Below are details of the iSPER MIC Groups Spring 2017 seminar programme, with links to related papers. For further information about these seminars please contact Dr Alexander Haupt.
8 March – Dr Panagiotis Tziogkidis (Plymouth University) – The Global Innovation Index – Measurement and Implications – 16:00 – 17:30, Cookworthy Building 404.
This paper investigates the plausibility of the practice of equal weighting in the Global Innovation Index from a policy perspective. On this basis, we examine the discrepancies in innovation efficiency arising from an endogenous weighting approach and investigate the feasibility of policy recommendations arising from the official approach. The results highlight significant differences for low-income countries, for which conclusions derived from the Global Innovation Index may not be feasible. A novel approach is proposed to monitor the degree to which countries divert from equal weighting, should this be deemed a desirable long-run objective.29 March – Kent Matthews (University of Cardiff) – ‘Run for home’ – SME Lending and the Headquarters Bias – 16:00 – 17:30, Cookworthy Building 401.
This paper is aimed at two strands of the empirical literature in banking. First, it tests for the geographical dimension in SME lending as a rebuttal of Petersen and Rajan (2002) on the relevance of relationship banking for SME lending. Second, it examines the Stein (2002) view that large institutions with complex organisational structures are more able to filter ‘hard’ information than ‘soft’ information. Using data on individual bank lending to SMEs and mortgage lending by postcode area for 120 localities in Great Britain for the period 2013(2)-2014(4), we estimate a panel model on 8393 data points. We conjecture that as the same bank makes SME loans and mortgages to the specific postcode area, it would utilise the informational technology of its common organisational structure. Locality and bank fixed effects allow us to disentangle credit supply and demand and to simultaneously control for the unobserved traits of banks and the borrowers in the localities they lend to. Our results show that functional distance between bank headquarters and branches is negatively related to the net underwriting of SME lending but has no impact on mortgage lending. We interpret these results as strong support for the geographical dimension and a vindication of the conventional view that SME lending requires the transmission of ‘soft’ information through the intermediation of a Relationship Manager who has been largely removed from the banking organisation.
Read a copy of Kent's paper.The metaphor of the Wild West of America is used in this paper to discuss the current phase of reform. In the 19th century Wild West an open frontier land, with the promise of riches untold, encouraged a desperate race to capitalise on opportunities. Law and regulation were slow to follow the ‘pioneers’ – hence the appropriate sobriquet ‘wild’.
In the English higher education system successive governments have created the conditions necessary to open up a new, unregulated Wild West frontier in the sector. In this paper I chart these precursor actions and policies and discuss how the starting gun has been fired, setting loose a for-profit market free-for-all. Deliberate de- and non-regulation is a central tenet of the government’s approach. This has begun to engender significant market adjustment and ownership/capital restructuring with, I argue, possible fundamental, adverse and extreme implications for the nature and quality of research and teaching in English universities.
Our
proposition is therefore a broader holistic approach to economic democracy that
develops fourfold framing of the concept: (i) workplace; (ii) degree of
associational economic governance; (iii) distribution of economic
decision-making powers across space and sector; (iv) transparency, openness and
democratic engagement of broader population in macro-economic decision-making.
Our
approach is informed conceptually by linking traditional concerns around
economic democracy with philosophical concerns about how we conceive of
democracy as a process rather than majoritarian position (or outcome), and
recognising the importance of democracy in terms of economic and social rights
for, and dignity of individuals. In this way we argue that economic democracy
can be viewed as a conduit to enhancing equity and therefore addressing issues
associated with impoverishment.
In articulating our case, we develop an economic democracy index (EDI), which incorporates the four dimensions identified. The initial findings indicate marked differences in economic democracy between a more ‘social’ approach of northern European capitalism and the Anglo-American model. Eastern European economies do not record high levels of economic democracy. Our findings suggests that there are strong correlations between the EDI and poverty and inequality in OECD member states.