countries have sought to negotiate PTAs which are large in scale, both in terms of economic size and geographical reach, including the so-called ‘mega-regional’ PTAs, such as the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the EU-Japan PTA, the Transpacific Partnership, and the China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. These mega-regional PTAs are distinctive not just in terms of their sheer size and the breadth and depth of issues addressed, but also because some of their proponents readily admit that one of the central aims pursued by such agreements is to design global rules on new trade issues. In other words, these agreements are being conceived as alternatives to multilateral rule making at the WTO level. The proliferation of 21st century trade deals raises important questions concerning the continued relevance of the WTO as a global rule-making venue, and the impact that the regulatory disciplines promoted in such agreements will have on both developing and developed countries. This paper discusses the emerging features of an international trading system that is increasingly populated by large-scale PTAs and discusses some of the points of tension that arise from such practice. Firstly, it examines instances of horizontal tension resulting from the proliferation of PTAs, particularly the extent to which such PTAs represent a threat or multilateral trade governance. Secondly, it looks at an example of vertical tension by examining the manner in which the imposition of regulatory disciplines through trade agreements can undermine the ability of countries, especially developing countries, to pursue legitimate public interest objectives. Finally, the paper considers a number of steps that could be considered to address some of the adverse effects associated with the fragmentation of the international trading system, including the option of embracing variable geometry within the WTO framework and the need to develop mechanisms that provide flexibility for developing countries in the implementation of regulatory disciplines.

Land, Power and Technology : Essays on Political Economy and Historical Development

Land Ownership and Development: Evidence from Postwar Japan This paper analyzes the effect of land ownership on technology adoption and structural transformation. A large-scale land reform in postwar Japan enforced a large number of tenant farmers who were cultivating land to become owners of this land. I find that the municipalities which had many owner farmers after the land reform tended to experience a quick entry of new agricultural machines which became available after the reform. The adoption of the machines reduced the dependence on family labor, and led to a reallocation of labor from agriculture to industries and service sectors in urban centers when these sectors were growing. I also analyze the aggregate impact of labor reallocation on economic growth by using a simple growth model and micro data. I find that it increased GDP by about 12 percent of the GDP in 1974 during 1955-74. I also find a large and positive effect on agricultural productivity. Loyalty and Treason: Theory and Evidence from Japan's Land Reform A historically large-scale land reform in Japan after World War II enforced by the occupation forces redistributed a large area of farmlands to tenant farmers. The reform demolished hierarchical structures by weakening landlords' power in villages and towns. This paper investigates how the change in the social and economic structure of small communities affects electoral outcomes in the presence of clientelism. I find that there was a considerable decrease in the vote share of conservative parties in highly affected areas after the reform. I find the supporting evidence that the effect was driven by the fact that the tenant farmers who had obtained land exited from the long-term tenancy contract and became independent landowners. The effect was relatively persistent. Finally, I also find the surprising result that there was a decrease, rather than an increase, in turnout in these areas after the reform.  Geography and State Fragmentation We examine how geography affects the location of borders between sovereign states in Europe and surrounding areas from 1500 until today at the grid-cell level. This is motivated by an observation that the richest places in this region also have the highest historical border presence, suggesting a hitherto unexplored link between geography and modern development, working through state fragmentation. The raw correlations show that borders tend to be located on mountains, by rivers, closer to coasts, and in areas suitable for rainfed, but not irrigated, agriculture. Many of these patterns also hold with rigorous spatial controls. For example, cells with more rivers and more rugged terrain than their neighboring cells have higher border densities. However, the fragmenting effects of suitability for rainfed agriculture are reversed with such neighbor controls. Moreover, we find that borders are less likely to survive over time when they separate large states from small, but this size-difference effect is mitigated by, e.g., rugged terrain.