PATENT POOLS AND CROSS‐LICENSING IN THE SHADOW OF PATENT LITIGATION*

This article develops a framework to analyze the incentives to form a patent pool or engage in cross‐licensing arrangements in the presence of uncertainty about the validity and coverage of patents that makes disputes inevitable. It analyzes the private incentives to litigate and compares them with the social incentives. It shows that pooling arrangements can have the effect of sheltering invalid patents from challenges. This result has an antitrust implication that patent pools should not be permitted until after patentees have challenged the validity of each other's patents if litigation costs are not too large.     

Strategic Choice and Performance in Late Movers: Influence of the Top Management Team's External Ties

This work examines how the strategic choice and performance of late movers are influenced by the top management team's external ties, inside and outside the firm's industry. Using a multiyear sample of firms from the computer industry, we found that intra-industry trade-association ties of top managers led to the adoption of a resource-imitation strategy by late movers while extra-industry importation and professional-association ties led to the adoption of a resource-substitution strategy. We also found that trade association ties had a negative effect on the performance of late movers using resource-substitution, while top managers' service on other firms' boards had a positive influence on the performance of those firms. Our findings not only confirm the importance of the role of fit in strategy and performance, but they also highlight the importance of the management and control of boundary-spanning activities.     

水性轮转凹印油墨在PET和BOPP基材上印刷的对比研究

采用凹印机（最大速度500m／min）在PET（聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯）和BOPP（双向拉伸聚丙烯）承印物上进行印刷试验,以研究高速凹版印刷下油墨的转移情况和印刷适性。将水性油墨用酒精稀释后,在特定的印刷速度、印刷压力和网穴尺寸等多种印刷设备条件下对柔性承印物进行印刷。采用光学显微镜、UV可见光谱仪和原子力显微镜（AFM）测量印刷图像和油墨转移率。通过对界面张力、黏度以及油墨与承印物之间润湿角的测量与评价,定量分析它们对印刷特性的影响。实验结果表明,影响印刷特性的最重要的因素是油墨黏度、表面张力和界面张力。稀释后的油墨在PET和BOPP薄膜上的铺展系数都小于零,也就是说油墨难以在二者上顺利铺展,因此,扩散可能是由于剪切力导致油墨流动。显微镜或光谱仪测量表明,在各种试验印刷设备条件下,印刷速度不会对PET薄膜上印刷图像的均匀性和色度产生很大影响,而BOPP薄膜上的图像质量则在很大程度上依赖于转速。两者存在差异的主要原因在于BOPP薄膜多孔表面的毛细管堵塞导致油墨的铺展能力降低。此外,网穴尺寸（网点百分比）增大导致色度增大,其原因在于油墨和承印物间的接触面积变大。尤其对于BOPP薄膜来说,其印刷图像的色度会随着网点百分比的增大而线性增大。应该指出,在相同的稀释条件和设备条件下,较之PET薄膜来说,BOPP薄膜上的印刷图像的色度与墨层厚度远远高于PET薄膜。BOPP与PET薄膜在油墨转移率上的较大差异也许可以在一定程度上解释两者在界面张力上的差异,以及BOPP承印物上的吸收现象。     

Conditions of Successful Land Reform: A Study of Micronesia

During the twentieth century Japan and the United States attempted land reform in Micronesia. Japan was more successful because a growing population had led to an increasing demand for agricultural products, which could only be met by expanding agriculture across its empire. This required investment in land reform to transfer ownership from common to private rights. Conversely, the Americans faced no such domestic pressures, valuing Micronesia only for its strategic location and military testing. We formulate a model to examine the outcomes of Micronesian land reform under the long‐sighted policy of the Japanese compared with short‐sighted approach of the Americans.     

Trade flow lags, monetary and fiscal policy, and exchange-rate overshooting

In this paper model a is constructed that combines trade slow lags with the model in the appendix to Dornbusch's seminal paper on exchange-rate dynamics. Here output is free to vary and inflation is determined by a simple Phillips curve mechanism. It turns out that, because of the trade slow lags, monetary expansion causes interest rates to decline, but the exchange rate need not oveshoot, as one would expect; whereas fiscal policy always produces overshooting. It follows that monetary policy may be a less important source of exchange-rate variability than is commonly believed, and fiscal policy more important.     

Incentive Compensation and the Likelihood of Termination: Theory and Evidence from Real Estate Organizations

We analyze two managerial compensation incentive devices: the threat of termination and pay for performance. We first develop a simple model predicting that these devices are substitutes: when termination incentives are low, optimal contracts provide stronger pay‐for‐performance incentives. We then use data from real estate organizations to provide two independent tests of the model’s central prediction. First, we use the fact that chief executive officers of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and general partners of Real Estate Limited Partnerships (RELPs) perform similar tasks, yet organizational features of RELPs ensure that the latter are much harder to terminate. Consistent with the model, we find that pay‐for‐performance sensitivity is much higher for general partners of RELPs, where the termination threat is less credible. Second, we use a recent cross‐section of REITs to show that in property types where it is expected to be more costly to replace managers, those managers have stronger pay‐for‐performance incentives.     

Energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic growth: evidence from Indonesia

Energy policy-makers in Indonesia are interested in the causal relationship between energy consumption, CO₂ emissions, and economic growth. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the short- and long-run causality issues between energy consumption, CO₂ emissions, and economic growth in Indonesia using time-series techniques. To this end, annual data covering the period 1965–2006 are employed and tests for unit roots, co-integration, and Granger-causality based on an error-correction model are applied. The results show that there is a bi-directional causality between energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. This means that an increase in energy consumption directly affects CO₂ emissions and that CO₂ emissions also stimulate further energy consumption. In addition, the results support the occurrence of uni-directional causality running from economic growth to energy consumption and to CO₂ emissions without any feedback effects. Thus, energy conservation and/or CO₂ emissions reduction policies can be initiated without the consequent destructive economic side effects.     

Comparison of economic and clinical outcomes between patients undergoing laparoscopic bariatric surgery with powered versus manual endoscopic surgical staplers

Aims: To compare economic and clinical outcomes between patients undergoing laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRY) or laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) with use of powered vs manual endoscopic surgical staplers.

Materials and methods: Patients (aged ≥21 years) who underwent LRY or LSG during a hospital admission (January 1, 2012–September 30, 2015) were identified from the Premier Perspective Hospital Database. Use of powered vs manual staplers was identified from hospital administrative billing records. Multivariable analyses were used to compare the following outcomes between the powered and manual stapler groups, adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics and hospital-level clustering: hospital length of stay (LOS), total hospital costs, medical/surgical supply costs, room and board costs, operating room costs, operating room time, discharge status, bleeding/transfusion during the hospital admission, and 30, 60, and 90-day all-cause readmissions.

Results: The powered and manual stapler groups comprised 9,851 patients (mean age?=?44.6 years; 79.3% female) and 21,558 patients (mean age?=?45.0 years; 78.0% female), respectively. In the multivariable analyses, adjusted mean hospital LOS was 2.1 days for both the powered and manual stapler groups (p?=?.981). Adjusted mean total hospital costs ($12,415 vs $13,547, p?=?.003), adjusted mean supply costs ($4,629 vs $5,217, p?=?.011), and adjusted mean operating room costs ($4,126 vs $4,413, p?=?.009) were significantly lower in the powered vs manual stapler group. The adjusted rate of bleeding and/or transfusion during the hospital admission (2.46% vs 3.22%, p?=?.025) was significantly lower in the powered vs manual stapler group. The adjusted rates of 30, 60, and 90-day all-cause readmissions were similar between the groups (all p?>?.05). Sub-analysis by manufacturer showed similar results.

Limitations: This observational study cannot establish causal linkages.

Conclusions: In this analysis of patients who underwent LRY or LSG, the use of powered staplers was associated with better economic outcomes, and a lower rate of bleeding/transfusion vs manual staplers in the real-world setting.     

Exports and antitrust: Complements or substitutes?

Conflicting arguments have recently been voiced concerning the impact of antitrust statutes on the export performance of U.S. industries. On the one hand, opponents of vigorous enforcement have argued that antitrust constraints prevent firms from achieving efficiencies, thereby hampering competitiveness on world markets. On the other hand, proponents of antitrust have argued that vigorous enforcement tempers monopolistic pricing, thereby improving export performance. This paper presents an empirical test of these competing arguments. Our results indicate that Sherman Act Section 1 (price-fixing) enforcement has a positive effect on export shares, while Clayton Act Section 7 (merger) enforcement appears to have a negative effect.