Inefficiency and common property regimes

Much of the literature on the commons focuses on the fact that many agents are assigned usage rights simultaneously, but less attention has been paid to the exercise of exclusion rights. The simultaneous exercise of one of the two rights by all the owners of a common causes a problem of overexploitation in the first case (competition “in use”) and underuse in the second (competition “in exclusion”). The relevance of both inefficiencies stems from the way they illustrate the general conflict between individual and collective interests. This paper proposes a formal synthesis of the problems of inefficiency associated with the exploitation of resources in common property regimes. The synthesis takes into account the following features: i) the importance of the consumer surplus for the analysis of the issue; ii) the attitude of economic agents in the face of a reciprocal externality linked to the exploitation of the common; and iii) the social and the private costs of exploitation.     

Institutions and environmental governance: A reconceptualization

This article presents the conceptual revisions needed to extend the new institutional approach to environmental governance from its current local and international domains of application to all governance solutions, including national environmental and natural resource use policies and multi-level governance solutions that are increasingly used to address global environmental change. The article suggests that environmental governance is best understood as the establishment, reaffirmation or change of institutions to resolve conflicts over environmental resources. It also explains why the choice of these institutions is a matter of social justice rather than of efficiency. The article suggests a way to understand formal and state-centered governance solutions as forms of collective ownership not unlike common property. The article demonstrates how institutional analysis can gain resolution by looking at the functional and structural tiers, organization of governance functions, and formulation of key institutional rules as key aspects of the design of governance institutions.     

The commons,common property,and environmental policy

The conceptual confusion among property, common property, open access resources, and the tragedy of the commons is identified and rectified. Property rights are defined and clarified. From that it is possible to understand the traditional confusion between open access resources and common property resources. It is urged that common property regimes be used in place of common property resources. This will emphasize that institutional arrangements are human creations and that natural resources can be managed as private property, as common property, or as state property. It is the property regime — an authority system — that indicates the rules of use of a variety of natural resources.     

Participatory institutions: The context of common and private property resources

Participation is the initiation and continuance of an active process by which beneficiary groups influence the direction and execution of development activity. In the context of resource management participatory institutions often present an alternative when the market and/or the state fail to maintain resource stocks at desirable levels. This paper presents two case-studies of the emergence of participatory institutions and builds up analytical models that explain the process of their evolution in an inter-temporal framework.It is shown that the evolution, sustenance and replication of participation and its impact on levels of resource conservation depends on (a) the nature of the links between common and private property resources, (b) the possibility of taking advantage of scale economies, and finally (c) the distributional rules and arrangements.     

Open access,common property and scarcity rent in fisheries

Open access resources are frequently not managed efficiently, resulting in falling stock levels and a declining income for fishermen. In the late 1970's, the policy response to this problem was the implementation of 200-mile fishing zones, which enabled the European Union to formulate and implement the Common Fisheries Policy, aimed at (among other things) conservation and distribution of available stocks. In Germany, this shift from an open access regime towards a common property regime had favourable outcomes. The trend of falling prices was reversed. The conclusion was that intertemporal efficiency had increased as a result of (inter)governmental policy. Apparently, a wedge was formed between price and marginal harvesting costs, implying that scarcity rent had returned as a component of prices.     

Intellectual property rights, technology transfer and exports in developing countries

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer through licensing as its mode of supplying the Southern market, based on local IPR policy. Given this decision, the North and South firms engage in Cournot competition in both markets. We find that stronger IPR would enhance technology transfer through licensing and reduce the South firm's marginal production cost, thereby increasing its exports. Welfare in the South would rise (fall) if that country has high (low) absorptive capacity. Excessively strong IPR diminish competition and welfare, however. Adding foreign direct investment as an additional channel of technology transfer sustains these basic messages.     

Economic growth,financial crisis,and property rights: observer bias in perception-based measures

Recent years have seen an increasing number of empirical papers using subjective indicators in cross-country quantitative analyses of growth. We evaluate potential observer biases in the three most commonly employed subjective measures of property rights – taken from the Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute, and World Economic Forum. Drawing on cross-national data for 156 countries during the years 2000 – 2010, we use Granger causality tests to assess whether exposure to recent information on economic performance introduces bias to coding of property rights scores. Further, we evaluate whether the Great Recession led observers to change property rights scores in advanced nations. We find consistent evidence that observers who provide subjective coding of property rights scores rated nations more positively when their economic performance was positive, and more negatively during the recent global financial crisis. Taken together, our findings suggest that coding of commonly employed property rights measures are subject to substantial observer bias.     

Intellectual property governance and knowledge creation in UK universities

The public discourse advocating increased patenting of academic discoveries, which has led to the approval of legislative measures (such as the Bayh–Dole Act, which is now adopted world-wide in various forms) is based on a set of theoretical arguments, mainly related to knowledge transfer and financial reward. Using an original survey of 46 universities (about 27%) in the UK, we investigate whether some of these arguments are supported by evidence. We focus on the extent to which patents, as opposed to other forms of intellectual property (IP) protection mechanisms, enhance knowledge circulation, and especially contribute to universities’ own knowledge creation processes. We also investigate whether universities consider the markets for ideas and creative expressions to function efficiently. We find that universities use all forms of IP intensively in order to transfer their knowledge to the industry or the government. However, they mainly rely on non-proprietary IP (open-source and no-patent strategies) when aiming to enhance their own knowledge-creation processes. Also, universities do not find that markets for patents or copyrights function more smoothly than non-proprietary IP marketplaces. The results challenge the orthodox theories on the rationales for patents and other proprietary IP rights. Thus, we question the assumptions and arguments underpinning the implementation of patents on academic research outcomes via political reforms since the 1980s.     

The role of contracts and intellectual property rights in open innovation

Our exploratory empirical study, based on interviews and a survey of firms, addresses a number of questions on the role of formal contracts and intellectual property rights (IPR) in the context of firm-to-firm open innovation (OI). We find that firms active in OI have a very strong preference for the governance of their OI relationships with other firms through formal contracts. Also, despite the open nature of OI, firms still see IPR as highly relevant to the protection of their innovative capabilities. We find the degree of openness of firms, their formal legal attitude, and the competitive dynamics of their product market environment to be related to the preference of OI firms for IPR. Furthermore, the strength of firms’ internal R&D capabilities increases the positive relationship between openness and the preference for IPR.     

International intellectual property rights: Effects on growth, welfare and income inequality

What are the effects of strengthening developing countries’ protection for intellectual property rights on economic growth and income inequality in the global economy? To analyze this question, we develop a two-country R&;D-based growth model with wealth heterogeneity. In this growth-theoretic framework, we show that strengthening patent protection in either country increases economic growth and income inequality in both countries. Furthermore, we derive the Nash equilibrium level of patent breadth and find that it is sub-optimally low relative to globally optimal patent breadth due to the positive externality effects that are captured by a spillover parameter.     

Did the Invisible Hand Need a Regulatory Glove to Develop a Green Thumb? Some Historical Perspective on Market Incentives,Win-Win Innovations and the Porter Hypothesis

The idea that properly designed environmental regulations can improve a firm’s competitiveness while simultaneously contributing to a cleaner environment through the development of so-called ‘win-win’ innovations (i.e., that reduce environmental damage while simultaneously increasing profits) is usually credited to Porter (1991). Numerous studies have since attempted to assess the validity of the concept, with mixed results. This paper contributes to this debate by surveying a nearly forgotten body of literature written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that discussed the impact of market incentives on the development of valuable by-products out of industrial waste. Based on the opinions held by several industrial chemists, engineers, technical journalists and economists, the development of ‘win-win’ manufacturing practices seems to have been primarily the result of the profit motive, although actual or potential legal actions based on private property rights and/or government regulations occasionally triggered this process. After reviewing some important historical writings on the latter issue, a suggestion is made that perhaps the best way to craft ‘well-designed’ environmental regulations is to return to a private property rights approach to mitigating pollution problems whenever possible.      

China's emerging market for property rights: Theoretical and empirical perspectives1

his paper contrasts state–directed and market–mediated reform of enterprise ownership rights in transition economies. We evaluate China's emerging market for enterprise ownership rights from the perspective of conditions underpinning the Coase Theorem: the assignment of property rights, the degree of competition, and the nature of transaction costs. China's recent experience suggests that policies designed to expand and support the scope of decentralized, market–based restructuring of ownership rights, even under conditions that deviate widely from the ideal assumptions underlying the Coase Theorem, may prove more beneficial than direct official intervention. JEL classification: G34, K11, L1 and P3.     

制度变迁中土地产权的性质与合约选择:一个有关合作经济的案例分析

This paper discusses an evolutionary process of rural collective property rights or agricultural cooperation economy in detail. We convince that both the evolution of the household contract system and the rural cooperation economy in the market elaborate the key position of property rights’ multi-attribute in the formation of contract structure and organization shape. If there were strong externality between several elements of household, the collective property rights should be chosen. __________ Translated from Guanli Shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2008, (6): 61–67, 94     

Dynamics between energy,output, openness and financial development in sub-Saharan African countries

This study aims to establish the connection between energy use, economic output, financial development and trade, based on the panel data of 15 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries during the period from 1983 to 2010. One full main panel and two subpanels were created by incorporating low-income and middle-income countries. The panel cointegration test results indicate a long-run relationship between the variables. The mean group (MG) estimators show that energy consumption, financial development, capital and international trade have significant impacts on economic output. In the case of middle-income countries, the Granger causality analysis reveals that rising economic output leads to higher energy consumption, but this is not true vice versa. This means that energy conservation measures are unlikely to have adverse impacts upon economic output. On the other hand, there is a complementary relationship between financial development and energy consumption. In this case, energy conservation measures should be critically analysed and implemented, so as not to have an unfavourable impact on financial development. In regard to low-income economies, there is no relationship between energy use and any of the other variables mentioned. Thus, a reduction in energy consumption has little or no significant impact on output, financial development, capital and trade.     

Land transfer in rural China: incentives,influencing factors and income effects

ABSTRACT

Land transfer incentives and their effect on farmers’ income in developing countries have been widely examined in the literate, but little is known about the driving mechanism of rural household income effect during land transfer. To fill in this gap, this paper explains the incentives of land transfer, analyses the influencing factors of farmers’ decision on land transfer, then measures the income effects of land transfer and identifies the main sources of income effects, utilizing open-access data collected through the China Family Panel Studies. The empirical results show that land flow out or in is beneficial to raise farmers’ income, indicating that the income effects have a positive feedback to farmers’ decision on land transfer. Further analyses reveal that land flow-out farmers and land flow-in farmers have different main sources of income growth. Our finding suggest that optimizing the incentive role of China’s existing rural land property system can help orderly flow of rural land resources, which subsequently increases rural household income.     

Strategic human resource management for university-industry collaborations in Korea: financial incentives for academic faculty and employment security of industry liaison offices

In an attempt to understand why some universities achieve better outcomes from university-industry collaborations, this study adopts the perspective of strategic human resource management that emphasises the congruence between the university strategic orientation and the human resource practices. Based on a large-scale survey of universities in Korea, this study suggests that the human resource management practices of providing incentive compensation to academic faculty, and the employment security and size of human resources in the industry liaison offices significantly contribute to the university-industry collaboration performance, such as the number of registered patents, licensing revenue of intellectual property, and the integrated collaboration revenue.     

股权换技术:动因、问题与对策

股权换技术是指通过向外资出售部分股权以引进所需要的先进技术,是跨国公司战略性进入我国市场、国有企业改革以及实现技术赶超的综合结果.但是,股权换技术本身所存在的许多问题导致目标难以实现;以少儋数股权难以换取先进技术,而如果出让多数股权,则会远离自主创新区域;跨国公司还会考虑是否会使所投资公司与本公司形成竞争;我国企业还可能形成对跨国公司的技术依赖;国有企业改革中存在的非理性因素也会使股权换技术目标异化.为正确实施股权换技术,必须明确指导思想,完善模式,减少非理性因素并形成鼓励国内资本进入的产业政策.     

知识产权保护、技术差距与发展中国家的技术进步

本文基于南北技术扩散的分析框架探讨了发展中国家的知识产权保护、技术差距对发展中国家技术进步的影响.不同于以往研究,本文假定发展中国家同时进行自主创新和国外先进技术模仿,其知识产权保护在鼓励自主创新和国外技术模仿的两难中权衡取舍.理论分析结果显示发展中国家的知识产权保护、技术差距都对其技术进步都有重要影响.实证检验结果表明,我国当前的技术进步主要依赖于对国外先进技术的模仿,自主创新的技术进步效应不显著.因此现阶段鼓励国外技术模仿的宽松的知识产权保护政策有利于促进我国的技术进步,但随着我国与发达国家的技术差距不断缩小,自主创新能力不断提升,实行严格的知识产权保护将会有利于促进我国的技术进步.     

Foreign investments in real estate,economic growth and property prices: evidence from OECD countries

The last two decades have witnessed a growth in foreign direct investments (FDI) in the real estate sector in most of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries. It is argued that FDI in the real estate sector may improve economic growth in recipient economies. On the other hand, property prices have increased considerably in OECD countries in recent years and some argue that FDI in real estate is one of the driving forces of high property prices in these countries. The purpose of this study is to analyze the interrelationship between FDI in the real estate sector, economic growth, and property prices while controlling for interest rate and inflation. We use observations from a set of OECD countries for the period between 1995 and 2008. The dynamic interrelationship is analyzed by applying a panel cointegration technique. Our empirical results show that FDI in real estate do not cause property price appreciations and also do not contribute to economic growth in OECD countries in the short run and the long run.