Foreign exchange legislation transformation and enterprise demography in India

This article evaluates the extent to which the legislative changes relating to foreign exchange that have taken place in India within the last few decades, and in particular after 1991, have made an impact on the presence of foreign firms in the economy. The data cover the period 1957–1958 to 2001–2002, and include the entire population of India’s corporate sector. In the period after reforms commenced in 1991, the number of foreign firms in India has increased very substantially. The transformation of the foreign exchange regulation act (FERA) to the foreign exchange management act (FEMA) in 1999 has had a positive effect in inducing foreign firms to India. The FEMA legislation simplifies the maze of controls, procedures and bureaucratic minutiae that have to be observed by all those undertaking to set up and operate a business in India. The changes in the legislative regimes make India attractive as an investment destination for foreign firms.

Geographic and technological R&;D spillovers within the triad: micro evidence from US patents

This paper aims at assessing the magnitude of R&D spillover effects on large international R&D companies’ productivity growth. In particular, we investigate the extent to which R&D spillover effects are intensified by both geographic and technological proximities between spillover generating and receiving firms. We also control for the firm’s ability to identify, assimilate and absorb the external knowledge stock. The results estimated by means of panel data econometric methods (system GMM) indicate a positive and significant impact of both types of R&D spillovers and of absorptive capacity on productivity performance.

The effect of informal industry contacts on the time university scientists allocate to collaborative research with industry

We ask whether informal interactions between university and industry scientists result in collaborative research. Using data from a national survey of tenured and tenure-track scientists and engineers in U.S. research extensive universities, we demonstrate that university scientists’ informal interactions with private sector companies increase both the likelihood and intensity of collaborative research with industry.

Hegemony, Discipline and Control in the Administration of Police in Colonial India

The Indian subcontinent was under British colonial rule for over two centuries until 1947. To administer the large country and its diverse population, the British designed a criminal justice administrative system which played a key role in maintaining their dominance and hegemony. In particular, the police organization, largely composed of natives, furthered the goals of colonial dominance through its functions of order maintenance, crime control, and surveillance. This paper, using Gramsci’s conception of hegemony and Foucault’s study of disciplining and control, analyzes the important role that the police played in maintaining British rule in India.

Intra-country regulation of share markets: does one size fit all?

A large body of evidence suggests that financial development is greater in countries that impose stricter regulatory requirements on their major stock exchanges, but this leaves open the question of whether or not such regulation should be uniformly applied to all equity trading platforms within a country. On the one hand, regulatory variation permits a wider choice of investment opportunities for investors, lowers the cost of capital for some firms, and enhances price discovery and efficiency. On the other hand, the presence of lightly regulated exchanges can potentially have adverse spillover implications for a country’s other financial markets.

The limits to internationalization of scientific research collaboration

This study analyses international research collaboration for eight science-based technologies in the Netherlands for the period 1988–2004. It is found that the share of international research collaborations in research collaboration is high, but not rising during the period investigated. This result suggests that the process of internationalization has reached an end. It is also found that collaboration between academic and non-academic organizations is less likely to take place at the international level than collaboration between academic organizations. This suggests that collaborating within national research systems helps academia, firms and governmental organizations to overcome differences in norms, values and incentives. Nonetheless, international collaboration between academic and non-academic organizations is also frequently occurring. Some consider these collaborations as undesirable, insofar academic research funded domestically is ‘leaking’ to foreign firms in such research collaborations. Such unwanted knowledge spillovers has lead some to plea for a ‘technology-nationalism’ in science policy instead of a ‘techno-globalization’. An analysis of the ‘balance of trade’ in international collaborations between Dutch academia and foreign firms and between Dutch firms and foreign academia shows that fears for unwanted knowledge spillovers are unfounded.

The effects of stronger intellectual property rights on technology transfer: evidence from Japanese firm-level data

This paper presents the theoretical framework and empirical analysis of the effect of stronger Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on technology transfer from parent firm to its subsidiaries in foreign countries. The results of empirical testing, based on the firm-level panel data of Japanese MNCs’ foreign subsidiaries, show that the stronger protection of IPRs has a positive effect on the promotion of intra-firm technology transfer after controlling for market specific factors in the host countries as well as parent-subsidiary firm specific factors. They are consistent with our theoretical prediction and the results of the previous studies based on US firm-level data.

Technology parks in a developing country: the case of India

Following the economic liberalization of 1991, the government of India established the software technology parks of India (STPI) scheme and opened numerous software parks around the country. These parks have played a critical role in the growth of India’s software sector. In recent years, private software parks have also been established in different parts of India. The government of India is now promoting biotechnology (biotech) parks to encourage growth of this emerging sector. The biotech parks are still in their infancy with a few operating parks. There are several upcoming biotech parks in different Indian states with support from the respective state governments. The government of India continues to play an important role in establishing technology parks. Biotech-Information Technology (Bio-IT) park is the next type of park that the government is planning to promote. This article discusses the institutional history of these technology parks in India.

Science Parks’ tenants versus out-of-Park firms: who innovates more? A duration model

We study the successfulness of Science Parks (SPs) as seedbeds of innovation. We investigate whether SPs enhance the innovative output of their tenants and if tenants outperform comparable outside-SPs firms. We rely on original matching datasets regarding in- and out-SP Finnish firms and their patenting activity over 1970–2002. We estimate and compare the ‘before-versus-after’ hazard rates of patenting of both samples. The results suggest that, given the existence of a common tendency to slow down the pace at which all firms patent during their life cycle, Park tenants exhibit a comparatively better performance. Results are robust to various model specifications and to Wald tests performed over the pooled samples.

American Indian and European American Women’s Perceptions of Domestic Violence

American Indian and European American women’s definitions and perceived causes for domestic violence were examined. Attitudes towards violence and battering as it relates to the self were measured with two scales. As predicted, results indicated American Indian women and European American women held different conceptualizations of what constitutes domestic violence and different notions concerning the cause of domestic violence. Also, American Indian women were more attuned to external causes for violence, while European American women referred to internal explanations for such violence. Differences in social and psychological histories of violence and attitudinal orientations toward violence were indicated. Legal and health system changes are recommended in order to combat violence in Indian country.

Institutionalized corruption: power overconcentration of the First-in-Command in China

Among various kinds of corruption in China, corruption of the First-in-Command (FIC) is most pernicious, threatening the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and the stability of the state. This paper examines several specific institutional arrangements under China’s current political structure, including the people’s congress, the ruling party system, and the collective leadership team system, to see how they have contributed to power overconcentration in the hands of FICs. This is done in a two-round process: first through the collective leadership team and then by the gestating decision-making rule. The paper also assesses four institutional innovations designed to prevent FIC corruption.

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Firm performance and privatization in Ukraine

Investigating the effects of privatization in transition countries is the focus of a large body of current research. Generally, privatization stimulates private sector development, attracts foreign direct investment, fosters competition and contributes to the formation of stock markets. In addition, privatization may improve individual enterprises’ performance. This paper investigates the impact of privatization on Ukrainian firms’ productivity. The empirical research is based on a sample of 466 Ukrainian joint-stock enterprises for the period of 1997–1999. Estimation results indicate that privatization positively influences labor productivity, sales and profitability, but also that these effects diminish over time.

Researching the use of force: the background to the international project

This article provides the background to an international project on use of force by the police that was carried out in seven countries. Force is often considered to be the defining characteristic of policing and much research has been conducted on the determinants, prevalence and control of the use of force, particularly in the United States. However, little work has looked at police officers’ own views on the use of force, in particular the way in which they justify it. Using a hypothetical encounter developed for this project, researchers in each country conducted focus groups with police officers in which they were encouraged to talk about the use of force. The results show interesting similarities and differences across countries and demonstrate the value of using this kind of research focus and methodology.

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Torn between two targets: German police officers talk about the use of force

Considering earlier research into police use of force as well as the judicial and practical frame of police work in Germany, the article presents the results of an empirical study on the individual and collective legitimization of the use of force by German police officers. There are numerous justifications for the use of force expressed by focus group participants in eight German Federal States who were responding to a hypothesized scenario. In the discussions observed within the groups, reference is first made to the state’s duty to prosecute alleged offences and the measures or formal actions to do this—hence, the legal authority to use force. In the course of the discussions, however, it became obvious that illegal violence may occur, although it was not perceived as such by the officers. Overall, and after an intensive analysis of the focus group discussions, it can be stated that use of force (whether legal or not) depends on the police officer’s perception of the resistance of the person being engaged with. In this regard, different social–cultural or physical–material factors can be identified. They have different influences on the individual legitimization of police actions, intertwined with the perception of the situation as constructed by the officer. Three ways of perceiving the situation can be deduced, resulting in different patterns of justification for the use of force.

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Wasting innovation: barriers to entry and European regulation on waste electronic equipment

The European Directive on Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment 2002/96/EC distorts incentives in regulated markets. Treatment of ‘historical waste’—i.e. products sold prior to 13 August 2005—is financed by all firms in the market at the time of disposal. This stimulates excessive pre-regulation output by incumbents for two reasons: a costs sharing effect and entry deterrence. Entry deterrence is achieved by raising the common costs of waste disposal. Entry is a main driver of innovation in the affected industries. The feasibility of a first best policy is discussed and an alternative rule superior to the status quo is presented.

Arson and the Special Part

This commentary on Michael Cahill’s Grading Arson argues that Cahill’s analysis inevitably leads to three possible conclusions. First, arson does not belong in criminal codes. Second, crimes of manner do not belong in criminal codes. And, third, the special part needs serious reconsideration. Although Cahill is reticent to draw any of these conclusions, this commentary urges Cahill to embrace all three.

The impact of the US legislation on company measures of control and prevention

The spectacular business scandals in recent years have led both the legislative and business companies to rethink and redesign their strategies. This article analyzes the worldwide impact of reforms in economic crime legislation emanating from the USA. Empirical data are reported showing that the US regulations are generating a spillover effect spreading beyond its sphere of operation. It is particularly notable that international stock-exchange-listed companies are orienting themselves increasingly toward the legal standards of the USA. Translated from the German by Jonathan Harrow, Bielefeld.

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Philosophy of Law Against Sovereignty: New Excesses,Old Fragmentations

The only way of entering the world of ‘fragmented law’ (or ‘societal constitutionalism’) is arguably to make normative fragmentation correspond with constituent excess. As Foucault would say, once we are involved in an ‘epistemic crisis’, we must then modify those systems that organise knowledge in conjunction with the very forms that produce it. This contribution considers some privileged forms of critique and reconstruction beyond normative fragmentation and essentially argues in favour of governance dynamics, as well as for ontological devices engaged in the production of subjectivity.

White-collar,organised and cyber crimes in the media: some contrasts and similarities

This article examines the media reportage of white-collar crimes, organised crimes and cybercrimes, principally in the British but also in the US media. It illustrates the ways in which different newspapers depict crime seriousness and how some defendants adapt to these portrayals. It examines competing explanatory models and suggests that although reportage has an ideological component, ‘news values’ and production pressures as well as ‘action triggers’ such as prosecutions or regulatory interventions are important.

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Rethinking governmental licensing of higher education institutions

In many countries around the world, governmental authorities control the market entry of new providers of higher educational services. By means of ex-ante licensing in the higher education sector, government ensures that students are only confronted with academic programs and institutions that at least meet certain minimum quality standards. This quality-assuring intervention by government may be taken for granted. From an economic viewpoint, however, it seems worthwhile to scrutinize the regulatory status quo. In order to rethink existing licensing arrangements’ raison d’être, the present paper addresses the question whether governmental market entry control in the higher education industry is necessary at all.