Licensing as an Alternative to Foreign Direct Investment

This article addresses issues linked to the sales of manufacturing technology and know-how through licensing by British companies to unaffilated firms located overseas. It identifies a number of characteristics that make these companies more likely to license abroad. The authors test a model of foreign licensing on data gathered from 145 firms based in the United Kingdom. Many companies do evaluate licensing to unaffilated firms as an alternative to foreign direct investment when they consider manufacturing in foreign markets. These firms tend to be relatively large in their industry, highly diversified, spend a relatively higher proportion of their value-added on research and development, and have less foreign experience.     

The Canada U.S. free trade agreement: Competitive tradeoffs between foreign direct investment and trade

This paper assesses the impact of the Canada U.S. Free Trade Agreement on exports and foreign direct investment of processed foods. Results indicate that U.S. exports to Canada more than doubled, while Canadian exports to the U.S. nearly doubled after the implementation of the Canada U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1989. Regression results of the covariance model on panel data show that U.S. and Canadian food processing firms appear to use both exports and foreign direct investments as complementary market access strategies. This research was supported by a grant from the Canadian Embassy. In addition, the authors thank Carolyn Dimitri of the University of Maryland for helpful comments.     

Pragmatism and Compliance: Employer Responses to the Working Time Regulations

Analysis of Working Time Regulations data reveals three patterns of response that help to explain the lack of employers' post‐implementation protest: coincidence with current practice; easy ‘escape’ options; and non‐compliance. Whether this represents a failure of health and safety legislation or a pragmatic response to labour market conditions is discussed.     

IS THERE A “CULTURE OF SPENDING” IN CONGRESS?

This study empirically tests the "Culture of Spending" hypothesis (Payne, 199la). According to this hypothesis, the longer congressmen stay in office, the more likely they are to support federal spending. Spending behavior in this study is measured by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Congressional Spending Score. Samples are drawn from annual spending scores for all U.S. representatives and senators who served in office between 1975 and 1993. This study finds no statistical support for the hypothesis that congressmen have an increasing propensity to support federal spending the longer they stay in office. Furthermore, we are able to explain why other studies obtain results different from ours.     

Privatization: Reflections on the Eastern European experience

Opinions expressed in this paper are strictly personal.