THE USE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND INNOVATION BY MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN CANADA

The objective of the paper is to determine how the utilisation of intellectual property rights (IPRs) by Canadian manufacturing firms is related to their characteristics, activities, competitive strategies and industry sector in which they operate. The principal source of information used in this endeavour is the Statistics Canada Survey of Innovation 1999.

The paper starts with an overview of other studies that looked at the use of intellectual property rights in Canada. Follows a conceptual framework presenting variables likely to explain the use specific IPRs by Canadian manufacturing firms.

The use of IPRs is to a great extent correlated with basic economic characteristics of firms, their activities and industry environment. A series of estimated logit regressions predict the probability that a firm will use a specific IPR instrument. Also estimated is the contribution of the use of IPRs to the probability that a firm innovates.

The decision of a firm to use IPRs is often not independent of the decision to innovate. To eliminate the potential endogeneity bias I estimate a two-stage logit model. A comparison of the single- and two-stage logit models shows that the nexus from the protection of intellectual property (patents) to innovation may be weaker than indicated by the single equation model.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE THEORY OF MARK-UP PRICING

This paper examines the role of demand uncertainty in influencing a firm's mark-up pricing decision. With no uncertainty the marginalist approach represents this mark-up as inversely and solely determined by the elasticity of demand. Here it is shown that the introduction of uncertainty does not alter this simple dependency for a risk neutral firm. For a risk averse firm, however, the mark-up is shown to depend on a range of factors, including the level of fixed and variable costs and the level of expected demand. It is argued that such variability of margin is more in keeping with observed behaviour.     

中部崛起与湖南的机遇和挑战

回顾了＂中部崛起＂论提出的背景,结合湖南经济发展实际,分析了其在中部崛起中将获得的机遇以及面临的挑战和压力.并针对省情提出了应对措施.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE POSITIVE THEORY OF THE PUBLIC ENTERPRISE*

This paper extends the analysis of Rees (1984a) of a public enterprise pursuing a size-related objective in the face of uncertain demand to a situation where its managers may be risk neutral or risk averse and where the public enterprise may produce more than one output. The optimal pricing policy of the public enterprise is analysed and the importance of not only the expected profit constraint but also the attitude to risk of the public enterprise in determining its relative prices is demonstrated.     

IMPACT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON GENETIC DIVERSITY: THE CASE OF U.S. WHEAT

This paper examines the link between passage of the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA), private R&D, public R&D, and genetic diversity in farmers' fields. PVPA did have a limited positive impact on private wheat breeding but did not lead to a decrease in public wheat research. Instead, public wheat research increased rapidly after PVPA passed. The trends in wheat diversity over time for the entire United States suggest that private research has undergone minor increases in diversity. Regression analysis of genetic diversity in Kansas, Nebraska, and Montana indicates that public sector research has increased diversity in farmers' wheat fields and that PVPA has had a small positive impact on diversity .     

OPEN ACCESS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A COMPETITIVE NATURAL GAS MARKET

Recent regulatory changes permitted natural gas pipelines to become "open access" transporters. This change in pipeline carrier status dissolved regulatory barriers to markets. This paper describes the institutions that were developed to support exchange in gas markets and observes and evaluates their emergence, evolution, and performance. The institutional and empirical evidence reveals that gas markets rapidly emerged with the dissolution of regulatory barriers. Spot gas prices converged and became highly correlated. A national market for natural gas developed within four years.     

FUTURE POLICY UNCERTAINTY, EFFORT, AND THE RESPONSIVENESS OF OUTPUT TO MARKET SIGNALS

This paper analyses the consequences of future policy uncertainty on the allocation of effort in an economy undergoing reforms. We demonstrate that uncertainty regarding future tax policies may reduce present effort, and will also reduce the responsiveness of output to productivity shocks and other market signals. The discussion has relevance for cases in which privatization will make present managers of firms the future owners and residual claimants to future output. An expectation that the purchasing price of the firm will have a positive relationship to present output will induce the manager to reduce contemporaneous effort, and uncertainty regarding the relationship will also depress present managerial effort.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF COMMERCIAL PROPERTY PRICES AND RENTS

This paper develops a theoretical model of price and rent determination in the commercial property market. Prices and rents are assumed to adjust to ensure market clearing. A series of theoretical relationships are derived between prices and rents and a number of exogenous variables. These are then subjected to empirical testing for three types of property: industrial property, shops and offices. The results indicate employment is an important influence on price, especially for industrial property. In most cases, price and rent are also found to be sensitive to interest rates and residential property values.     

THE POLITICS OF PRECOMMITMENT WITH ELECTORAL UNCERTAINTY AND TRANSACTION COSTS

Despite the lack of legal channels through which binding commitments can be made by the government, economic and political factors enable it to affect future outcomes. In practice, large transaction costs are associated with any significant change of policy, and therefore the current government can adopt policies so that certain outcomes are more likely to be realized by its successor. In this paper it is argued that transaction costs combined with electoral uncertainty are likely to drive the current government to adopt a policy which is extreme relative to the preferences of the existing political parties. This policy is adopted in order to ensure that due to transaction costs, the future government will not depart radically from the most preferred policy of the current government. If the current policy is likely to affect the election outcome, then, in addition to the above considerations, the electorate attitudes would have to be taken into account by the government. Hence, the current government confronts two factors in choosing its policies: the behavior of the future government and the behavior of the electorate. The interplay between the two factors determines the choice of the current policy.     

BACKGROUND RISK AND THE THEORY OF THE COMPETITIVE FIRM UNDER UNCERTAINTY*

This paper examines the optimal production decision of a firm under output price risk á la Sandmo when the firm also faces a dependent background risk. It is shown that standard risk aversion plus a non-negative association between the output price risk and the background risk are sufficient to ensure a reduction in the firms optimal output upon introduction of the background risk. The paper investigates the impact of a deterministic transformation of the background risk on the firms optimal production decision. It is shown that decreasing absolute risk aversion in Ross' sense is among the sufficient conditions that generate an unambiguous negative comparative static result.     

中国城乡居民消费的二元特征与跨期不确定性分析

改革开放以来,我国城乡居民收入差距过大,城乡消费的不平衡性和不确定性等因素造成了城乡居民消费上的显著差距。文章立足以上情况,对我国转型期间城乡居民消费的二元结构和跨期不确定性进行分析,并给出一定的对策。     

FROM ONE TO MANY ISLANDS: THE EMERGENCE OF SEARCH AND MATCHING MODELS

The notion of frictional unemployment failed to grow into a full‐fledged theory in the writings of Beveridge, Pigou and Hicks, as these economists were unwilling and/or unable to go beyond the then‐prevailing Marshallian approach. Here, first we make explicit the trade organization assumptions underpinning Marshall's equilibrium theory. Next we examine Beveridge's, Pigou's and Hicks' early works on wages and unemployment. Finally, we look at the seminal papers that paved the way for search literature: McCall, Lucas and Prescott, Mortensen and Pissarides. We show that they succeed in providing an unemployment result, because they indeed depart from the Marshallian trade organization.     

我国旅游资源产权问题探析

旅游企业产权明晰问题已逐渐被社会认同，而旅游资源产权明晰问题却未受到应有重视。我国旅游资源产权界定不清，产权制度安排不合理，已在某种程度上束缚和妨碍了我国旅游资源的合理利用和旅游业的进一步发展。旅游资源产权问题成为近期旅游界的一个热点话题。文章主要运用俱乐部理论、资源价值理论、产权理论等，从深层次上对我国旅游资源产权不明晰的成因进行了分析，并对构建我国现代旅游资源产权制度提出了一些建议。     

OUTCOME UNCERTAINTY AND THE COUCH POTATO AUDIENCE

Previous studies of attendance demand for professional team sports have failed to yield clear‐cut findings on the importance of outcome uncertainty to consumers. But potentially fewer problems should arise in examining the link between outcome uncertainty and demand in the television market for team sports, which of the case of English Premier League football is in fact a more important component in total club revenue. This study models both the choice of which games to show and the size of audience attracted by each game, exploiting data on audience sizes for games between 1993 and 2002. We propose a new measure of match outcome uncertainty and, from our results, both the broadcaster and the audience appear interested in competitive balance.     

中国自然资源产权混合市场建设的制度路径

从自然资源产权市场的3个层次。即初始产权界定、交易权规定和交易制度安排上综合研究我国自然资源产权市场混合化转轨建设的制度途径。提出三步连续而渐进的制度改革战略：①建立市场化的自然资源公共产权规制模式；②在现有的自然资源所有权安排条件下，实现自然资源使用权和经营权的市场化；③把部分自然资源的所有权私有化，形成公私产权对接的完善的自然资源产权混合市场。