The IPL newsletter: Volume 17, Issue 343

OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2016

OECD
This 2016 OECD Economic Survey of the Canada examines recent economic developments, policies and prospects. The special chapters cover: Network sector competition; Small business dynamism. It finds that activity is shifting from energy to non-energy sectors in response to price signals. Vulnerabilities related to housing and household debt are still increasing, albeit at a slower pace. Finally, productivity growth has been weak until recently.

OECD Economic Surveys: United States 2016

OECD
This 2016 OECD Economic Survey of the United States examines recent economic developments, policies and prospects. The special chapters cover: Private sector productivity and Making growth more inclusive. Core findings include the fact that the U.S. economy has rebounded from the crisis, but that productivity has slowed for most industries. Income inequality continues to rise.

The Fusion Effect: The Economic Returns to Combining Arts and Science Skills

Josh Siepel et al., Nesta
This research explores the fusion of arts and science skills in UK companies and the impact of this combination on performance. Using official UK data on innovation and firm capability, the authors analyze the finances of firms that use arts and science skills. They find compelling evidence to suggest that firms combining these skills are more likely to grow in the future, are more productive, and are more likely to produce radical innovations. These findings support the hypothesis that the impact of arts skills in the UK economy extends beyond the creative industries.

Digital Matching Firms: A New Definition in the “Sharing Economy” Space

Economics and Statistics Administration, US Department of Commerce
Increasingly, consumers and independent service providers are engaging in transactions facilitated by an Internet-based platform. The digital firms that provide the platforms are often collectively referred to as belonging to the “sharing” or “collaborative” economies, among other descriptors. However, in this paper, we narrow the focus and propose a definition of “digital matching firms” that exhibit the following characteristics:

1. They use information technology (IT systems), typically available via web-based platforms, such as mobile “apps” on Internet- enabled devices, to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions.
2. They rely on user-based rating systems for quality control, ensuring a level of trust between consumers and service providers who have not previously met.
3. They offer the workers who provide services via digital matching platforms flexibility in deciding their typical working hours.
4. To the extent that tools and assets are necessary to provide a service, digital matching firms rely on the workers using their own.

In addition to defining these “digital matching services” the report offers an initial assessment of its size and scope based on publicly available data on its largest firms, as well as an examination of its potential effect on consumers and service providers. The report closes with an overview of the benefits and challenges emerging from the growth of these firms.

Innovation and Firm Productivity: Evidence from the US Patent Data

Jingbo Cui and Xiaogang Li, Wuhan University
In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between productivity and innovation, using the U.S. manufacturers’ patent data from 1976-2006. First, they investigate whether productive firms actively participate in innovation in terms of having more patents, and then examine whether their innovation activities are involved in a wide spectrum of technological categories. Moreover, they are interested in whether, to successfully develop a new patent in a certain technological field, productive firms need to cite more or less patents within the field and/or across various related fields. The firm-level productivity is estimated as the total factor productivity (TFP). The researchers find that: (i) productivity is positively correlated with the number of patents granted and the number of technological categories for these patents; and (ii) productivity is positive correlated with the number of citations per granted patent, and is also positively correlated with the number of technological categories for cited patents per granted patent. Whereas the former finding indicates that productive firms actively conduct research and their innovation is involved in different technological fields, the latter suggests that, to develop a new patent, productive firms are capable of learning from cited patents in various technologies fields.

Schumpeter Conference on Evolutionary Economics

Montreal, 6-8 July, 2016
The Schumpeter Conference is a major event for social scientists interested in Neo-Schumpeterian themes such as the economics of innovation and economic development and trying to build a credible response to neoclassical economics with the contribution of different compatible theoretical currents such as behavioural, ecological and post-Keynesian economics, system dynamics, agent-based models and innovation management, among others.

3rd International Workshop on the Sharing Economy

Southampton, England, 15-16 September, 2016
Enabled by digital platform technologies, the sharing economy allows households, individuals, businesses, government and non-government organisations to engage in collaborative production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It can potentially lead to an increase in employment, economic efficiency, sustainable use of resources, broadened access to highly valuable assets, and enhanced social relationships. The sharing economy can also give rise to innovation driven business models appealing to a different group of customers, normally ignored by mainstream businesses, and based on a novel supply chain and operations model which makes it possible to outsource to platform users a significant portion of business functions. These inevitably challenge conventional business and policy thinking about the role and functions of customers, employees and the organization. To no small degree, the interest in the sharing economy is fueled by ongoing international media stories about the expansion of new and highly successful sharing economy platforms (such as Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Blablacar, etc.). The academic debate is yet to fully catch up with this business media buzz. It has only now started to critically investigate the popular claims about the sharing economy. There is still very little systematic understanding of the antecedents of the sharing economy, its organizational forms and their novelty, the enabling and constraining factors of the sharing economy and its impacts. Hence, the purpose of this workshop is to engage with different strands of academic scholarship on the sharing economy originating across different disciplines (such as management and business studies, economics, geography, legal studies, sociology, political sciences and other disciplines) to help to develop an integrated understanding of the sharing economy phenomenon, its drivers, forms and implications for individuals, businesses and society.  

OECD Blue Sky Forum on Science and Technology Indicators

Ghent, Belgium, 19-21 September, 2016
Every ten years the OECD Blue Sky Forum engages the policy community, data users and providers into an open dialogue to review and develop its long-term agenda on science, technology and innovation (STI) data and indicators. This event is known as the “OECD Blue Sky Forum”, an open and unconstrained discussion on evidence gaps in science and innovation and on initiatives the international community can take to address data needs in this area.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Changing Patterns of Territorial Policy: Smart Specialization and Innovation in Europe

Seville, Spain, 29 – 30 September, 2016
The smart specialization approach is characterized by the identification of strategic areas for intervention based both on the analysis of the strengths and potential of the economy and on a process of entrepreneurial discovery with wide stakeholder involvement. It embraces a wide view of innovation that goes beyond research-oriented and technology-based activities, and requires a sound logic of intervention supported by effective monitoring mechanisms. This conference aims to take stock of the smart specialization experience and assess its current state of the art both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It offers to a limited number of participants from academia, European Institutions and territorial authorities, a unique opportunity to discuss these issues, to define the scope and main avenues for future research and policy analysis, and to address the challenges confronting policy makers and practitioners. The conference organizers are keen to attract papers that address the whole spectrum of topics, disciplines, and methodologies encompassed by the smart specialization approach, including contributions from all areas of regional analysis with a link to smart specialization.

5th European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity, and Economy

Seville, Spain, 6-8 October, 2016
In recent years, myriad links between culture, creativity and economic practice have become major topics of interdisciplinary debates. There is a growing consensus that the intersections between these spheres, and symbolic and culturally embedded values in particular, pervade the global economy. Culture is not confined to artistic practice or heritage, nor is creativity confined to networks of creative workers and entrepreneurs: culture and creativity are practiced by workers and individuals in a range of occupational, institutional and geographical settings. Indeed, far from being restricted to global cities and urban settings, a growing body of research highlights the presence and uniqueness of cultural and creative activities in suburban and rural settings and across the Global South. Moreover, digital technologies and processes of globalization continue to create, destroy and restructure the markets and conditions under which cultural production, intermediation and consumption are undertaken and experienced. These are in turn underpinned by a plurality of micro-spatialities and micro-processes through which the dynamics and spaces of culture and creativity emerge. Together, this underlines the importance of paying critical academic attention to the particularities of the different social, political, technological and cultural models that enable, hinder or displace the creative and cultural economy. For research and policy, there is a strong need to generate nuanced and tempered accounts which understand both the potentialities and limitations involved in the intersections of culture, creativity and economy. There is a need to pursue new research avenues that not only encompass but go beyond critical engagement with policies. For example, a “critical agenda on critical approaches” might unveil significant aporias and pitfalls in the ways we study the webs that tie culture, creativity and economy together. More than ever perhaps there is a need for critical and radical academic debate that addresses questions about the value and values inherent in culture and creativity; questions surrounding the ownership and marketization of culture and creativity; and the dynamics of cultural and creative spaces, production and work.

2016 Barcelona Workshop on Regional and Urban Economics

Barcelona, Spain, 27-28 October, 2016
The workshop will be focused on innovation and the spatial diffusion of knowledge with emphasis in collaboration networks. Its aim is to bring together researchers in urban and regional economics who are working in topics where the broad concept of the geography of innovation plays a fundamental role. Particular attention will be paid to papers dealing with the mechanisms and actors of knowledge diffusion (knowledge spillovers, networks, technological collaboration, and knowledge relatedness). Although the Workshop will focus on empirical papers, theoretical studies are also welcome.

2016 Regional Innovation Policies Conference

Cardiff Wales, November 3-4, 2016
Welcome to the 11^th Regional Innovation Policies Conference 2016.  For more than a decade the Regional Innovation Policies Conference has been an essential date in the diaries of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners with an interest in the field of regional innovation, regional development and innovation policy.  The conference will feature keynote addresses and parallel sessions on a number of key themes arranged around the central topic of regional innovation, regional development and innovation policy.  The role of regions in innovation debates; the role of innovation in promoting the growth of innovation; the spatial distribution of innovation, and the role of regional policies in both stimulating and harnessing innovation are recurrent themes for the Regional Innovation Policies Conference.

The 2016 Technology Transfer Society Annual Conference

Phoenix, Arizona, 3-5 November, 2016
At least two decades of research show that new knowledge is a critical component of economic and social development.  Recent comprehensive reviews of the technology transfer literature conceptualize university technology transfer in terms of a patent-centric linear model—formal technology transfer—including technology disclosure, patent filing, and licensing.  This paradigm not only overlooks a diversity of practices by technology transfer offices, it also neglects other innovative practices or conceptualizations relating to the creation and exchange of new knowledge. To address the aforementioned gaps, the 2016 T2S Annual meeting will focus on alternative practices, policies, and conceptualizations of knowledge exchange that go beyond formal university technology transfer.  We are especially interested in empirical works that utilize frameworks and methodologies from a variety of disciplines and that utilize a variety of perspectives.

Regional Studies Association Winter Conference 2016 – New Pressures on Cities and Regions

London, UK, 24-25 November, 2016
This conference provides an intellectual and policy-relevant platform for scholars around the world to address the new and emerging challenges facing cities and regions. The global economic slowdown poses major concerns to many territories – through shortfalls in employment, household incomes, corporate profitability and tax revenues. The steel industry has been one of the hardest hit, forcing massive plant closures and redundancies from China to the UK. Austerity in public finances threatens the infrastructure required to lay the foundation for future growth and development. Economic uncertainties and uneven development also contribute to growing social unrest and new waves of international migration. Heightened regulation of the banks and other financial institutions is bound to have an impact on the funding of house-building and other real estate development, with uncertain consequences. Meanwhile the accelerating pace of technological change in many industries and occupations means different skills and capabilities are required of the workforce, causing painful adjustments for many communities. And looming concerns about climate change and accelerating environmental degradation complicate the task of urban and regional revitalization. The 2016 Winter Conference of the Regional Studies Association presents a timely opportunity to discuss these issues, to clarify the research imperatives, and to consider the challenges facing policymakers and practitioners. The conference organizers are keen to attract papers and sessions that address a broad research and policy agenda, including contributions from any discipline which can offer relevant insights into the urban-regional-global nexus.