Tanulmányok
Innovation and dynamism. Reciprocal effect between systems and technical advance
Literature on post-socialist transformation usually deals with the political, economic and social sides of it, although there have also been important changes in the field of technical advance in the last twenty years. One of capitalism's main virtues is the strong incentive it gives to dynamism, enterprise and the innovation process. Every revolutionary new product (for civilian use) has been brought about by the capitalist system. The socialist system was capable at most of developing new military products. The article analyses how far this radical difference can be explained by the innate tendencies and basis attributes of the two systems. Our daily lives have been transformed by these new products (for instance, the sphere of information and communications by the computer, the mobile phone and the internet). While many people see all these as favourable changes, fewer discern the causal relation between the capitalist system and rapid technical progress. Yet the usual syllabus of microeconomics does not enlighten students on this important virtue of capitalism, which is not adequately emphasized in the statements of leading politicians either.
The success of the bank mergers in Central Eastern Europe
The big European banking groups have been buying up more and more banks in Central Eastern Europe. The study analyses the value-enhancing effects of the mergers from the shareholder's angle by examining by occurrence analysis methods the Central East European acquisition transactions of the seven biggest banking groups between 2000 and 2008. The shareholders as a whole seem to appreciate the acquisition activity of the banks: cumulative abnormal yield is positive in over half the mergers and average abnormal yield of all occurrences is mildly positive as well. The authors evaluate first the acquisition strategies of each banking group. Based on a three-day period round the acquisition announcement, Raiffeisen and OTP seem to have the most successful strategies and Erste the least successful. Light is then shed on investment intentions in each case, but mergers with a positive abnormal yield predominate among the highest and the lowest value transactions. Finally, the investor evaluation of cross-border transactions is no worse than for domestic ones.
Melléklet • Innovációkutatás
Adaptation, competition and innovation
The study extends the analysis of the relation between competition and innovation by introducing the possibility of adaptation. Analysis of the model covering corporate innovation and adaptation decisions suggests that competition and innovation lie in a reversed Ushaped relation to each other. The other main conclusion is that strengthening competition reduces the number of innovator firms and increases the number of adapter firms.
The workplace orientation of young biologists with postgraduate degrees
The key phase in researchers' careers is the six or eight years after acquiring a doctorate. Attention is drawn to two factors in the international researches into this phase. First, the number of university and research-institute jobs is rising more slowly than the number of doctorate holders, so that it is worth thinking in terms of diverse careers during the doctorate course. Secondly, empirical studies confirm there is no "lost generation" of young doctorate holders: the public sector outside higher education, the private sector and the non-profit sector can offer appropriate posts to some 50–60 per cent of those with a PhD. The authors' researches found fewer new career trends than expected among research biologists acquiring a PhD since 1993. It was found that almost 70 per cent of those with newly acquired doctorates joined higher education or the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' research network, while the commonest alternative was not the private sector, but employment abroad. An attempt was made to model the probability of employment in various types of organization. Despite the small sample, it was apparent that the examined factors of the Academy type of career differed strongly from those found among people working in the private sector.
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