Search results for " economy."
showing 10 items of 1490 documents
Market Must Be Defended: The Role of Counter-Espionage Policy in Maximizing Domestic Market Welfare
2020
Countering economic espionage is becoming one of the priorities of the governments of advanced economies. The present paper takes a step forward in the theoretical analysis of the interaction between economic espionage and counter-espionage by focusing on the case of a market opened to international trade. This analysis represents a first approximation to an inquiry into the rationale for the influence of the market level of competition on the dynamics of such interaction. The results suggest that this influence is complex in the case of the effort exerted in economic espionage and the characteristics of market demand play an important role in it. In the case of the counter-espionage policy…
R&D Competition, Cooperation, and Microeconomic Policies
2016
This chapter aims to contribute to the better understanding of R&D by scholars and practitioners. It includes a first section where the concept of innovation is defined and its public good nature and cumulative dimension are analysed. Next, the incentives that firms have to undertake R&D to attain a competitive edge upon rivals are considered. This entails the consideration of both ex ante and ex post incentives to undertake R&D. Since innovation is costly and derives important external effects, cooperation in R&D activities is prominent in several industries where firms enter into research joint ventures, or form research networks. The effect of cooperation is that, under s…
The Past and Future of Innovations in Microfinance
2012
The microfinance industry carries every sign of an innovation in its take-off phase. The various aspects of the microfinance innovation were developed in the 1980’s, twenty years later the industry experiences a phenomenal growth rate, and it has diffused to most developing countries in the world. This review paper looks at microfinance as an entrepreneurial activity in its own right, contributing to the development of small and medium-sized firms in developing countries. We trace the innovations in microfinance, for instance group lending, loans to women, and their financing, and we ask whether the business model implied is sustainable once diffusion has gone far, competition enters, and c…
Left-Authoritarians and Voter Turnout in West European Countries
2017
Parties with a left profile on economic issues and an authoritarian profile on socio-cultural issues have been largely absent from the supply side of the typical post-World-War-II policy space of West European democracies. As a result, citizens with economically left and socio-culturally authoritarian policy positions have faced difficulties in identifying parties that match their preference bundle. Building on previous inquiries into the party preferences of left-authoritarians, this study hypothesizes that the cross-pressures left-authoritarians typically encounter when looking for a party that matches their preferences translate into an overall lower likelihood to turn out to vote in nat…
Theoretical and Analytical Framework
2021
Analytically, the present work relies on two foundations, Anthony Downs’ (1957) Proximity model of electoral competition which states that political parties or candidates will seek to position themselves as close as possible to the (preferred) policy positions of voters and Ian Budge’s past election model (1994), according to which parties and candidates use the results of past elections in order to gain information about the electorate landscape. Both models rely on a ‘marketplace’ analogy with demand and supply. Candidates, parties, and politicians supply policies (advertised as policy positions), while the electorate, voters, and constituencies demand policies. Just like in a marketplace…
Eurosceptic Contagion and European Elections
2021
At the onset, the starting perspective here has been that the main arena for political struggle is the national one. One of the most influential approaches in the study of European and European Union politics has been the second-order election thesis (Reif & Schmitt, 1980). According to this school of thought, elections to the European Parliament have actually functioned as somewhat less important national elections (hence second order, akin to US midterm elections), and the main arena for political conflict over EU policy lies at the national level. This book has so far largely shared these assumptions and premises and has as a consequence focused on the effect of Eurosceptic Parties’ succ…
Competitive Risks in the Sharing Economy and the European Union Market Regulation
2016
The massive reduction of costs due to efficient platform brokerage has allowed the “collaborative commons” to expand and evolve, and also to create new and very efficient markets: the so-called “sharing economy”. However, bigger and more efficient sharing platforms also have some drawbacks, such as the concern that these powerful digital brokers could harm fair competition. Nevertheless, economic models seem to support the idea that digital platforms have rarely inhibited the emergence of competitors, nor do they seem to be extracting predatory benefits by abusing their position to the detriment of consumers. This relative lack of risk has pushed competition authorities across Europe to pro…
Competition Policy in the Italian Economy: Current Developments and Lines of Action
2016
Presentation to the Italian Parliament of the 2015 Annual Report of the Italian Competition Authority. Rome, 18 June 2015
Coalition building in the UN Security Council
2014
Political coalitions in the international system are still understudied in International Relations theory. This article claims that the formation of and variations in coalitions in the international system are affected by changes in their bargaining power and bargaining environment related to the global leadership cycle and by long-term organisational changes of the international political system. Identifying the Security Council as the institution in which states are more likely to keep their systemic preferences at the institutional level, the article studies the presence, formation and change of coalitions in the international system by testing variations in the behaviour of the Securit…
A global perspective on effectiveness of aid for trade
2013
Recent global initiatives on debt relief and development assistance call for increasing aid for trade to the poorest countries. The paper applies a multi-country computable general equilibrium model to measure the effectiveness of alternative aid for trade categories. The findings show that aid for trade policies expand trade and alleviate international income inequalities in the recipient countries, that will benefit mainly from aid for trade adjustment and technical assistance.