A new direction for the net neutrality debate

In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has become a microcosm of the political battles in Congress. The Democratic-controlled Wheeler Commission entitled its Net Neutrality Order “Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.” Not to be outdone, the Republican-controlled Pai Commission that overturned that Order entitled its own “Restoring `Internet Freedom.” And like Congressional pronouncements, Commissioners look to grab headlines with dramatic statements of impending doom if their policies are not enacted. We show that the untold societal damage that both sides claim have relatively little to no factual support. Outmoded distinctions between information and telecommunications services exacerbate the situation because a good deal of regulatory history is built on them. As a potential way forward toward reliance on theoretically-sound, evidence-based decision-making, the authors recommend moving away from the silo mentality of focusing on whether particular services are information services or telecommunications services (e.g., Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS)) toward a focus on packet transmission across broadband networks. Such an approach would facilitate fresh perspectives with the objective of more collaborative, less confrontational regulatory decision-making.     

Visegrad economies’ active implication in a “new” EU: A new regional economic approach

The EU faces maybe to the greatest challenges in its history. The paper deals with the idea of analysing the sub‐regional organisation Visegrad Group Visegrad 4 (V4) and its role in the new EU‐27 before and after Brexit. For realisation of this scope, six representative economic indicators are taken into consideration. The data analysis procedure covers latest 10 years meaning 2010–19. In order to support the analysis in the paper, first objective has the building a hypothetic optimal database which has to cover the above six indicators related to EU‐28 and V4. Second objective is relate to the performances quantification of each EU and V4’s economy based on a separately analyse. Final and the major objective is that V4 is able to face to the new global and regional challenges. The analysis in the paper is based on two new models. First of them is a regional development radiography model based on a hexagon diagram. The second is a regional evolution model based on a matrix approach. Both proposed models have distinct hypotheses, which are finally valid by the analysis. The paper puts into discussion five objectives and succeeds in achieving them. The main conclusion of the paper is that V4 is and will continue to be a growth pole for the EU economy. It would be supported by the EU in order to implement policies able to manage better employment.     

Does IPM Have Staying Power? Revisiting a Potato‐producing Area Years After Formal Training Ended

Integrated pest management (IPM) potentially reduces pesticide use and costs of agricultural production. However, IPM is knowledge intensive and its spread may dissipate over time due to knowledge required for its effective implementation and to competing messages about pest control. We examine IPM spread and adoption several years after formal intensive IPM outreach efforts ceased in a potato‐producing region in Ecuador. We describe adoption patterns and sources of IPM knowledge in 2012 and compare them with patterns that existed when outreach ceased in 2003. Results show that IPM adoption continues in the area but with a lower proportion of farmers fully adopting all practices and a higher proportion adopting low to moderate levels as compared to 2003. Almost all potato farmers in the area use some IPM practices, reflecting a major increase in IPM use. Farmer‐to‐farmer spread has supplanted formal training and outreach mechanisms. IPM adoption significantly lowers pesticide use and saves production costs for adopters.     

An assessment of equivalence between Internet and paper-based surveys: evidence from collectivistic cultures

Little research exists that addresses the equivalence in collectivistic cultures of paper- versus Internet-based surveys. This study addressed this gap and examined the measurement equivalence of individual innovativeness scales between Internet surveys and paper-based surveys within a collectivistic culture (with China serving as our example). The study analyzed and compared survey data from both paper and web-based surveys using confirmatory factor analysis. The assessment of invariance included the levels of configural, metric, scalar, and covariance invariance. The means and variance of latent variables were also compared. The results show that measurements are invariant at the two levels (configural and metric), and the covariances between latent variables are also equivalent, but the mean and variance differences of latent variables are apparent. The results indicate that when conducting research in collectivistic cultures and collecting data from distinct survey modes, researchers should concern themselves with the potential of extreme response patterns and the inclination of social desirability responding, as well as considering the measurement invariance across survey modes.     

Monetary Model of Exchange Rate Determination： Evidence From the Czech Republic,Hungary, and Poland

Using a monetary model of exchange rate determination that suggests a strong link between the nominal exchange rate and a set of monetary fundamentals, exchange rate dynamics for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland is studied. As the cointegration relationship among exchange rate, output, and the monetary fundamentals （money supply and interest rate） is found, vector autoregressions （VAR）/vector error-correction （VEC） and two-stage least squares （2SLS） error-correction models are used in this context, since both approaches allow estimating short-run correlations between exchange rates and fundamentals while taking into account the existent long-run exchange rate constraints. Based on the quarterly data for the period of 1998-2012, it is found that for all countries, an increase in the money supply, domestic output slowdown, or stronger growth abroad are factors behind a nominal exchange rate depreciation, just as predicted by the monetary model of exchange rate. However, the effects of domestic-foreign interest rate differential are quite heterogeneous, being in line with theoretical predictions of a standard monetary model for Poland only. According to the decomposition of variance, money supply and interest rates account for 30%-46% of the exchange rate variation in the Czech Republic, from 10% to 14% in Hungary, and from 23% to 42% in Poland.