Suchergebnisse

The recent financial literature seems to have reached a consensus about the influence of European Central Bank (ECB) unconventional monetary policies in explaining the multiple divergent trends of TARGET2 (T2) balances in the eurozone from 2010 and the ensuing segregation of risks in each national economy. According to the ECB, 'mechanical' effects in the accounting of government bonds explain the explosion of T2 balances. Divergence could therefore not be attributable to a 'capital flight' from peripheral economies towards northern Europe. Such an explanation does not seem to fit well with the analysed cases of Italy, Spain, and Germany. A decomposition of the T2 balances through the analysis of the financial accounts of the balance of payments shows indeed that the deterioration in the balances of Italy and Spain is mainly due to a shift of private-sector financial wealth from government securities to foreign assets (bonds, shares, and mutual funds). In the case of Germany, the abnormal growth of T2 balances is mainly attributed to the persistent influence of current-account surpluses reaching 6-8 percent of GDP and increasing due to the indirect effects of quantitative easing policies on the exchange rate between the euro and the other major international currencies.

The evolution of industries in the last two centuries in all countries has been closely supported by a wide range of public policies addressing the patterns of capital accumulation, trade rules, the organisation of markets, innovative efforts and the process of knowledge creation and diffusion. Specific institutions have been created supporting such developments and have played a key role in economic growth. The protection of infant industries, the definition of trade and intellectual property regimes, the distribution of rents and the coherence with macroeconomic policies are key elements of such policies. The current challenges of industrial and innovation policies are discusses in the light of recent experiences in emerging countries.Keywords: secondary sector, public policy, industrial policy, market/commercialpolicy, industrialization, international trade, intellectual property, macroeconomics

In this work we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification, if any, across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge, proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present. Putting it more emphatically we investigate the relationship between "what a firm does" and "what a firm knows". Using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level, we provide evidence concerning firms' technological and product scope, their relationships, the size-scaling and coherence properties of diversification itself. Our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies, with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge. The scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increase log-linearly with firm size. And the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification. These findings are well in tune with a capability-based theory of the firm.

This paper examines the determinants of international competitiveness at the level of sectors and firms. First, we address the relation between cost-related and technological competition in a sample of fifteen OECD countries. Results suggest that the countries' sectoral market shares are indeed mainly shaped by technological factors (proxied by investment intensity and patents) while cost advantages/disadvantages do not seem to play any significant role. Next, we attempt to identify the underlying dynamics at the firm level. We do that for a single country, Italy, using a large panel of Italian firms, over nearly two decades. Results show that also at micro level in most sectors investments and patents correlate positively both with the probability of being an exporter and with the capacity to acquire and to increase export market shares. The evidence on costs is more mixed. A simple measure like total labour compensation is positively correlated with the probability of being an exporter, while unit labour costs show a negative correlation only in some manufacturing sectors.

This paper studies an agent-based model that bridges Keynesian theories of demandgeneration and Schumpeterian theories of technology-fueled economic growth. We employ the model to investigate the properties of macroeconomic dynamics and the impact of public polices on supply, demand and the fundamentals of the economy. We find that the complementarities between factors influencing aggregate demand and drivers of technological change affect both short-run fluctuations and long-term growth patterns. From a normative point of view, simulations show a corresponding complementarity between Keynesian and Schumpeterian policies in sustaining long-run growth paths characterized by mild fluctuations and acceptable unemployment levels. The matching or mismatching between innovative exploration of new technologies and the conditions of demand generation appear to suggest the presence of two distinct regimes of growth (or absence thereof) characterized by different short-run fluctuations and unemployment levels.