Per Botolf Maurseth

Governance Indicators: A guided Tour

Utenlandsinvesteringer i fiskeri- og havbruksnæringen - resultater fra en spørreundersøkelse

Notatet gjengir en undersøkelse blant norske fiskeribedrifters investeringer i utlandet. Undersøkelsen er basert på dybdeintervjuer med 10 bedrifter. Bedriftene omfatter store konsern og små bedrifter innenfor flere deler av fiskerisektoren. Svarene i undersøkelsen peker i retning av at markedsadgang er et vesentlig motiv for norske fiskeribedrifters investeringer i andre land. I noen sammenhenger er dette kombinert med motiver om billig arbeidskraft og om tilgang til fiskeressurser. Undersøkelsen viser også at bedrifter både driver oppkjøp av eksisterende bedrifter og investeringer i ny produksjon. Teknologiske faktorer, som at norske bedrifter er spesielt konkurransedyktige på sine felt, bidrar også til investeringer i andre land. I fiskerisektoren er politiske reguleringer mer omfattende enn i mange andre næringer. Derfor skjer utenlandsinvesteringer i denne næringen i hovedsak innenfor oppdrett og fiskeforedling, og i mindre grad i fiske. Det norske virkemiddelapparatet for norsk næringsliv har bare i begrenset grad hatt betydning for de bedriftene som har deltatt i undersøkelsen.

Norway's trade with developing countries

This paper presents some characteristics of Norway’s trade with developing countries. Norwegian trade with low and low middle-income countries has increased in recent years. Imports have increased more than exports. This is partly because a large part of Norwegian exports is petroleum sold to other OECD countries. Norwegian trade with the least developed countries, on the other hand, is stagnant and constitutes only a minor share of Norwegian foreign trade. This pattern is similar to other OECD countries: Developing countries increase their share in world trade while least developed countries are marginalized. By adjusting for size and geographical position of Norwegian trade partners it is found that Norwegian trade with developing countries is as expected as compared to other OECD countries.

Trade and development - a selective review

This paper reviews parts of the recent literature on trade and growth. The relationships between trade and growth have been extensively studied in recent research. Many studies indicate that trade stimulates income and growth. The literature is controversial and many studies are criticised for weaknesses in methodology. Despite the methodological controversies, most evidence gives support for the view that trade stimulates growth. It is argued that major deficiency in the literature is that it does not discriminate between the impact of market access in other countries and the impact of liberal domestic trade policies.

The German ICT industry : Spatial employment and innovation patterns

This paper documents recent developments in German ICT industries. In particular we report results on spatial patterns in innovation and employment in these industries. The paper is motivated by previous studies that have found that ICT industries seem to cluster geographically and having spatially clustered growth rates. In this study, we discriminate between production of ICT devices and production of ICT services. In Germany, production of ICT devices is concentrated in clusters of innovating regions (in terms of patents). ICT service production, on the other hand, is concentrated in larger urban areas. Growth rates in ICT-related employment show different spatial patterns. The data show that negative spatial effects are present for several sectors, which might give support for the so-called backwash effect described by Gunnar Myrdal (1957). For other sectors, positive spatial spillover effects may be present. For overall economic development (in terms of gross regional product per habitant) we find weak positive growth effects ICT, but these growth effects stem more from innovation than from production or use of ICT.

Tollnedtrapping for industrivarer i WTO - Virkninger for Norge

Notatet diskuterer mulige virkninger av tollreduksjoner gjennom forhandlinger i WTO for eksport av norske industrivarer. Ulike forslag om tollreduksjoner, som bruken av den såkalte Girards formel diskuteres. Det vises at reduksjoner i tråd med Girards formel kan gi økt norsk eksport på i underkant av to prosent for et utvalg av land. Virkningene er ulikt fordelt over handelspartnere og sektorer. For land Norge har preferanseavtaler med gir tollreduksjoner gjennom WTO ingen økning i eksport. For andre land vil tollreduksjoner gi til dels betydelig effekt.

Norsk utenrikshandel, markedspotensial og handelshindre

Dette notatet drøfter norsk eksport og virkninger av toll som legges på norsk eksport til andre land. Notatet viser at uavhengig av toll er økonomisk størrelse og geografisk avstand viktige forklaringsvariable for norsk eksport. Derfor kan ofte betydningen av handelspolitikk overdrives. Analysen av virkningene av toll mot norsk eksport viser likevel at tollsatser bidrar til redusert eksport. Et disaggregert datasett viser klare og signifikante effekter av tollsatser i andre land. For enkelte land kan effekten av å fjerne toll være at eksporten øker med mer enn 20 prosent. Resultatene må likevel tolkes med forsiktighet: Ulike varer har ulik følsomhet for tollsatser.

Geography and growth - some empirical evidence

Income in the world does not distribute randomly in space. There are geographic clusters of rich and poor countries. Also growth rates tend to be spatially clustered. Spatial regression analyses indicate that geographical clustering may be an inherent ingredient in growth mechanisms: Growth in one country stimulates growth in surrounding countries. A simple exogenous growth model with technology diffusion through trade in capital goods can account for some, but not all of these empirical patterns of growth and income distribution.

Recent Advances in Growth Theory. A Comparison of Neoclassical and Evolutionary Perspectives

Research on economic growth has experienced remarkable progress the last decade. The neoclassical perspective has benefited from development of new mathematical methods and new approaches to market structure, economics of scale and spillover effects. At the same time evolutionary theories on economic development have appeared, partly competing but also complementary to neoclassical theorising. In this paper, the development of the two perspectives on economic growth is reviewed and they are compared with each other. Despite evident differences there seems to be convergence between the two traditions. The two perspectives therefore do not belong to different paradigms in the Kuhnian sense and they can hardly be categorised as two isolated research programmes in the sense of Imre Lakatos. Evolutionary and neoclassical growth economics draw inspiration from similar sources, they are overlapping and to some extent complementary. The two traditions also interact with each other.

Lovely but dangerous: The impact of patent citations on patent duration

What is the impact of patent citations on patent renewal behaviour? Patent citations are commonly used as an indicator of technology spillovers. For cited patents therefore, patent citations have a potentially ambiguous impact. On the one hand, patent citations may indicate a scientific breakthrough, a high value of the cited patent and therefore a long survival period. On the other hand, patent citations may indicate competing innovations that render the cited patent obsolete. By discriminating patents by technology field, it is demonstrated that patents that receive citations across technology fields survive longer than other patents. Patents that receive citations within the same technology field lapse earlier.