Embracing invention similarity for the measurement of vertically overlapping claims

ABSTRACT

Clear and well-defined patent rights can incentivize innovation by granting monopoly rights to the inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. However, with cumulative innovation, when a product draws from intellectual property held across multiple firms (including fragmented intellectual property or patent thickets), contracting failures may lead to suboptimal economic outcomes. However, an alternative theory, developed by a variety of scholars, contends that patent thickets have a more ambiguous effect. Researchers have developed several measures to gauge the extent and impact of cumulative innovation and the various channels of patent thickets. This paper contends that mis-measurement may contribute to the incoherence and overall lack of consensus within the patent thickets literature. Specifically, the literature is missing a precise measure of vertically overlapping claims. We propose a new measure of vertically overlapping claims that incorporates invention similarity to more precisely identify inventive overlap. The measure defined in this paper will enable more accurate measurement, and allow for novel economic research on cumulative innovation, fragmentation in intellectual property, and patent thickets within and across all patent jurisdictions.     

Judgment aggregation in search for the truth

We analyze the problem of aggregating judgments over multiple issues from the perspective of whether aggregate judgments manage to efficiently use all voters' private information. While new in judgment aggregation theory, this perspective is familiar in a different body of literature about voting between two alternatives where voters' disagreements stem from conflicts of information rather than of interest. Combining the two bodies of literature, we consider a simple judgment aggregation problem and model the private information underlying voters' judgments. Assuming that voters share a preference for true collective judgments, we analyze the resulting strategic incentives and determine which voting rules efficiently use all private information. We find that in certain, but not all cases a quota rule should be used, which decides on each issue according to whether the proportion of ‘yes’ votes exceeds a particular quota.     

Market Reaction to Corporate Social Responsibility Announcements： Evidence from China

This study uses an event study methodology to examine how the Chinese market reacts to announcements of involvement in corporate social responsibilitY （CSR） by Southern Weekend （a Chinese newspaper）for Chinese firms from 2008 to 2012. Our results show significant and pcsitive market reactions, supporting the instrumental stakeholder theory. We attribute the positive market response to social capital development and real growth options related to the CSR involvement by the Chinese firms.     

Remittances and incumbency: Theory and evidence

By raising household income, remittances lower the marginal utility of targeted electoral transfers, thus weakening the efficacy of vote buying. Yet, remittances make individuals wealthier and believe the national economy is performing well, which is positively attributed to the incumbent. Building on these insights, I show that the confluence of these divergent channels generate a surprising result that at increasingly higher levels of dissatisfaction with the incumbent, a remittance recipient is more likely to vote for the incumbent than a non‐remittance recipient. These predictions and their underlying mechanisms are substantiated across 18 Latin American countries.     

“跛足”的公司治理——评《公司法》第一百零六条和第一百五十二条

新《公司法》与旧《公司法》比较而言,尽管引入了许多新的制度,有很大的进步,但仍没有摆脱“缺乏可操作性”这个固有法律弊端,就公司治理中最为重要的累积投票制度和股东衍生诉讼制度而言,这种情况尤为严重。立法部门应立足我国公司治理的具体情况,完善上述制度。     

Leadership in agricultural machinery circles: experimental evidence from Tajikistan

Leadership is critical for the viability of rural groups. The way in which leadership is legitimised can mediate leader and group member behaviour in the face of social dilemmas. Yet there has been scant research on leader‐follower dynamics in naturally occurring groups. Highlighting the case of agricultural machinery circles in Tajikistan, the effect of leading by example on investments to a collective good is studied in a framed field experiment. To increase realism, and contrary to standard economic experiments, this investment is a voucher allowing the group to make a real‐world machinery purchase at reduced costs. Two treatments manipulate leaders’ legitimisation. Elected leaders achieve 30 per cent higher contributions to the collective investment against a baseline version without a leader. Contributions remain, on average, relatively stable over the course of the game. The results are discussed with reference to the debate on external intervention in agricultural producer organisations.     

双重股权结构如何影响审计定价？——基于在美中概股的实证研究

在科创板允许特殊表决权企业上市以及美国强化中概股公司审计监管的背景下,基于2005—2019年在美上市中概股公司数据,实证研究双重股权结构对审计定价的影响及其作用环境。研究发现,相较于单一股权结构,双重股权结构会显著提高审计定价;同时发现,在双重股权结构下,投票权和现金流权之间的分离程度与审计定价之间呈显著正相关关系。在控制内生性问题后,上述结论仍然成立。进一步研究发现,相较于其他双重股权结构公司,在经理人纵向兼任、低市场化程度地区的双重股权结构公司中,投票权和现金流权之间的分离程度对审计定价的提升作用更为显著。研究结论为双重股权结构的治理及监管提供了有益的经验参考和理论指导。     

Kantian Equilibrium

Consider a game whose strategies are "contributions". A strategy profile is a Kantian equilibrium if  no  player would like  all  players to alter their contributions by the  same multiplicative factor.  Kantian equilibria are Pareto efficient. We characterize the allocation rules on several domains of environments that can be implemented as Kantian equilibria. The concept unifies the  proportional solution  on production economies and the  linear cost-share equilibrium  on public-good economies. We study Kantian equilibrium in the prisoner's dilemma, in a voting problem, and in a political economy where redistribution is the issue. The Kantian dictum engenders considerable but not unqualified cooperation.     

股份公司股东表决权限缩的激励分析

在股份公司的多方利益相关主体中,股东拥有表决权。一股一权是表决权行使的基本原则,但在公司实践中还存在股东的表决权由于特定原因被限缩的情形,这一现象蕴藏着深刻的激励因素,其中包括产权的赋予和责任的配置。