Session 2010-11

Professors Appointed to Competition Appeal Tribunal

Competition Minister Edward Davey announced on the 7^th January 2011that Professor Gavin C Reid (Founder/Director of the Centre for Research into Industry, Enterprise, Finance and the Firm, CRIEFF) and Emeritus Professor John Beath (Secretary-General, Royal Economic Society), both of the School of Economics & Finance, have been appointed as Members of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). Professor Reid is an industrial organization specialist, who works in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and corporate finance. Emeritus Professor John Beath is an applied micro-economist with specialisation in knowledge transfer and taxation policy.

This body of fourteen Members hears and decides appeals and claims arising from competition and economic regulation in the UK. The CAT uses a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing on expertise in economics, law, accounting, business, and cognate fields.

In announcing the fourteen new Members, Edward Davey, who himself was trained as an economist at Oxford University and Birkbeck, University of London, said ‘The Members I am appointing today represent a range of expertise gained at the highest levels of business, academia, the law and other fields. They will help ensure the continued authority and effectiveness of the Tribunal’.

The other economists appointed today were Professor Colin Mayer (Professor of Finance, and Dean of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford) and Dermot Glynn (Chairman of Europe Economics, and formerly Economic Director of the Confederation of British Industry, CBI).

Economists who have previously held positions in the CAT include: Professor Andrew Bain (Glasgow), a specialist in macroeconomics, money & banking, and financial services; Professor John Pickering (Bath) a specialist in industrial organization and business strategy; and Professor Paul Stoneman (Warwick), a specialist in innovation, productivity and technical change.

St Andrews has been influential in this area, as Professor Peter Grinyer and Dr Adam Scott were founding Members of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in 2003, and continue to play a role in CAT.

Peter Grinyer is now Emeritus Professor in the School of Management, and is a business strategist (formerly on the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal) who has also held appointments in City University, London, the Stern School of Business, New York, and Imperial College London.

Adam Scott OBE is now Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Management, having had a long career at the senior level with BT (including Director of International Affairs, and Chairman of Apparatus Supply). He is a barrister who also holds a doctorate in management; and he has specialised interests in EU and UK competition and communications law.

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=417337&NewsAreaID=2

Honorary Degree for Professor Gavin Reid, Director of CRIEFF

At the graduation ceremony of Friday 26^th November 2010, Professor Gavin C Reid was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) by the University of Abertay Dundee for his research work in business economics.

The Laureation was read by Professor Nicholas Terry, Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abertay Dundee. This made reference to Gavin Reid as ‘one of a small group of highly respected academic economists who have successfully applied a rigorous approach to identifying and analysing problems with real world meaning for the practices and behaviour of business firms’. It continued that Gavin Reid had also ‘built a formidable reputation as a scholar contributing to the proper understanding of economic growth in Scotland’s economy with its preponderance of small-to-medium sized business enterprises’.

Past recipients of honorary degrees from the University of Abertay Dundee include the economist Professor Robin C O Matthews, the business strategist Professor Coimbatore K Prahalad, and other notable public figures, such as Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Lord David Puttnam, Professor John Sizer, Professor Sheila McLean, Professor Tom Devine, Craig Brown, Kirsty Wark, Midge Ure, Sir Michael Bonallack, Brian Souter, Ian Rankin, Professor Sir Graham Hills, Professor Sir John Shaw, Baroness Helena Kennedy, and Professor Sir Philip Cohen.

What do we know about Enterprise?

Professor Gavin C. Reid, Director of CRIEFF, delivered the Keynote Address to the international conference on Solutions in Enterprise at King's College, University of Aberdeen, in the Linklater Room, on the 30th September 2010. The theme for this two-day event was 'Co-operatives, mutuals and employee-owned business in a global context'. The event was sponsored by the Scottish Programme for Entrepreneurship, and was a knowledge transfer partnership between the University of Aberdeen and the Co-operative Educational Trust in Scotland. The Keynote Address was entitled 'What do we Know About Enterprise?' and was introduced by the Principal of the University, Professor Ian Diamond.

Session 2009-10

Paperback Book Launch

On the 10^th September 2010 a paperback book launch was held in Upper College Hall, St Salvator’s College Quadrangle, University of St Andrews. It was to celebrate the simultaneous launch of two books authored by Prof Gavin C. Reid, Director of CRIEFF, in new paperback editions with Routledge publishers. These books are both research volumes based on numerous projects run from CRIEFF over many years. Sponsors for these works include: Leverhulme Trust, Carnegie Trust, CIMA Research Foundation, Nuffield Foundations, British Academy, MRSH University of Caen, Enterprise Ireland, ESRC. The books are: The Foundations of Small Business Enterprise: an entrepreneurial analysis of small firm inception and growth by Gavin C Reid; and Risk Appraisal and Venture Capital in High Technology New Ventures by Gavin C Reid and Julia A Smith. Both books have been well reviewed. About seventy people attended, including academics, administrative and support staff, family, friends, neighbours, and representatives from the press and the business community.

Profitability Dynamics of Indian Firms: Distinguished Paper Award

The Academy of Management has conferred a Distinguished Paper Award on Arnab Bhattacharjee for his paper ‘The Profitability Dynamics of Indian Firms’ (jointly with Sumit Majumdar, University of Texas at Dallas). This paper was presented at the 2010 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Montréal, Canada. It is currently under revision for Organization Science.

This paper examines the determinants of profitability of Indian firms in the important periods 1980-81 to 1995-96. It assesses the relative importance of firm and industry effects on corporate profitability, after accounting for business unit, business group and time effects. It then evaluates how the balance between these effects has changed, as the regime of control and regulation (pre-1985), gave way, first, to partial liberalization (1985-1991) and then, second, to thoroughgoing liberalization (post-1991). The paper finds, on the one hand, that firm effects were significant in all periods. Thus, throughout, rent seeking opportunities proliferated, as well as the scope for strategic decisions, which developed as increased competition was brought about by policy-induced institutional change. The paper finds that these firm effects have become more pronounced over time. On the other hand, while the industry effect always matters (statistically speaking) it is significantly larger after the comprehensive liberalization period (i.e. post-1991), compared to previous periods.

This suggests that choice of industry matters for commercial success within Indian competitive markets. Strategically, it’s not just what you choose to do; it’s also where you choose to do it. To illustrate, for the Indian entrepreneur, it’s not just a matter of ‘how do I make money in biotech?’ It’s also a matter of ‘should I be in biotech or in digital media?’

Research Funding for IPO project

Morten Dyrmose, a second year PhD students affiliated to CRIEFF has raised research monies to the tune of £4400, to help him to pursue his research into the under-pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the main stock markets of the world.

Under the supervision of Professor Gavin Reid, he is undertaking a cross-country econometric analysis of this phenomenon, with an emphasis on both economic factors like scale of markets, and institutional factors, like transparency and extent of regulation. He finds that the greatest anomalies on IPOs are in Russia, India and China and intends to supplement his statistical and econometric work with case studies of these countries. As well as helping him to undertake his econometric work, this funding will also facilitate necessary field work in these three countries.

The funding sources for this research work are: the Allan & Nesta Ferguson Trust (£3400); the Gilchrist Educational Trust (£500); and the Thomas and Margaret Roddan Trust (£500).

Multinational Enterprise and Foreign Direct Investment

Dr Ioannis-Dionysios Salavrakos, University of Ioannina, will be an academic visitor to CRIEFF for all August 2010, working on multinational enterprise and foreign direct investment. Dr Salavrakos graduated with a PhD on 'Strategy of Joint Ventures' from St Andrews Economics Department in 1997.

Outreach on Scottish high-tech enterprises

Professor Gavin Reid (Director, CRIEFF) explains ”High Tech”. Published in “St Andrews in Focus”, Issues 36, September/October 2009

Session 2008-09

Horowitz Foundation Award to Nicola Searle

Nicola Searle has received the sum of $ 5, 000 and the Martin Nijhoff Award from The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy. Nicola is a PhD student and scholar in CRIEFF, School of Economics & Finance. The award is to assist her in conducting research into economic espionage. It investigates ways of valuing trade secrets, and their role in the prosecution process when theft is suspected. She is supervised by Professor Gavin Reid (Director, CRIEFF) and Professor David Ulph.

GCR 18.06.2009.

Taxation in Scotland

An expert group have declared that the Scottish Parliament should take greater control over taxes to make MSPs more accountable for their actions.

"The report is saying that total fiscal autonomy may have some downsides, but that doesn't mean that greater degrees of fiscal autonomy may not be more desirable," said Professor David Ulph, head of the school of economics at St Andrews University and a member of the group.

Scotland on Sunday, 16 November 2008, “Calman

advisers back new tax powers for Scottish Parliament

”, By Tom Peterkin