An SAO‐based text‐mining approach for technology roadmapping using patent information

A technology roadmap (TRM) links technologies with a company's strategic objectives and so supports acquisition of required technologies in advance of needs. It is a powerful tool for strategic planning and technology management. Because technology is changing rapidly and market competition is fierce, the role of a TRM is becoming increasingly important. To support the role of a TRM, many firms and governments that use roadmapping are becoming interested in reducing costs while retaining objectivity during TRM development. One suggestion to achieve these goals is to use the keyword‐based quantitative approach to creating a TRM, but the information provided by the approach is limited because of the characteristics of keyword information. To solve this limitation, this research uses the concept of ‘function’ to support quantitative analysis for developing a TRM. The concept of function can provide information on the uses and purposes of a technology. To represent a function, a subject–action–object structure is commonly used. The suggested approach allows research and development (R&D) managers to extend the views of product and technology during development of a TRM. In addition, by reducing the time required to develop a TRM, the proposed approach supports quick and accurate decision‐making by R&D managers.     

Short-sale constraints and informational efficiency to private information: A natural experiment

Exploiting a regulatory change in short-sale constraints (Regulation SHO) as a natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of short-sale constraints on informational efficiency of stock prices to private information. I find that short-sellers act as informed traders prior to forthcoming analyst news and trade on negative private information. When short-sale constraints are relaxed for pilot stocks (treatment group), both trading volume and stock price sensitivity increase prior to the analyst announcement for bad news but not for good news, relative to that of nonpilot stocks (control group). The findings are consistent with the Diamond and Verrecchia model that predicts that short-selling increases the speed of adjustment of stock prices to private negative information. In the cross-section, the effect of Reg SHO is stronger in stocks of firms with weak and uncertain information environments (i.e., small firms and firms with high analyst forecast dispersion).     

Bertrand versus Cournot competition in a downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

Focusing on foreign ownership in the private firm, we examine the Cournot-Bertrand comparison in a mixed oligopolistic market with vertical market structure. We have found that if public and private firms were charged with uniform price for their inputs, then Cournot-Bertrand ranking in market outcomes confirms those obtained by Ghosh and Mitra (2010). This implies that under uniform pricing in the upstream sector, the vertical market structure does not have substantial influences on Cournot-Bertrand ranking. However, if discriminatory pricing is adopted, firm's profits, output, and social welfare are often reversed to those obtained from uniform pricing in the upstream sector. Given the closeness of products, if the share of foreign ownership is sufficiently low, social welfare in Cournot competition can exceed that of Bertrand competition, contrasting with the standard welfare ranking that Bertrand welfare is strictly higher than Cournot. This implies that Cournot competition can be more socially desirable than Bertrand in mixed oligopoly with vertical market structure if discriminatory pricing scheme is adopted by foreign upstream monopolists.     

Dynamic R&D Competition, Research Line Diversity, and Intellectual Property Rights

This paper develops a simple model of sequential innovations with a diversity of research lines. Competitive strategies of firms for R&D are analyzed at each stage in a sequence of innovations. We compare two alternative regimes of enforcing patent law, as a mechanism to provide adequate incentives for R&D at each stage. The regime that protects the research line gives monopoly rights to an entire line of research, hence limiting the utilization of the previous knowledge and retarding subsequent innovations. The other regime protects the product, which facilitates the use of previous knowledge at the expense of providing inadequate protection to the ideas embodied in the product, and results in underinvestment in the first stage.     

PRODUCER COOPERATIVES,INPUT PRICING AND LAND ALLOCATION

This paper considers input pricing rules for a producer cooperative which supplies its members with two inputs: a publicly provided private input (water), and a local public input (road services). An Israeli Moshav which allocates land equally among producers is a good example. The cooperative uses a two-part pricing rule: a product-dependent uniform fee (head tax) and a user charge per unit of the private input. Discrimination of head tax among the producer groups is shown to dominate that of user charge in the short run. However, land reallocation among producers can result in a Pareto-superior pricing rule and the Henry George theorem emerges in the long run. Thus, allowing land leasing while maintaining equal rights to land increases producer welfare.     

Differences in Factor Structures between U.S. Multinational and Domestic Corporations: Evidence from Bilinear Paradigm Tests

This research investigates the differences in factor structure between U.S. multinational and domestic corporations. We use a multifactor return generating process and investigate whether the constraints imposed by the arbitrage pricing theory are upheld. Our results indicate and domestic corporations are not significantly different. It does appear, however, that there are different prices attached to the risk of U.S. multinational and domestic firms.     

Industrial Targeting and Non‐shiftable Capital in the Harris–Todaro Model*

This paper shows that, in the 2 × 3 sector‐specific capital Harris–Todaro model, capital growth owing to either domestic or foreign investment always enhances the welfare of the country (i.e. non‐immiserizing), and this result of non‐immiserizing foreign investment holds regardless of initial holdings of foreign capital; the policy of industrial targeting via capital investment is more effective vis‐à‐vis the (neoclassical) 2 × 2 mobile‐capital Harris–Todaro model or the Heckscher–Ohlin model; in contrast to the recent generalization by Marjit and Beladi (2003 ), capital growth cannot be immiserizing in the present model, even if it destroys the “envelope theorem.”     

Entrepreneurship and envy

This paper is a critical evaluation of Hayek's “Atavism of social justice” thesis, suggesting an alternative explanation of the widespread demands for social justice in contemporary society. It is based on the analysis of the nature of entrepreneurship and its tendency to incite envy. The advantages of the proposed explanation include a better understanding of the persistent hostility against commerce and the market system and the possibility of a systematic exploration of the factors which make the demand for social justice stronger or weaker. An earlier draft was presented at the Friedrich August von Hayek Memorial Symposium, Bleibach, Germany, June 9–12, 1993. I thank the participants of the symposium for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Do small shareholders count?

We hypothesize that age similarity among small shareholders acts as an implicit coordinating device for their actions and, thus, could represent an indirect source of corporate governance in firms with dispersed ownership. We test this hypothesis on a sample of Swedish firms during the 1995-2000 period. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that compared with shareholders of differing ages, same-age noncontrolling shareholders sell more aggressively following negative firm news; firms with more age-similar small shareholders are more profitable and command higher valuation; and an increase (decline) in a firm's small shareholder age similarity brings a significantly large increase (decline) in its stock price. The last effects are more pronounced in the absence of a controlling shareholder.