Competition and Conflict in the U.S. Atlantic Coast Menhaden Industry

Abstract . Fluctuations in the harvest of menhaden off the U.S. Atlantic coast, a common property resource, have caused competition and conflict among the small number of companies, two large and several small, which operate in the fishery. With no strong central management, the resource is not being exploited to the optimum and increased fishing pressure and effort bring, cyclically, a peak catch followed by contraction in catch and industry. The industry, state agencies and federal offices disagree on corrective measures. Restriction of the fall harvest off the North Carolina coast to replenish the stock would call for an extraordinary sacrifice by the North Carolina industry—costing it between $4.4 and $6.8 million to provide increases between $6.6 million and $8.4 million in gross revenues for the rest of the industry from Maine to Florida. This raises problems of equitable sharing of the burden. A bioeconomic computer model quantifies short and long run impacts that must be faced.     

The impact of old technologies on innovation: the case of the US biotechnology industry

This paper investigates the implications of a technology sourcing strategy maintaining a focus on the rediscovery of old technologies. Specifically, we study the different impact exerted by old technological solutions, distinguished on the basis of their organisational and industrial origins, on the innovation value. We develop a set of hypotheses about the impact exerted by four distinct types of old technological solutions (firm core technological heritage, firm lateral technological heritage, competitors’ technological heritage and others’ technological heritage) and test them on a sample of 1189 biotechnology patents registered at the US Patent and Trademark Office from 1979 to 2002. Results strongly support our hypotheses, revealing that: (1) using both firm core technological heritage and others’ technological heritage has an inverted U-shaped effect on innovation value; (2) employing firm lateral technological heritage is positively related to innovation value; (3) a negative relationship occurs between competitors’ core technological heritage and the value of subsequent innovations.     

Valuing externalities from energy infrastructures through stated preferences: a geographically stratified sampling approach

The externalities produced by high-voltage transmission lines are multidimensional, may strongly depend on the local context, and are thus difficult to capture through standard environmental valuation exercises. We experiment a GIS approach to design a geographically stratified contingent valuation sample of the population resident in infrastructure corridors in a whole region. We estimate, by means of a binary choice logit model, the perceived marginal damage from impacts of power lines on human health, the landscape and the environment. Specific treatment is given to qualitatively different forms of impact, namely real estate depreciation versus diffused perception of damage, arising at different distances from the lines. The set of GIS-based variables (proximity to power lines, presence of other infrastructure, endowment of natural and built heritage and other local context variables) prove to be significant predictors in the utility function of resident households. Finally, we compute simulated values that combine information on individual’s willingness to pay, population density and the dimension of the considered corridor around the infrastructure, so as to generalize the outcomes of case-specific studies for use in policy choices such as infrastructure localization, undergrounding and negotiation of compensations.