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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy

1. Innovative Clusters & New Work: A Case Study of TaskRabbit

Author:
Emily Isaac
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the past five years, San Francisco has become home to dozens of new online and mobile “service networking” companies that claim to be “revolutionizing” the way work gets done. Making up what has come to be known as the “platform economy,” these technology companies provide the platforms for online and mobile marketplaces in which users can buy and sell their goods and services. Together, these “platform economy” companies make up a concentrated innovative cluster in the San Francisco Bay Area, and, more specifically, San Francisco proper. One of the sharing economy’s pioneers and largest success stories, TaskRabbit Inc. allows users to outsource small jobs and tasks to local contractors—or, in company lingo, neighborhood “Taskers.” Launched out of Boston in 2008, TaskRabbit is just one of many tech startups that have left Boston for the San Francisco Bay Area. Since relocating to San Francisco, the company has received $37.5 million in venture funding, is available in 20 cities, and reportedly has 1.25 million users and over 25,000 Taskers. Indeed, TaskRabbit exemplifies the immeasurable benefits of strategically locating a firm in an industry cluster.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Communications, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
United States

2. Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance

Author:
John Zysman, Kenji Kushida, and Jonathan Murray
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Cloud Computing is a revolution in computing architecture, transforming not only the “where” (location) of computing, but also the “how” (the manner in which software is produced and the tools available for the automation of business processes). Cloud Computing emerged as we transitioned from an era in which underlying computing resources were both scarce and expensive to an era in which the same resources were cheap and abundant. There are many ways to implement Cloud architectures, and most people are familiar with public cloud services such as Gmail or Facebook. However, much of the impact of Cloud Computing on the economy will be driven by how large enterprises implement Cloud architectures for their own private use. Lead users are already combining private and public computing resources into new hybrid delivery models. Cloud architectures are also poised to disrupt the Information Technology (IT) industry, broadly conceived, with a new wave of commoditization. Offerings optimized for high performance in an era of scarcity are giving way to loosely coupled, elastically managed architectures making use of cheap, abundant computing resources today.
Topic:
Markets, Science and Technology, and Infrastructure

3. Building on Complimentary Assets in a Unified TCP/IP World

Author:
Martin Kenney and Timo Seppälä
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The contemporary competition in the smartphone industry is an ideal setting for studying Schumpeterian creative destruction, the role of the complementary assets, and the strategic use of technology platforms. This current creative destruction is particularly interesting because the current convergence from previously separate industries is pitting firms with differing business models from the old telecommunications world against the operating system winners of the old personal computer, and competitors from the new internet world. This paper utilizes insights from the literature on complementary assets and technology platforms to understand the completion in smartphones. This paper contributes a broadened understanding of the contemporary industry convergence occurring with Internet and cloud computing at its unifying center, and with intelligent communications devices at its edges. Furthermore, this paper extends the current academic discussion of the changes in the mobile telecommunications industry to consider the possibility that cloud computing will integrate a plethora of new devices that will include personal computers, smartphones, the internet-enabled television, and a nearly infinite number of other devices that will provide data to the cloud.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Science and Technology

4. Green growth as necessity and liability: The political economy of a low-carbon energy systems transformation in the European Union

Author:
Mark Huberty
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last decade, energy systems transformation has become the new and unheralded frontier of European deepening. Starting in 1996, the European Union mandated the liberalization and integration of national energy systems, put a price on greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, established binding targets for renewable energy adoption, mandated the breakup of state energy monopolies, and sponsored the creation of EU-level regulatory and standards-setting bodies for energy infrastructure and markets. Most recently, the Europe 2020 program has established enforceable goals for the integration, liberalization, and decarbonization of the European electricity supply system, and ambitious but aspirational targets in energy efficiency.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Markets, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Leading Without Followers: How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan's Domestic "Galapagos" ICT Sector

Author:
Kenji E. Kushida
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Despite global leadership by Japanese firms in sectors such as automobiles, precision equipment, and various high tech components, Japanese firms in the telecommunications sector have followed a persistent pattern of leading without followers. While leading the domestic market to ever-high levels of sophistication, sometimes beyond that of most other advanced industrial countries, Japanese ICT companies have retreated dramatically from international telecommunications-related markets. Moreover, in technology after technology, Japanese ICT firms invest heavily, undertake extensive R, and for network technologies, deploy infrastructure rapidly, only to find that global technological trajectories shift in a different direction. While globally successful Japanese industries were able to use their domestic market as a springboard into international markets, Japan's telecommunications sector became decoupled from global markets, trapping Japanese firms in the domestic market.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan and Israel

6. Venture Capital and Clean Technology: Opportunities and Difficulties

Author:
Martin Kenney and Andrew Hargadon
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last half - century, venture capitalists have financed many of the most important new U.S. technology-based firms and industries. Most recently, venture capital has been touted as a key investor and driver of a new clean technology future. This paper examines the characteristics of successful venture capital investing and the structure and dynamics of clean technology markets to predict whether venture capital is the best model for financing a clean technology transition. We identify the following three key characteristics of technologies and markets in which venture capital can be successfully invested. First, the firm's markets must be large and rapidly growing. Second, the firm's solutions must be scalable, with the particular characteristic that a firm's growth in revenue (and valuation) significantly outpaces the capital cost of achieving that growth. Third, there must be the potential for large and rapid payoff, as either a public stock offering or acquisition by another firm. In the U.S. clean technology market, with the exception of energy being a large market, in nearly all cases these characteristics do not hold. For these reasons, a venture capital model for funding clean technology innovation is unlikely to be successful and the imposition of venture capital goals on clean technology firms may even be harmful to their survival. The current Obama Administration's strategy of providing enormous loan guarantees to a few chosen venture capital ‐ financed firms is misguided because it is likely to truncate the chaotic business model search that characterizes the formation of new industries.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets

7. Diffusing the Cloud: Cloud Computing and Implications for Public Policy

Author:
John Zysman, Kenji E. Kushida, and Jonathan Murray
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Cloud Computing is rapidly emerging as the new information technology platform. It is, however, much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models. Cloud Computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process that information, and how they utilize computing power. It can be an engine of innovation, a platform for entrepreneurship, and driver of corporate efficiency. While an increasingly commonly term, confusion remains over what exactly constitutes Cloud Computing, how the markets are unfolding, and what forces will drive their evolution and diffusion. This paper provides an overview and conceptual tools for business leaders, policymakers, and non-specialist scholars to identify, distill, and easily understand the core aspects of how Cloud Computing service markets are developing, and how an array of policy issues will influence how this new computing platform unfolds across the world.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Science and Technology

8. Who Captures Value in Global Supply Chains?

Author:
Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö, Petri Rouvinen, Timo Seppälä, and Pekka Ylä-Anttila
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Available statistics tell us little about the economic consequences of increasing global dispersion of production processes. In order to shed light on the issue, we perform grass roots detective work to uncover the geography of value added in the case of a Nokia N95 smartphone circa 2007. The phone was assembled in Finland and China. In the case when the device was assembled and sold in Europe, the value-added share of Europe (EU-27) rose to 68%. Even in the case when it was assembled in China and sold in the United States, Europe captured as much as 51% of the value added, despite of the fact that it had rather little role in supplying the physical components. Our analysis illustrates that international trade statistics can be misleading; the capture of value added is largely detached from the physical goods flows. It is rather services and other intangible aspects of the supply chain that dominate. While final assembly – commanding 2% of the value added in our case – has increasingly moved offshore, the developed countries continue to capture most of the value added generated by global supply chains.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Finland

9. Barcode Empires: Politics, Digital Technology, and Comparative Retail Firm Strategies

Author:
Bartholomew C. Watson
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Like other service sectors, information technology has dramatically altered the growth and character of the retail trade sector in the affluent economies. Nevertheless, significant variation exists in the typical strategies of retail firms in different countries. This article explores this variation and proposes both an ideal type and an explanation. It argues that the problems of markets and hierarchies in retailing were set in motion by a series of political fights starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This demonstrates that once again that technical outcomes are not determined by the technology itself, but by social and political rules. Future technology platforms, such as e-commerce of mobile commerce, should be expected to follow similar political logics. As retailing firms spread around the globe, this has important implications for national competition policy.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, and Communications

10. Structuring the Smartphone Industry: Is the Mobile Internet OS Platform the Key?

Author:
Martin Kenney and Bryan Pon
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Until the introduction of the iPhone, cellular telephony and the Internet were essentially separate. The Internet was a PC-based service, while mobile telephony was conducted on a telephone. Though there were mobile products that provided communication services such as email, web access and other Internet services were either unavailable or inferior to those available on a PC. The “smartphone” category re defined by Apple meant the convergence of traditional mobile telephony, Internet services, and personal computing. As these sectors merge into a single device, formerly separate industry architectures and their constituent firms are being forced into direct competition. We test theories of industry architecture and technological platforms regarding their ability to explain the strategies of key entrants in navigating the transition. We analyze in detail the actions and strategies of four major competitors, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and, more briefly, Research in Motion and HP/Palm, from the framework of technological platform theory. Our analysis suggests that currently some competitors are following traditional platform strategies, but that Google and Apple appear to have adopted strategies at odds with platform literature. We examine how the dynamics of this convergence may lead to a reconsideration of certain tenets of platform theory.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Science and Technology, and Communications