Spillover feedback loops and strategic complements in R&D

This paper studies, in a two‐period model, the effects of knowledge spillovers among product market competitors on R&D levels. It argues that when firms' R&D decisions are strategic complements, in industries in which spillovers increase the marginal productivity of a firm's R&D, both incoming and outgoing spillovers spur R&D in equilibrium. Outgoing spillovers can foster innovation even in a homogeneous‐product industry. In these industries, the intellectual property law should be such that facilitates knowledge diffusion. If firms have power in deciding the level of knowledge spillovers, we show that a firm will choose to disclose its knowledge to its product market competitors.     

With whom do you trade? Defensive innovation and the skill‐bias

Abstract We examine whether increased trade with countries with ineffective protection of intellectual property has contributed to the skill‐deepening of the 1980s. We construct an index of effective protection of intellectual property at the country level, combining data on protection of patents and rule of law. Next, we construct an industry‐specific version of this index, using as weights each country's trade share in the total trade of the industry. We find a decline in this trade‐weighted index, owing to a rise in trade with countries with low effective protection of intellectual property, which explains 29% of the rise in within‐industry skill‐intensity.     

MARKET REACTIONS TO THE PASSAGE OF THE FINANCIAL HOLDING COMPANY ACT IN TAIWAN

Abstract. We examine how financial institutions react to various events surrounding the passage of Taiwan's Financial Holding Company Act in June 2001. Empirical results indicate that the financial system experiences significant abnormal returns along the legislative process. Smaller firms have significantly higher abnormal returns, thus lending no support for the hypothesis that larger firms benefit more from the Act. Further analysis shows that the significance of market value is replaced by a significant securities industry effect, thereby consistent with the observation that Taiwan's securities firms are generally smaller in market values and are potential target firms for financial holding companies.     

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.     

Globalization, intellectual property, and economic prosperity

Innovation and the adoption of new ideas is fundamental to economic progress, and so is free trade of goods and services. Here we examine the underlying economics of the market for ideas and its implications for trade. From a positive perspective, we examine how such markets function and how international trade interact with them. From a normative perspective, we examine the pitfalls of current intellectual property regulations, and how might they be improved. We highlight recent research by ourselves and others challenging the notion that government awards of monopoly through patents and copyright are "the way" to provide appropriate incentives for innovation. JEL Classification: X15, X16 This article is based on the text of the SER Invited Lecture delivered by Michele Boldrin at the 2003 Simposio de Análisis Económico (Seville). We thank National Science Foundation Grants SES 01-14147 and 03-14713 for financial support. Corresponding author: Michele Boldrin     

CLASSIFICATION PROBLEMS AND THE DIVIDING LINE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND THE MARKET: AN EXAMINATION OF NHS FOUNDATION TRUST CLASSIFICATION IN THE UK

ABSTRACT: In this paper we argue that national accounting categories provide an inadequate basis for evaluating differences between public and private sector services. This is because accounting categories rely on economic concepts such as market price but do not take account of substantive public policy goals such as universality. The argument has important consequences for the structures and systems of delivery especially where nonprofit providers and social enterprise models are substituted for public bodies formerly integrated into the government's delivery system. Using an example taken from the UK's National Health Service, we show that the mechanisms for ensuring universality through redistribution are not sufficiently taken into account for classification purposes.     

我国知识产权保护中的企业与政府行为分析

文章以知识产权得到有效保护时计算机软件的价格和产量为比较标准,分析了我国知识产权保护中的企业与政府行为及其后果。文章得出结论认为:与知识产权完全实施时相比较,侵犯知识产权的行为不仅降低了国内类型软件产量,提高国内软件的价格,而且也降低了国外软件开发商在中国市场的利润,而这正是发达国家与我国在与贸易相关的知识产权问题上存在摩擦的主要原因。从短期静态利益考虑,地方政府在追求社会福利最大化时,零查处概率是最佳选择。政府查处盗版的最优概率是查处侵犯知识产权的边际收益等于边际成本时的概率,盗版现象虽不可能被完全杜绝,但却可以被控制在一定的范围和程度内。     

OPTIONS TO THE REALM: A COST NEUTRAL PROPOSAL TO IMPROVE POLITICAL INCENTIVES

In this article, we draw on the literature on political property rights, political accountability, and strategic management and entrepreneurship to propose a cost neutral reform aimed at promoting long‐run economic prosperity. We propose replacing politicians' defined benefit pensions with a financial contract that is tied to economic performance. In particular, we propose a contract that pays out a lump sum to a politician 30 years after their election if real gross domestic product per capita is above some preset benchmark. Furthermore, we show that the contract can be priced such that it is cost neutral in terms of present value with a defined‐benefit pension. We argue that this contract provides a net benefit to society. (JEL D70, D72)     

EFFICIENCY AND BARGAINING POWER IN THE INTERBANK LOAN MARKET

Using detailed transactions‐level data on interbank loans, we examine the efficiency of an overnight interbank lending market and the bargaining power of its participants. Our analysis relies on the equilibrium concept of the core, which imposes a set of no‐arbitrage conditions on trades in the market. For Canada's Large Value Transfer System, we show that although the market is fairly efficient, systemic inefficiency persists throughout our sample. The level of inefficiency matches distinct phases of both the Bank of Canada's operations as well as phases of the 2007–8 financial crisis. We find that bargaining power tilted sharply toward borrowers as the financial crisis progressed and (surprisingly) toward riskier borrowers.     

知识产权保护的技术创新效应——基于技术交易市场视角和省级面板数据的实证分析

文章利用1997-2008年省级面板数据,以技术市场成交额占当地GDP的比重来衡量地区知识产权保护水平,采用系统广义矩估计和门槛回归方法实证分析了知识产权保护对技术创新的影响。研究结果表明,加强知识产权保护能够显著促进技术创新;知识产权保护与研发物质资本和人力资本投入之间分别具有互补性和替代性;我国大部分地区已经跨越了知识产权保护水平的门槛值,加强知识产权保护不会阻碍技术创新。因此,要提高我国的自主创新能力,进一步加强知识产权保护不容懈怠。     

科技企业孵化器知识产权服务升级影响因素及优化建议

知识产权服务升级对孵化器服务总效能提升具有重要影响,但当前关于孵化器知识产权服务升级影响因素的研究还较为匮乏。从新创企业和孵化器两个维度,解构孵化器知识产权服务升级的影响因素,并运用logistic模型进行分析。结果表明,企业维的人力质量、产权意识、企业家精神、创新潜能,以及孵化器维的规划设计、信息挖掘、〖JP〗网络支持、服务平台、政策支持等对孵化器知识产权服务升级影响显著。     

纺织企业技术创新项目风险识别研究

在中国最大的纺织工业中心之一绍兴,通过对21家纺织企业51个项目进行调查研究,识别出纺织企业技术创新项目在市场和技术特征等2个维度存在9个关键风险,其中市场维度的关键风险有：＂市场规模＂、＂市场竞争环境＂和＂客户需求变动＂等;技术特征维度的关键风险有：＂技术成熟度＂、＂引进技术或设备的价值＂、＂内部相关技术人员状况＂、＂企业技术开发速度＂、＂项目的技术复杂程度＂、以及＂对外部技术的依赖性＂等。在识别关键风险之后,提出了纺织企业技术创新风险防范的若干建议。在市场风险方面,企业要充分做好市场营销的各项工作;面对竞争者,企业要做好创新成果的知识产权申报;针对顾客需求的多变,企业可设市场情报部门主动了解市场动向和顾客需求变动;在技术风险方面,企业要系统地分析自身的技术不足,可以通过合作创新等方式有效减少创新的风险。     

Negotiation over Intellectual Property Rights Protection in a Mixed Market

This article models a North–South negotiation under a mixed oligopolistic setting where a public firm in the South and a private firm from the North compete in the southern market. The southern firm is a public one whose objective is a weighted sum of the South's social welfare and its own profit, whereas the northern firm is a pure profit maximizer. The North provides a quid pro quo in exchange for the strengthening of the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the South. We show that when the northern and southern firms engage in quantity competition in the southern market, the southern government's optimal choice is either complete protection or complete violation. We show this to depend on the southern government's valuation of the quid pro quo. Moreover, strengthening IPR protection will deepen the privatization process in the South, though it brings about a social welfare loss to the South.     

Intellectual Property Rights and Entry into a Foreign Market: FDI versus Joint Ventures

We study the effect of the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime of a host country (South) on a multinational's decision between serving a market via greenfield foreign direct investment to avoid the exposure of its technology or a North–South joint venture (JV) with a local firm, which allows R&D spillovers under imperfect IPRs. JV is the equilibrium market structure when R&D intensity is moderate and IPRs strong. The South can gain from increased IPR protection because it encourages a JV, whereas policies to limit foreign ownership in a JV gain importance in technology‐intensive industries as complementary policies to strong IPRs.     

WTO与中国企业专利发展战略

WTO以贸易为中心,在全球范围内将货物贸易、服务贸易与知识产权紧密地联系在一起,从而实现了专利保护全球化,知识经济时代知识产权成为了企业生存发展的核心问题,企业的生产、经营、管理都必须以知识产权为中心进行战略定位。专利是市场经济下的一种合法垄断,专利就是市场,要积极发挥专利技术的市场效用。加入WTO以后,中国市场成为了全球市场,中国企业必须立足发展中国家的现实,积极进行战略布局,才能在与跨国公司的竞争中生存和发展。专利战略已成为中国企业实施可持续发展的战略选择,成为了中国企业开展市场竞争的战略重点,也是中国企业进行对外贸易的战略举措。     

Private patent protection in the theory of Schumpeterian growth

We develop a Schumpeterian growth model with privately optimal intellectual property rights (IPRs) enforcement and investigate the implications for intellectual property and R&D policies. In our setting, successful innovators undertake costly rent protection activities (RPAs) to enforce their patents. RPAs deter innovators who seek to discover higher quality products and thereby replace the patent holder. RPAs also deter imitators who seek to capture a portion of the monopoly market by imitating the patent holder's product. We investigate the role of private IPR protection by considering the impact of subsidies to RPAs on economic growth and welfare. We find that a larger RPA subsidy raises the innovation rate if and only if the ease of imitation is above a certain level. With regards to welfare, we find that depending on the parameters it may be optimal to tax or subsidize RPAs. Thus a prohibitively high taxation of RPAs is not necessarily optimal. We also show that the presence of imitation strengthens the case for subsidizing R&D.     

UK's stock market reaction to Brexit process: A tale of two halves

We examine the UK's stock market reaction to 27 events associated with the likelihood of Brexit. Though the overall market reactions to these events is negative, a dissection of these events into the pre and post Brexit referendum events unearth interesting facts. In particular, we find that the market reaction is negative and significant to the events leading up to and including the announcement of Brexit results. This negative reaction is not confined to the day of announcement of the outcome of Brexit referendum only rather it spans over the events that enhanced the likelihood of the Brexit in the pre-Brexit referendum period. However, our results show a positive market reaction to events that occurred after the Brexit referendum. These findings suggest that initially market reacted negatively to the Brexit; however, as the UK's future economic relations with EU started to take a shape, the market started to see the positive side of Brexit. Consistent with this notion, our cross-sectional analysis shows a positive market reaction for the firms that are engaged in foreign sales and that much of the negative market's reaction relates to the firms that openly stated the negative effect of Brexit on their operations. Finally, we do not find evidence of market reaction to UK firms depending on European labor force; however, we do find significantly positive stock market reaction to the firms involved more in international trade. An important caveat of our study is that our reported results are sensitive to the choice of market index.     

MARKET DISCIPLINING OF THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES' SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENTS

In this article, we contribute to the current literature on market disciplining of the sovereign governments of the developing countries by distinguishing both sides of the market discipline hypothesis by adopting three‐stage least square estimation to incorporate the contemporaneous feedback effects between primary structural budget balances and the country's default‐risk premiums. We provide empirical evidence of a unidirectional causal relationship between a country's default‐risk premium and primary structural budget balances with the direction flowing from primary structural budget balances to country's risk premium in 40 developing countries over the period 1975–2008. We also employ the Arellano‐Bond dynamic panel generalized methods of moments estimation to control for this joint determination of primary structural budget balances and the country's default‐risk premium, and find supportive evidence of undisciplined sovereign governments and of nonlinearly behaving well‐functioning financial markets in the sample countries. (JEL C5, G1, G3)     

Strategic Interaction amongst Australia's East Coast Ports

Australia's principal container ports, located in its state capitals, are owned and operated by state authorities that largely return profits from port operations to state governments. Since they govern the volumes of trade in most merchandise, they command immense influence over the openness and flexibility of the national economy. In this study, we estimate the elasticities of substitution between container services of ports in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. We also examine the pricing of port services to estimate the extent of their interaction, from which we derive conjectural variations parameters to assess the actual and potential levels of price collusion. The results confirm the conventional wisdom that the degree of substitution between the major east coast ports is small. While this highlights the possibility that these ports possess substantial market power, actual mark ups are considerably smaller than the predicted mark ups, suggesting that the ports' localised monopoly power is constrained by factors other than price competition.     

SPEED AND SEQUENCING OF MARKET REFORMS: THE CASE OF BANKING IN LATVIA

After gaining its independence from the former Soviet Union, Latvia's banking sector initiated free market reforms. Initially, severál apparent disequilibria existed in the market for banking services. This paper reports on the processes that generated these disequilibria as well as on the events that transpired as the market approached equilibria over time.