Religious Freedom and the Unintended Consequences of State Religion

We use a cross-section of 59 countries to examine the impact of state religion and of constitutional protection of religion on the degree of religiosity within a country. Our measure of religiosity is the percentage of the population who attend religious services at least once a week. We find that both establishment of a state religion and constitutional protection of religion have significant (and opposing) effects. The existence of a state religion reduces attendance by 14.6-16.7% of the total population, whereas each decade of constitutional protection increases attendance by approximately 1.2% of the population. We also find that other measures of religious regulation have significant negative effects on attendance. Ironically, the motive behind establishment of a particular state religion usually is to strengthen that religion, but the effects are ultimately to undermine the vitality of the established religion.     

Innovation centres: The policy options for local authorities

Over the last few years a growing number of local authorities have set up Innovation Centres (ICs) as part of their repertoire of initiatives aimed at local economic regeneration. According to the recently formed Association of Innovation Centre Executives, ICs exist to provide assistance to both individuals and small firms with the creation and development of new and improved products and processes which can demonstrate market potential. Yet a review of the experience of ICs to date reveals that there is no standard model of an IC that can be taken off the shelf. Roger Leigh and David North seek to clarify the various options and choices that are available to a local authority contemplating setting up an IC, using information and insights gained from a series of interviews with IC managers carried out in 1985.     

THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS IN THE REVIVAL OF TRADE: THE LAW MERCHANT, PRIVATE JUDGES, AND THE CHAMPAGNE FAIRS

A good reputation can be an effective bond for honest behavior in a community of traders if members of the community know how others have behaved in the past – even if any particular pair of traders meets only infrequently. In a large community, it would be impossibly costly for traders to be perfectly informed about each other's behavior, but there exist institutions that can restore the effectiveness of a reputation system using much less extensive information. The system of judges used to enforce commercial law before the rise of the state was such an institution, and it successfully encouraged merchants (1) to behave honestly, (2) to impose sanctions on violators, (3) to become adequately informed about how others had behaved, (4) to provide evidence against violators of the code, and (5) to pay any judgments assessed against them, even though each of these behaviors might be personally costly.     

Horizontal Integration Between Brand and Generic Firms in the Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper asserts that brand pharmaceutical firms (those mostly involved in the invention and production of new drugs) engage in a set of complementary activities that are different from those of generic pharmaceutical firms (those that primarily make off-patent medicines). Complementarities of the Milgrom-Roberts variety within, but not across, these two kinds of firms make it more efficient for pharmaceutical firms to specialize in either brand or generic production. Using FDA data, I show that this is indeed the case. I then examine the firms that produce both types of drugs to see if there are market-level strategic synergies between brand and generic products. I find generic entrants that belong to a corporation that owns the brand in the market are (1) not more likely to enter, (2) not more likely to be approved faster, and (3) not more likely to deter other generics from entering. Thus the advantage, or synergy, from mixing brand and generic activities in one corporation must arise elsewhere in the operations of the firm. If not, the integrated pharmaceutical firm is not the most efficient organizational form for the production of ethical drugs.     

Circular business models in high value manufacturing: Five industry cases to bridge theory and practice

The transition to a circular economy (CE) requires companies to evaluate their resource flows, supply chains, and business models and to question the ways in which value is created. In the high value manufacturing (HVM) sector, this evaluation is critical, as HVM enables value in nonconventional forms, beyond profit, including unique production processes, brand recognition, rapid delivery times, and highly customized services. We investigate the role of value, cost, and other factors of influence in the selection of a circular business model (CBM) for HVM. Explored through five case studies using a qualitative evaluation of circularity, we then contribute to the emerging field of CBMs by modifying the CBM canvas that can capture the nontraditional value, traditional value, cost, and other influencing factors enabled via CBM adoption in HVM. Finally, the important role of digital technologies for incentivizing and enabling CBM adoption, is clarified.     

Equality and diversity in the public services: moving forward on lesbian,gay and bisexual equality?

A key change for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in the European Union has been the prohibition by the Employment Equality Directive (2000) of discrimination in employment on grounds of sexual orientation. This article focuses on the UK, which in 2003 introduced legislation making it unlawful to discriminate on these grounds. It explores the factors encouraging ‘good practice’ in sexual orientation equality work. It considers progress within the public services that have ‘pioneered’ sexual orientation equalities work, drawing on the views of LGB employees, management and trade union stakeholders. The recent legislation is considered to have provided a major impetus for change; however, an emerging ‘business case’ within the public service modernisation agenda is considered to have provided both opportunities and barriers to progress. A challenge for HR practitioners is getting organisational commitment to sexual orientation work, which is still perceived within organisations as a ‘sensitive’ area.     

Talking Business: An Actor‐Centred Analysis of Business Agendas for Local Economic Development

Much of the recent literature about local governance of Britain’s cities has examined the power of a newly evolving ‘business elite’. However, in trying to understand changing governance forms, these analyses have generally lacked sensitivity to the role of actors (businesspeople) and their representative organizations. Analytical categories drawn from social movement theory (SMT) are introduced to develop a more actor‐centred approach to the role of business interests in urban management. While not attempting to claim that business represents a social movement within Britain’s cities, it does illuminate how effectively or otherwise businesspeople develop an identity based around their representative organizations and specific business agendas, define non‐business actors as opponents, and deploy and implement the agendas they create. We then use these SMT categories to examine the creation of business agendas in three English towns – Barnsley, Mansfield and Accrington.     

On the export-led growth hypothesis for the little dragons: An empirical reinvestigation

The export-led growth hypothesis is tested using quarterly time series data for Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan and by constructing a vector autoregression (VAR) model. The Granger no-causality procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto [1995] was applied to test the causal link between real export growth and real industrial output growth. Three distinct features in this paper stand out against earlier studies on the Little Dragon countries of Asia. First, going beyond the traditional two-variable relationship, a VAR model is built in the production function context to avoid a possible specification bias. Second, Riezman et al. [1996] are followed to test the export-led growth hypothesis while controlling for the growth of imports to avoid producing a spurious causality result. Third, the sensitivity of causality test results under different lag structures is tested along with the choice of optimal lags. In particular, the methodology developed by Toda and Yamamoto is expected to improve the standard F-statistics in the causality test process. The principal result from this research cannot offer support for the export-led growth hypothesis.