@techreport{Falck2007need,
abstract = {This paper discusses the role of so-called national champions within the context of the EUs ambitious goal to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic region in the world by 2010. We find football to be a useful analogy in our discussion of national champions. There are many different types of football players: veteran performers who are past their prime, young stars who have not yet developed their full potential, fans darlings, and the actual starsthe key performers. For a team to be consistently successful across time, it needs to maintain the right mix of different types of players, particularly in regard to current and future key performers. What makes a key performer a real star is not only extraordinary talent but also, and perhaps even more important, ability to be a team player and inspire others to be the same. Applying this analogy to the economic field, we come to the conclusion that the real champions in the business environment serve as network pilots within regional networks. By fostering a dynamic economic environment, they create their own rents, unlike less successful firms who concentrate on unproductive rent seeking and shifting.},
address = {Jena},
author = {Oliver Falck and Stephan Heblich},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {L52; O25; O33; P11; national champions; industrial policy; evolutionary economics; systems of innovation; Industriepolitik; Innovationspolitik; Business Network; Regionale Konzentration; Evolutions\"{o}konomik; Deutschland},
language = {eng},
number = {2007,088},
publisher = {Universit\"{a}t Jena und Max-Planck-Institut f\"{u}r \"{O}konomik},
title = {Do we need national champions?: if so, do we need a champions-related industrial policy? ; an evolutionary perspective},
type = {Jena economic research papers},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/25655},
year = {2007}
}
