Open Science and Open Innovation in a socio‐political context: knowledge production for societal impact in an age of post‐truth populism

This conceptual paper traces the origins and progress of Open Science and proposes its generative coupling to Open Innovation in the contemporary socio‐political context; where universities are re‐imaging their civic missions in the face of anti‐establishment populist politics. This setting is one of changing knowledge production regimes and institutional pressures that create contradictions identifiable through the prism of the series of scientific norms conceptualised by Robert K. Merton. This paper privileges a sociological perspective to proffer scientific knowledge production as a societally embedded process, which is well illustrated by scholarship in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Science in Society fields. In doing so, it identifies the co‐evolution, co‐existence and co‐production of Open Science with Open Innovation; and notes how it shares the attributes of other recent diagnoses of changing knowledge production regimes; in particular Mode 2, post‐normal science and the Quadruple Helix. It also argues that Open Science can be coupled with Open Innovation to catalyse positive societal change, but that the rise of a populist post‐truth era opposed to objectivity, expertise and technocratic political solutions gives the demand for openness and participation a different complexion. Merton's norms provide a useful lens to observe recent shifts in the delivery of science, knowledge and innovation in society towards more inclusive, ethical and sustainable outcomes; and expose the limited reflection on how the appropriation and exploitation of open scientific knowledge encounters industrial R&D and Open Innovation.     

Stock Price Effects of Mandatory Exchangeable Debt

We study mandatory exchangeable debt offerings. A firm that issues mandatory exchangeable debt requires bondholders to exchange their bonds for shares of the underlying firm in which the issuing firm has a stake. We find significant announcement (−3.3%) and long-run (−13%) abnormal price declines for underlying companies. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that mandatory exchangeable debt issuers exploit private information that they possess to issue mandatory exchangeable debt when the underlying stock is overvalued.     

Acquisition Activity and IPO Underpricing

We propose an “M&A activity” hypothesis as a partial explanation for initial public offering (IPO) underpricing. When going public during active corporate control markets, managers may take actions to safeguard their control. In support of this conjecture, we find that pre-IPO M&A activity directly explains IPO underpricing. We also find that underpricing and ownership dispersion are positively correlated, as are ownership dispersion and the probability of remaining independent. Considering the possibility that some managers take their firms public to be acquired, we find that the positive link between M&A activity and underpricing is not robust for firms that are viewed as likely targets.     

横向一体化陆基海水养殖经济潜力的评价

本文是Stuart W.Bunting,Muki Shpigel发表于Aquaculture 2009年294期43～51页"Evaluating the economic potential of horizontally integrated land-based marine aquaculture"一文的译文。原作者通过研究得出:生物经济模型有助于横向一体化水产养殖系统的优化,帮助澄清情况,找出关键制约因子和具有针对性的研究及发展重点。生物经济模型的其他横向一体化战略,例如对虾与贝类、海藻和红树林湿地一体化养殖,可以说明这种做法在经济上可行并满足生态无害和对社会负责。同时,生物经济模型应辅以市场分析,包括消费者评估、质量安全评估、伦理审查、环境影响评估以及与利益相关者的共同评估。     

Competitive Insurance Markets with Two Unobservables

I study a screening game in a competitive insurance market in which insurance customers differ with respect to both accident probability and degree of risk aversion. It is shown that indifference curves of customers may cross twice; thus the single crossing property does not hold. When differences in risk aversion are sufficiently large, firms cannot use policy deductibles to screen high-risk customers. Types may be pooled in equilibrium or are separated by raising premiums above actuarially fair levels. This leads to excessive entry of firms in equilibrium.