Refining the debate on GM crops using technological foresight—the Danish experience

Rapid developments in and the controversial nature of biotechnology call for communication, networks, partnerships, and collaboration in research, not just among researchers, but also between researchers and research “users” in industry, government, and elsewhere. Technological foresight appears to offer a coordinating method for developing and strengthening those linkages. To test this, a technological foresight study was performed on genetically modified (GM) crop technology in the Danish context. The background of the study was the conflict and intense debate in Denmark over applications of gene technology, especially over the deliberate release of genetically modified (GM) crops. However, the current debate characteristically involves sharply opposed fronts, lacking willingness and courage to engage in a free-flowing and open-minded debate on both rational and normative components of biosafety. In it, stakeholders and experts on both side of the conflict advocate widely differing opinions. Without a proper generally intelligible dialogue, the broader public audience finds it hard to comprehend this type of debate. The study pursues the notion that public dialogue can act as a driver of future applications in the technological domain, specifically GM crops. The study concluded with a stakeholder workshop that revealed three key issues that might provide helpful starting points for a more free-flowing and open-minded debate about the future of GM crops. The issues were those arising from the following statements: a broad perspective on risk is crucial; international regulation must make allowance for developing countries; a better configuration of the risk debate is needed. These issues are discussed in more details in the article.     

Integration Vacuum: Creating Action Space for Global Strategy Implementation in International Acquisitions

Many multinationals rely on acquisitions when expanding internationally. However, cross‐border integration processes are complex and often result in a looser integration than intended. In this study, we examine the postacquisition process in a multinational seeking global integration of its geographically dispersed organizational units. We find that politicization and ambiguity lead to integration vacuum where top‐down initiatives fail to achieve desired integration outcomes. However, the integration vacuum creates expanded space of action for the acquired firm to initiate unexpected bottom‐up integration. We contribute to the literature on multinationals by illuminating the challenges they face when extending their dominant strategic logic to international acquisitions. Furthermore, we identify the process through which politicization and ambiguity lead to integration vacuum that allows the foreign subsidiary an expanded space of action wherein it can initiate bottom‐up integration efforts. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Intellectual property marketplaces and how they work: Evidence from German pharmaceutical firms

This article examines a sample of German pharmaceutical firms to highlight the strategic reasons why firms participate in various intellectual property (IP) marketplaces, both proprietary (patents and copyrights) and non-proprietary (open source and non-patented technology). The obstacles that prevent these marketplaces from functioning efficiently are also investigated. The analysis suggests that IP policy must embrace all IP forms and must recognise that IP marketplaces do not work “automatically” but suffer many institutional failures.     

The evolution of conventions under incomplete information

Summary. We formulate an evolutionary learning process with trembles for static games of incomplete information. For many games, if the amount of trembling is small, play will be in accordance with the games (strict) Bayesian equilibria most of the time. This supports the notion of Bayesian equilibrium. Often the process will select a specific equilibrium. We study an extension to incomplete information of the prototype conflict known as Chicken and find that the equilibrium selection by evolutionary learning may well be in favor of inefficient Bayesian equilibria where some types of players fail to coordinate.Received: 17 March 2003, Revised: 3 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: C72.     

Adaptive learning in extensive form games and sequential equilibrium

Summary. This paper studies adaptive learning in extensive form games and provides conditions for convergence points of adaptive learning to be sequential equilibria. Precisely, we present a set of conditions on learning sequences such that an assessment is a sequential equilibrium if and only if there is a learning sequence fulfilling the conditions, which leads to the assessment. Received: November 5, 1996; revised version: May 28, 1997     

The hunt for S-shaped growth paths in technological innovation: a patent study*

Since the works by the business cycle theorists in the 1930s, no attempts have been made to study empirically the long term evolution paths of individual technologies starting with long time series. This is an empirical exploration and confirmation of the now almost assumed image or metaphor of the way technology develops; that it follows an S-shaped growth path which is commonly associated with a similar shaped diffusion function of entrepreneurial activity. The paper also confirms the diversity of technology dynamics and explores how technological cycle takeoffs appear to be clustered within certain historical epochs. The results have implications for our understanding of the evolution paths of individual technologies, and of the evolution of technological systems and waves of innovation. By use of computational statistics, logistic growth functions are fitted to US patent stocks, 1920–1990, at a detailed level of aggregation, including chemical, electrical/electronic, mechanical, transport and non-industrial technologies. Some practical considerations when developing an empirically testable model of innovation cycles are addressed in the paper as well.     

Don’t blame the P2P file-sharers: the impact of free music downloads on the purchase of music CDs in Canada

This study measures the extent to which P2P file-sharing activities act as substitutes or complements to music purchases in markets for CDs. The paper breaks with the mainstream economics approach which dominates the music file-sharing discussion. Whereas such models assume relationships at the micro level (e.g. between file-sharing and purchases) based on observations made at the macro level, our evolutionary economics approach measures the direct effects using micro data representative of the Canadian population. The behavioral incentives underpinning free music downloading, novel to this paper, are the multiple effects of: ‘unwillingness to pay’ (market substitution), ‘hear before buying’ (market creation), ‘not wanting to buy a whole album’ (market segmentation), and ‘not available in the CD format or on electronic pay-sites’ (market creation). Although the two first mentioned incentives significantly influence CD album purchases—i.e. there is a negative and significant market substitution effect and a positive and significant market creation effect—on the whole, these two effects ‘cancel’ one another out, leading to no association between the number of P2P files downloaded and CD album sales.     

The Impacts of Redesigning European Agricultural Support

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of decoupling at the individual member state level in the European Union and in non-member regions of liberalizing domestic support in the EU. Three scenarios are analysed to illustrate the impacts of eliminating or decoupling the European agricultural support. We found that the existing domestic support payments in the EU are indeed coupled to production and hence affect production decisions and distort international trade with adverse effects on the export potential of developing countries as a consequence. Further, the value of this support is capitalised in significant higher land prices in Europe than would otherwise prevail. The scenarios illustrate the economic implications of transforming all domestic support payments (as well as other distorting policies) into a nationally homogenous and fully decoupled payment to all agricultural land, irrespective of a farmer's decision to crop or not. The analysis suggests that it is possible to convert the existing agricultural support into a fully decoupled payment which would not distort international trade and it indicates a way forward to offset the negative impact on land prices. Such a policy would also comply with the WTO rules (i.e. fall within the green box as decoupled income support). The analysis also suggests that such a policy reform could be achieved at somewhat lower budgetary costs as compared with the existing costs of the Common Agricultural Policy.     

International trade in services: firm-level evidence for Portugal

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper adds to the existing firm-level evidence on international trade in non-tourism services, using a new Portuguese database merged with balance-sheet data. In...     

Fictitious Play in Extensive Form Games

This article analyzes the fictitious play process originally proposed for strategic form games by Brown (1951) and Robinson (1951). We interpret the process as a model of preplay thinking performed by players before acting in a one-shot game. This model is one of bounded rationality. We discuss how fictitious play should then be defined for extensive form games and conclude that this is somewhat problematic. We therefore study two alternative definitions. For either of these, under a weak condition of initial uncertainty, a convergence point of a fictitious play sequence is a sequential equilibrium. For generic games of perfect information initial uncertainty also implies convergence of fictitious play.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C72.