PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT DECISIONS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Determining the appropriate degree of protection to provide intellectual property in the United States and abroad is an important public policy issue. This paper addresses the role of intellectual property protection in the firm's decision on the level of investment in research and development. It also focuses on the stimulus that such protection provides for economic growth in both developed and developing countries. The main conclusion is that the benefits of designing and enforcing a mechanism for strong protection of intellectual property generally exceed the costs.     

Industrial Relations in Western Europe: An Era of Ambiguity?

In western Europe, as in the United States, the 1980s saw major challenges to established institutions of industrial relations. Managements, faced with intensified competitive pressure, have taken the initiative; union have been on the defensive. Deregulation and decentralization have been the recurrent themes of both practitioners and academic analysts. For some commentators, national distinctiveness is giving way to convergence, encouraged in part by moves toward the Single European Market. This article develops a more skeptical perspective on recent trends.     

Textile marketing: a status report

This exploratory study investigated the status of textile marketing in the United States by (a) examining the textile industry's use of effective marketing techniques, and (b) identifying common problems and needed improvements in textile marketing. The procedure followed these steps: (a) effective marketing techniques were identified, (b) interviews were conducted with nine textile executives and four individuals representing the United States textile industry at large, and (c) the respondents' statements about textile marketing practices were analysed for evidence of effective marketing techniques, common textile marketing problems and needed inprovements in textile marketing. The results indicated that only five of the thirteen respondents described textile firms that were using effective marketing techniques, but some textile firms were using effective marketing techniques and this should be an incentive for other textile firms. Several common problems and needed improvements in textile marketing were also identified. Because of the small sample size, the open-ended questions, and the subjective analysis of the respondents' statements, this study must be regarded as exploratory. However, representative statements from the respondents are presented and these statements are informative about textile marketing practices.     

Effects of Firm Size,Financial Leverage and R&D Expenditures on Firm Earnings: An Analysis Using Quantile Regression Approach

As documented in the literature, the effects of firm size, financial leverage, and R&D expenditures on firm earnings are inclusive. Our hypothesis is that the inconsistent empirical results of such effects may be driven by the regression models implemented in data analysis. Using the quantile regression (QR) approach developed by Koenker and Basset (1978), this study analyses S&P 500 firms from 1996 to 2005. We find that the effects of firm size, financial leverage and R&D expenditures on firm earnings differ considerably across earnings quantiles. Comparing the results from the QR approach with those from the ordinary least squares (OLS) and least absolute deviation (LAD) methods, this study further explains the puzzling relationship between firm size, financial leverage, R&D expenditures and firm earnings.