In this paper we question the validity of the arguments against Turkey's membership of the EU and challenge the political wisdom of excluding Turkey from Europe. First, we argue that fundamental European values are not as uniform as they are made out to be. There are significant differences...

This paper examines the social impacts of the development of science, technology and innovation indicators. The approach deals separately with the development process and with the use of the indicators that result. Underlying the discussion is an assumption that indicators are a technology, a...

There has been a recent surge of interest in social economics and social capital. Articles on social capital that are published in the last five years constitute more than 60 percent of all articles on social capital. Research on social capital is now massive and spans sociology, economics,...

This paper examines the extent to which dependence on primary commodities in Sub-Saharan African(SSA) countries can be explained by low levels of absorptive capacity (the ability to acquire, internalize and utilize knowledge developed elsewhere). We examine the individual and combined effects of...

This paper analyzes the impact of globalization on the allocation of public and private resources for research, knowledge creation and diffusion. We argue that while the concentration of research investments remains in a relatively small number of rich countries and regions, the focus of such...

We examine three theories of caste and community using new data on social networks among residents of a south Indian village. The first theory treats individual caste groups as separated communities driven by the Brahmanical ideology of hierarchy based on purity and pollution. The second theory...

Using a large and novel data source, we study the structure of R&D collaboration net-works in the first five EU Framework Programmes (FPs). The networks display proper-ties typical for complex networks, including scale-free degree distributions and the small-world property. Structural features...

Social capital increases efficiency by reducing transaction costs, creating new forms of information exchange and by inducing change in individual attitudes. How Royal Society of London, the Media and the Private Prosecution Societies functioned in the 17th and 18th century Britain display...

This research investigates the role of social capital and government intervention in explaining the differences of innovation output and economic growth for regions of the European Union from 1990-2002. Using several measures of social capital and innovation, and the European Union’s Objective...