The Law and Economics of Marriage Contracts

Growth in property ownership has raised the stakes in the distribution of financial assets on divorce. Given high risks of marital failure, this has stimulated the demand for private ordering through enforceable marriage contracts. This paper surveys the existing law and economics literature and legal practice to consider the state of knowledge on the economic theory, scope and limits of written nuptial agreements.     

Patents,Copyrights, and Trademarks in the Early Twenty-First Century: The New Relevance of Some Old Concepts of Intellectual Property Rights

SUMMARY

After laying an historical foundation of the concept of “promonopoly” legislation in the face of a U. S. public policy devoted, since 1890, to a generally antimonopoly position, this paper examines the relevance of recent changes in the three types of domestic promonopoly law: patent law, copyright law, and trademark law. During the last thirty years of the twentieth century, and especially during the last decade of that period, all three aspects of American promonopoly legislation were strengthened. The term of copyright was extended from a maximum of fifty-six years to the lifetime of the last-living author of a work plus seventy years and coverage was broadened to extend to recordings-by a number of means-of performances; patents were lengthened in duration from seventeen years to twenty; and the law of trademarks was modified to include protection for trademark holders against “dilution,” or loss of value of trademarks due to the acts of noncompetitors. The implications and rationales of these changes are examined in the context of their effect on business life at the beginning of the third millennium. While it is too soon since the majority of these changes in law went into effect to draw definitive conclusions concerning their ultimate consequences, it does appear that, in general, their thrust is to increase the value of intellectual property to its proprietors.     

ETHNIC DIVERSITY,PROPERTY RIGHTS,AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both development failures and successes depending on their underlying socioeconomic fundamentals. Recent empirical evidence and theoretical work provide support for a resource-curse hypothesis based on ethnic fractionalization. There is also increasing empirical evidence suggesting that ethnic heterogeneity based on polarization is a strong deterrent of economic growth. In this paper, we explore the interlinkages between natural resource abundance and both measures of ethnic heterogeneity. In a two–simultaneous equation system, we assess the effects of fractionalization and polarization on property-rights protection, and thereby on growth, both directly as well as in interaction with our resource-abundance proxy. We find that ethnic polarization is more likely to have a direct negative impact on the effectiveness of property rights in a resource-rich context, which as we explain may suggest that different ethnic groups treat the contestable resource base as a semi-public good.     

Regional development and migration in the Lower Basin of the Zambezi River. The importance of property rights

Globalization is associated with pressures and conflicts over natural resources, with migration, urbanization and development. The analyzes these phenomena focusing the Lower Basin of the Zambezi River in Mozambique where external demand over natural resources have been associated with huge projects on transport infrastructures, coal mining and agroforestry, somehow correlated with recurring conflicts. The approach proposes and uses a regional development model that highlights the impacts of the spatial allocation of property rights on income and migration. Results show the importance of resources ownership in the spatial profile of development and social unrest.     

人力资本产权视野下企业剩余索取权的配置分析

人力资本产权理论运用于分配企业剩余索取权,有利于提升人力资本的经济利益,形成对人力资本产权所有者的有效激励和约束。本文运用博弈论方法,以剩余索取权作为研究的切入点,旨在从理论上探寻人力资本所有者分享企业剩余索取权的必要性和可能途径,以及由此给企业带来的相关效应。     

国家知识产权政策体系建设之语境与维度--基于促进自主创新能力建设视角

建构和完善面向自主创新的国家知识产权政策体系的时间窗口已经开启。创新发展的内在需求、国际环境的外部约束以及知识产权政策问题的复杂化发展等现实语境决定了中国知识产权政策体系建设命题的出发点和路径空间。当下国家知识产权政策体系建设必须把握产业、社会、全球及协同等相互关联的维度,立足于产业需求,着眼于社会发展,遵循国际规则,注重协同运行,为创新型国家建设提供制度支撑和政策保障。     

Are property rights enough?Re‐evaluating a big‐bang claim1

We investigate the claim made by proponents of the big‐bang strategy that the establishment of property rights in an economy in transition creates its own demand for the enforcement of laws to protect those rights. Our model contains a government engaging in activities to accomplish objectives that depend on public support for the enforcement of the rule of law and agents who interpret the level of activities of the government as indications of the government's intent to enforce the rule of law. Agents, using the level of government activities as an input to their decisions, choose whether to support the government's objectives. We establish conditions under which the level of activities chosen by the government maximizes its benefits, and simultaneously induces the constituency to support enforcement of the rule of law. These conditions provide a basis for the argument for the implementation of the big‐bang policy. When these conditions do not hold, however, we show that the level of activities that maximizes the government's benefits may have only a minor impact on support for the enforcement of the rule of law. Two characteristics play an important role in these conditions: the initial level of crime and the types of activities the government chooses to undertake. We present examples showing that the initial level of crime has the more dramatic effect on subsequent support for the rule of law.