Privatizing Environmental Resources: The Need for Supervision of Clean Development Mechanism Contracts?

This article argues that a current trend in global sustainable development governance is actively to engage the private sector in participating in the process of implementing global and national policy goals. This trend is based on the notion that the private sector has the ideas, technologies and resources at its disposal that can be channelled to addressing global environmental challenges. This new trend does not, however, take into account the past and present implications of private sector investment in fields such as mining and forestry. Nor does it closely examine how private sector rules will subsequently infiltrate and govern environmental management. On the basis of an examination of current policy developments and contracts in the area of environmental management and their implications for developing countries, this article argues in favour of establishing an authority that oversees the legitimacy and legality of these new contracts, especially in, but not limited to, the area of climate change.     

The Private Sector and the Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol: Experiences, Challenges and Prospects

This article emphasizes the critical importance of the private sector to the success of the efforts to mitigate climate change. Analysing the progress and experiences gained so far, this article concentrates on the role of the private sector in the operationalization of the Kyoto Protocol's three flexible mechanisms, namely Joint Implementation (JI), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and international emissions trading. The article illustrates in detail the various tasks performed by private actors during the CDM and JI project cycles, and contemplates their possible participation under Article 17 of the Protocol on international emissions trading. While identifying some challenges, the article argues that the Kyoto Protocol's flexible mechanisms have succeeded in finding innovative ways of involving the private sector in climate change mitigation and that the post-2012 climate regime should build on these experiences.     

Environmental Technology Transfer and Dissemination under the UNFCCC: Achievements and New Perspectives

Response to climate change will critically depend on the cost, performance, and availability of technologies that can lower emissions, mitigate, and adapt to climate change. Technological innovation can furthermore lower the cost of achieving environmental objectives. However, and although issues of technology transfer have been central to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since the negotiation of the convention, there is still an urgent need for effective environmental technology diffusion. Building upon lessons learned from technology transfer activities under the Clean Development Mechanism and the Global Environment Facility, the article suggests three possible solutions for enhanced environmental technology diffusion within the UNFCCC regime. First, it advocates in favor of a simplification of the transfer scheme within the convention's bodies, in order to save resources and better allocate responsibilities. Second, it makes some recommendations with respect to technology transfer through the Green Climate Fund. Third, it suggests that the creation of an environmental patents’ pool would help to ensure access to key environmental technologies. To this respect, the article concludes that in order to ensure the full participation of the private sector, right holders should be paid a fair royalty. Therefore, a model where rights would be bought out and then made available to parties through a patent pool is recommended.     

Using market research to convert federal technology into marketable products

This paper discusses the need for a new market-research strategy to ensure timely applications of federally-developed technology in the private sector. It emphasizes the use of market research to facilitate the conversion of new technology into marketable new products and to guide decisions regarding future directions for technology research. Market research is a widely used source of information in the private sector, but historically it has been excluded from federal research programs.     

Government-sponsored reinsurance

Many measures to reform health insurance markets include various types of government-sponsored reinsurance. This article explains the purposes and types of private and public reinsurance, and reviews available evidence about their performance. The author concludes that government-sponsored reinsurance inherently cannot reduce total costs, but it can shift costs from the private to the public sector. Also, reinsurance can help transition to a new government program or market structure that creates uncertain risks. Whether reinsurance is the best way to accomplish these goals depends greatly on the details.     

The who, what, and why of risk adjustment: a technology on the cusp of adoption

Risk adjustment (RA) consists of a series of techniques that account for the health status of patients when predicting or explaining costs of health care for defined populations or for evaluating retrospectively the performance of providers who care for them. Although the federal government seems to have settled on an approach to RA for Medicare Advantage programs, adoption and implementation of RA techniques elsewhere have proceeded much more slowly than was anticipated. This article examines factors affecting the adoption and use of RA outside the Medicare program using case studies in six U.S. health care markets (Baltimore, Seattle, Denver, Cleveland, Phoenix, and Atlanta) as of 2001. We found that for purchasing decisions, RA was used exclusively by public agencies. In the private sector, use of risk adjustment was uncommon and scattered and assumed informal and unexpected forms. The most common private sector use of RA was by health plans, which occasionally employed RA in negotiations with purchasers or to allocate resources internally among providers. The article uses classic technology diffusion theory to explain the adoption and use of RA in these six markets and derives lessons for health policy generally and for the future of RA in particular. For health policy generally, the differing experiences of public and private actors with RA serve as markers of the divergent paths that public and private health care sectors are pursuing with respect to managed care and risk sharing. For the future of RA in particular, its history suggests the need for health service researchers to consider barriers to use adoption and new analytic technologies as they develop them.     

Technology,change, and the management accountant

Before technology transfer can take place there must be a climate for change. An understanding of the change process is necessary if the transfer of new accounting technology is to be successful and if the design and implementation of it can be carried out in such a way as to create a fit within a particular organizational culture and environment. This article provides some insight into organizational change, change in management-accounting technologies, and the contributions of accountants to innovation in technology organizations.     

公务员创新行为:文献述评与研究展望

创新行为俨然成为公务员适应新时代高素质干部队伍建设要求的典型行为模式,以及公共部门适应职能转变和服务再造要求的内生动力。本研究基于对已有研究的系统梳理与深入分析,构建了一个系统的公务员创新行为研究框架。本研究从公私部门成员创新行为差异及争议切入,围绕公务员创新行为的概念内涵、多层次影响因素及复杂作用机制进行系统回顾并展开评述,呈现新制度主义理论、自我决定理论等在公务员创新行为塑造中的深层逻辑。在此基础上,本研究展望未来方向:(1)以回应跨国文化背景、科层制组织特征、现实工作场景实现公务员创新的情境化研究;(2)在新时代中国场景中实现公务员创新行为的量表开发、跨层次系统性形成机理探索;(3)拓展公务员创新行为的效能机制研究,实现微观层面行为创新与中观层面组织创新、宏观层面政策创新的呼应衔接。     

Technology Transfer in Education – Application to Developing Countries

This article reviews key issues and challenges in the transfer of educational technology to developing countries. Based on the literature of experience in education and the transfer of technology across different country settings, the article sets out a 5-stage framework (selection, implementation planning, pilot implementation, going to scale, and sustainability) for planning and implementing transfer of technology in the education sector. The framework also outlines key questions that should be addressed at each stage, as well as tools and techniques for dealing with these questions. The article concludes with a summary of key principles to consider when transferring educational technology to developing countries.     

Government procurement law and hacking technology: The role of public contracting in regulating an invisible market

This article considers the purchasing of hacking technology by governments and the role of government procurement processes in regulating the hacking market and reducing risks to the buyer. While the proliferation of hacking technology for government actors has led to various proposed solutions for accountability, little consideration has been given to public purchasing of this technology. This article explores whether public contracting processes could be used to help minimize the risks that arise from the use of government hacking technology, and, if so, the types of contractual clauses and institutional supports that might be useful to achieve that goal. In exploring this issue, this article considers theories of government by contract and the publicization of the private sector. These theories posit that public contracting can be used as a vehicle to impose public considerations—for example, certain policy goals—on the private sector. It argues that requirements of transparency and accountability that inhere on the public sector could be transferred in part to the private sector through the vehicle of a public contract and explores how public contracts for government hacking technology could be structured in order to reduce risks posed by the use of this technology.     

DoD technology for commercialization: Sharing the wealth means spreading the word

The fortunes of information transfer and technology are inextricably bound. The extent to which technology transfer is accomplished depends largely on the effectiveness, selectivity, and efficiency with which information is transferred. This article reviews DoD agents that bring about the transfer of its information; in doing so, they contribute to the transfer of DoD’s technology to state and local governments and to the private sector. It emphasizes the role played by the Defense Technical Information Center.     

环保专利共享法律制度研究

环保专利共享计划是气候变化相关技术转让机制的重要组成部分,它从私人公司的角度出发为气候变化相关技术转让的问题提出了新的视角,利用环保技术的特性建立起私人自愿捐赠机制,在促进技术创新的同时实现有效的技术转让。国际环境条约为环保专利共享计划提供了法律依据,环保技术与软件的相似性为环保专利共享计划提供了可行性基础,专利和契约等相关法律制度的完善为环保专利共享计划的运行提供了法律保障。     

Rationales and mechanisms for revitalizing US manufacturing R&;D strategies

The race to economic superiority is increasingly occurring on a global scale. Competitors from different countries are employing new types of growth strategies in attempts to win that race. The United States cannot, therefore, continue to rely on outdated economic growth strategies, which include an inability to understand the complexity of the typical industrial technology and the synergies among tiers in high-tech supply chains. In this context, a detailed rationale is provided for maintaining a viable domestic technology-based manufacturing capability. In the United States, the still dominant neoclassical economic philosophy is at best ambivalent on the issue of whether a technology-based economy should attempt to remain competitive in manufacturing or let this sector continue to offshore in response to trends in comparative advantage, as revealed through shifts in relative prices. The paper argues that the neoclassical view is inaccurate and that a new innovation model is required to guide economic growth policy. Specifically, the paper provides (1) a rationale for why an advanced economy such as the United States needs a manufacturing sector; (2) examples of the process of deterioration of competitive positions for individual industries and, more important, entire high-tech supply chains; (3) an explanation of the inadequacy of current economic models for rationalizing needed new policy strategies; and (4) a new economic framework for determining both policy mechanisms and targets for those mechanisms, with emphasis on the systems nature of modern technologies and the consequent requirement for public–private innovation ecosystems to develop and deliver these technologies. Several targets are suggested for major policy mechanisms.     

R&D Venture: proposition of a technology transfer concept for breakthrough technologies with R&D cooperation: A case study in the energy sector

At times when the market demands strong active innovation, large industrial corporations with established R&D organizations benefit from screening and developing breakthrough innovation. The ability of established organizations to absorb for future technologies is a key to successfully recognize, explore and capture breakthrough innovations. R&D Venturing is a practical way of bringing about technology transfer and exploration of future technologies through R&D cooperation, which is described in this paper by a multiple case study in the energy sector. Existing literature has been reviewed and an R&D Venturing concept will be suggested with a number of propositions for implementation. The results of the case study strongly support that different perspectives of the concept from industry, academia and the ventures themselves have to be carefully understood. Based on the results of the case study, a conceptual framework and propositions for a successful implementation have been derived. A critical discussion of the R&D Venturing concept shows the need for further empirical investigation.     

Transferring Public Research: The Patent Licensing Mechanism in Agriculture

Technology transfer policies can bring public R&D to potential users, reduce burdens on public resources, and influence technology development. Patent licensing offers transparency, potentially higher research returns, and possible increased adoption of socially desirable technologies. However, it limits access to research results, and raises concerns that public institutions will alter their agendas. A review of the US Department of Agriculture's patent and licensing program addresses the types of technologies disseminated, social benefits associated with them, institutions licensing technologies, the importance of exclusivity, and whether research priorities have become oriented to private interests. Results suggest that USDA's patent licensing is not revenue driven, and its research agenda has not changed in response to the program. Licenses vary with respect to four important social benefits. Licensing program priorities are closer to those of the private sector than the USDA's research program. Partial or limited exclusivity may be sufficient to attract technology developers.     

Surveillance deputies: When ordinary people surveil for the state

The state has long relied on ordinary civilians to do surveillance work, but recent advances in networked technologies are expanding mechanisms for surveillance and social control. In this article, we analyze the phenomenon in which private individuals conduct surveillance on behalf of the state, often using private sector technologies to do so. We develop the concept of surveillance deputies to describe when ordinary people, rather than state actors, use their labor and economic resources to engage in such activity. Although surveillance deputies themselves are not new, their participation in everyday surveillance deputy work has rapidly increased under unique economic and technological conditions of our digital age. Drawing upon contemporary empirical examples, we hypothesize four conditions that contribute to surveillance deputization and strengthen its effects: (1) when interests between the state and civilians converge; (2) when law institutionalizes surveillance deputization or fails to clarify its boundaries; (3) when technological offerings expand personal surveillance capabilities; and (4) when unequal groups use surveillance to gain power or leverage resistance. In developing these hypotheses, we bridge research in law and society, sociology, surveillance studies, and science and technology studies and suggest avenues for future empirical investigation.     

Innovation capacity and economic development: China and India

Decomposing the GDP growth from 1981 to 2004, this paper finds that innovation capacity has contributed significantly to the economic growth of China and India, especially in the 1990 s. Outputs of the national innovation system, measured by patents and high-tech/service exports, demonstrate the considerable progress China and India have made in innovation capacity. The enhanced innovation capacity of China and India is primarily due to their heavy investment in the inputs of innovation system, i.e., R&D expenditure and R&D personnel, in recent decades. This paper emphasizes the role that the governments have played in promoting innovation capacity and their contribution to economic development. Both governments have transformed their national innovation systems through linking the science sector with the business sector, providing incentives for innovation activities, and balancing import of technology and indigenous R&D effort. Using case studies of domestic biotech firms in China and India, this paper also offers micro-level insights on innovation capacity and economic development: (1) innovation capacity has become essential for domestic firms?? market success and (2) global institutional factors and national government policies on innovation have considerable influence on the choice of innovation at the firm level, i.e., to conduct indigenous R&D or to import foreign technology.     

Transition from paper to paperless: DOD'S CALS system

When technology is transferred from one context to another, it is an established principle that innovation must take place. Even though a technology is well situated in one context, it must be adoptively redesigned for another. The sharper the difference in contexts, the greater the adaptation. This paper describes a program to transfer technology among a very diverse group of organizations: contractors to the US Department of Defense (DOD). Specifically, it describes how the technology of electronic communication, including electronic- data interchange (EDI), is being pursued by both the DOD and its supporters.     

Moving from secrecy to transparency in the offensive cyber capabilities sector: The case of dual-use technologies exports

Transparency is central to the prevention of human rights abuses. Over the past few decades, a belief in transparency has permeated multiple industries, reflected in an explosion of legislation intended to further this principle. Yet, despite this emphatic recognition of the importance of transparency, the activities of government and private sector actors involved in the development, sale, and export of Offensive Cyber Capabilities (OCC) remain cloaked in secrecy regardless of the sector’s role in facilitating human rights abuses. In this article, we tackle this broader challenge of secrecy via a case study on the export of dual-use technologies. We theorize why secrecy has been so prevalent in the OCC sector. We consider the role of different forms of secrecy—such as commercial secrecy and opportunistic secrecy by governments—in facilitating this situation. We argue that injecting greater transparency into the OCC sector is critical to deterring human rights abuses through accountability and oversight, can help counter the proliferation of offensive cyber technology proliferation, and can ensure better overall governance in regimes governing the export of dual-use technologies. Mandating transparency by governments and exporting companies in the OCC sector can pave the way for policy changes to better regulate this industry and finds support in international human rights principles related to transparency. In closing, we examine how transparency might be incorporated into export frameworks addressing dual-use technologies.     

First amendment values and government participation in the marketplace,fifty years after the Hutchins report

The Hutchins Commission took a favorable view of government speech; Its report recommended that government act as a supplementary news source for the public. This article asserts that the commission was “fighting the last war” by focusing on government restraints on the press, while failing to propose limitations on the government's ability to circumvent the press. With the advent of new forms of telecommunications technology, the government might one day replace the private sector press as the public's primary source for news. This article asserts that the Supreme Court should recognize that the Press Clause of the First Amendment guarantees the existence of the private sector press as an independent, nongovernmental branch of our governance system. Based on a “separation of powers” view of Press Clause values, the article argues that the Court should create a First Amendment “right of reply” to any government dissemination of information to the American public in a manner that circumvents the traditional role of the private sector press.