Category: Knowledge economy

Trends in economic research

Cardoso and co have another interesting paper. Here’s the abstract:

Given the recent efforts in several countries to reorganize the research institutional setting to improve research productivity, our analysis addresses the following questions: To which extent has the recent awareness over international quality standards in economics around the world been reflected in research performance? How have individual countries fared? Do research quantity and quality indicators tell us the same story? We concentrate on trends taking place since the beginning of the 1990s and rely on a very comprehensive database of scientific journals, to provide a cross-country comparison of the evolution of research in economics. Our findings indicate that Europe is catching up with the US but, in terms of
influential research, the US maintains a dominant position. The main continental European countries, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, experienced some of the largest growth rates in economic scientific output. Other European countries, namely the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, have shown remarkable progress in per capita output. Collaborative research seems to be a key factor explaining the relative success of some European countries, in particular when it comes to publishing in top journals, attained predominantly through international collaborations.

Unfortunately, they did not include Ireland.

Performance of labour PhDs

Cardoso and colleagues have a new paper in Scientometrics, comparing the performance of PhDs in labour economics graduating from Europe and the USA. They find that European PhDs publish more, but US PhDs publish more in high-quality journals (according to Kalaitzidakis).

UPDATE: Freely accessible working paper version.

Set them free (not)

Lucey and Larkin offer some thoughts on higher education reform. I either agree (evaluation, performance-related pay, fees) or do not know enough to have an opinion (curriculum*).

UPDATE: The Irish Times (2) has seen the report of the National Strategy Group for Higher Education. Strikes me as less radical than Lucey and Larkin.

* Clarification: I know a few anecdotes about a few courses at a few Irish universities.

Innovation, sustainability, and censorship

Frank Convery dreams of a Silicon Valley of Emerald Green over at Comhar. To get to Silicon Valley, you need to pass through that other valley, where bad ideas face a certain death.

Rigour and scrutiny, however, are not part of Convery’s vision. He claims that Palo Alto “will be submerged if sea levels rise significantly” — ignoring that Palo Alto is 9 metres above sea level (projected sea level rise by 2100 is less than one-tenth of that); that people there know how to build dikes and can pay for it too; and that Palo Alto is special because of its people rather than because of its physical characteristics.

I left a comment to that effect on his blog, but discussion is not appreciated in sustainablalaland.

UPDATE: Comments are up now at Comhar.

UPDATE: Frank Convery responds. I close the discussion here.

Innovation Fund Announced

There have been a number of media stories about the government’s latest Smart Economy initative: a new innovation fund featuring public money matched by money from venture capitalists. The Taoiseach was quite bullish about this program on RTE’s The Week in Politics on Sunday night and he has announced it in a speech in New York (press release here.)  The details say that it is a €500 million fund. As I understand it, this is €250 million from the Irish government spread over five years (€50 million per year) matched by private venture capital funds.

The press release tells us that this is a “major boost for enterprise development and job creation.” Well, with GDP for this year projected at €161 billion, venture capital investments of €100 million per year corresponds to six tenths of one percent of GDP. Government initiatives to develop a venture capital industry in Ireland are probably a good idea (I say probably because these initatives are often poorly implemented, in which case they’re a waste of money.)  However, in the grand scheme of things, this cannot be considered a major boost to enterprise. It’s certainly not a major boost to job creation.