Recent interdisciplinary research suggests that customer and technological competencies have a direct, unconditional effect on firms' innovative performance. This study extends this stream of literature by considering the effect of organizational competencies. Results from a survey-research...

This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and economic growth in the European Union. We identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into economic growth. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions in the period 1990-2002,...

During the recent period, we observe that many countries compete with each other to attract foreign investment. When MNCs invest in a host country, it is assumed that a part of their technology spills to the host country firms. But the empirical studies on spillover effects of FDI have failed to...

This research investigates the role of social capital and government intervention in explaining the differences of innovation output and economic growth for regions of the European Union from 1990-2002. Using several measures of social capital and innovation, and the European Union’s Objective...

The aim of the paper is to assess heterogeneity of the innovation process. Using exploratory factor analysis on micro data from the third Community Innovation Survey in 13 countries, we identify four factors that that can be interpreted as research, user, external and production ingredients of...

This paper uses firm-level survey data of Kenyan manufacturing industry to examine the significance of FDI and firm-level capabilities in human capital development. It undertakes a detailed descriptive comparison of human capital and other firm-level capabilities generated by both foreign and...

The Porter Hypothesis postulates that the costs of compliance with environmental standards may be offset by adoption of innovations they trigger. We model this hypothesis using a game of timing of technology adoption. We show that times of adoption are earlier the higher the non-adoption tax....

This article explores the relative importance of pre-colonial institutional capacity and the effects of periods of peace and stability on long-term development outcomes in Nigeria. We use data on education, health, and public works at a provincial level from a variety of colonial and Nigerian...

This policy overview draws upon two studies, one theoretical and one empirical, to explore lessons from medieval Indian Ocean trade for supporting ethnic tolerance in contemporary settings. The overview begins by sketching a model of inter-ethnic trade and violence in environments where there...

The article applies insights of contest theory to al Qaeda's recruitment process. Al Qaeda can be considered as a contest organizer rewarding an indivisible prize, namely, official membership and economic rewards, to candidate extremist groups. Would-be terrorists must then compete with each...