Private patent protection in the theory of Schumpeterian growth

We develop a Schumpeterian growth model with privately optimal intellectual property rights (IPRs) enforcement and investigate the implications for intellectual property and R&D policies. In our setting, successful innovators undertake costly rent protection activities (RPAs) to enforce their patents. RPAs deter innovators who seek to discover higher quality products and thereby replace the patent holder. RPAs also deter imitators who seek to capture a portion of the monopoly market by imitating the patent holder's product. We investigate the role of private IPR protection by considering the impact of subsidies to RPAs on economic growth and welfare. We find that a larger RPA subsidy raises the innovation rate if and only if the ease of imitation is above a certain level. With regards to welfare, we find that depending on the parameters it may be optimal to tax or subsidize RPAs. Thus a prohibitively high taxation of RPAs is not necessarily optimal. We also show that the presence of imitation strengthens the case for subsidizing R&D.     

Universal service in Turkey: Recent developments and a critical assessment

The meaning of universal service in telecommunications has changed considerably in the last decade. Technological advances have created the necessity to redefine the legal framework. While the demand for old universal services falls, new and wider services are to be included in the scope of legal obligations such as broadband. In this transformation of public policy toward universal services, political preferences take precedence over economic considerations. Turkey provides a good case in point. In this paper, the authors assess the legal framework of universal services and its institutional structure in Turkey. The tension between enlarging the scope of universal service and pressures on using revenues efficiently is emphasized.     

Violence in/by the market

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I discuss a definition of violence to unearth the generally unrecognised violence perpetrated by the logic of the market as is was constructed through a history of modern thought and capitalist organisation of life as the central system of modernity. Enslavement of humanity to the purpose of capitalist economy and its key institution, the market, which is to optimise economic value, is arguably the consequence.     

Preliminary Metric Investigations into the Nature of the “Postmodern Consumer”

The purpose of this research is to design and to test an instrument to measure postmodern consumer orientations. The construct is articulated and operationalized using three dimensions that particularly relate to consumer orientations regarding identity, reality, and subject-hood. Each dimension is measured using four items that were developed based on literature review and prior qualitative research. This paper reports successful results from the confirmatory factor analysis verifying empirical viability of the measures. Results from further analyses of hypotheses relating to consumer characteristics, such as materialism, Machiavellianism, and locus of control impressions, are also reported to provide greater insight into the nature of the postmodern consumer.     

Outsourcing and Wage Inequality in a Dynamic Product Cycle Model

This paper constructs a dynamic North–South trade model with outsourcing and endogenous innovation. Production of high quality goods is first performed in the North (Northern phase), then split between the North and the South (Outsourcing phase), and finally shifted to the South (Southern phase). This cycle is reignited whenever a Northern firm innovates a higher quality product. We find that an increase in the fraction of outsourced production raises the Northern skill premium unambiguously, while raising the Southern skill premium if and only if the skill intensity of outsourced production is higher than that of local Southern production.     

Brands that ‘sell their soul’: offshoring,brand liquidification and the excluded consumer

ABSTRACT

Fuelled by open markets and globalisation, offshoring has become a common business practice for firms in industrialised countries. However, consumer research investigating offshoring in a larger macroeconomic and political context is scant. Using a naturalistic, contextualised approach, the current research investigates how a predominantly working/middle-class consumer segment perceives production offshoring for durable goods. The findings show how consumers can develop a sentiment of being excluded or left behind, even when they do not belong to traditionally disadvantaged segments in society defined by income, gender, education, appearance or sexual preference. Perceived brand liquidification, discussed through the marketplace mythologies of corporate greed and the opportunistic consumer, perceived brand de-contagion and patriotism/nationalism, leads to sentiments of exclusion and a longing for re-solidification. Exploring these relationships helps to understand current consumer sentiment towards offshoring in the larger context of neoliberalism and labour arbitrage.     

2008 financial crisis and income distribution in Turkey

Quality & Quantity - This study provides some new evidence for the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis on income inequality in Turkey. Two methodologies were used in the study. The first...     

Hayekian complexity and the role of regulation in electricity markets

Utilities worldwide have followed the natural monopoly model for more than a century. This has started to change in recent decades. Electricity systems have become complex, as interactions between participants become multidimensional. This article examines the knowledge problem in an increasingly complex electricity system. I argue that increasing complexity in the electricity system necessitates reconsideration of the regulatory tariff model for utilities.