The Transfer of Manufacturing Processes and Standards in U.S. Plants Operating in the U.K.

This paper finds that U.S. firms tend to utilize their manufacturing processes when operating in the U.K. but that they adopt the production standards of the host country. Three process technology variables are examined: MRP I (materials requirements planning), JIT (just in time), and TQM (total quality management). While significant differences are found between indigenous plants in each of the two countries, the adoption of these manufacturing technologies is similar for American firms operating in either country. In contrast, U.S. transplants are found to be enthusiastic adopters of ISO 9000, suggesting that host country effects are large when it comes to conforming to regional standards.     

对"牛吃麦"案例的另一维度的解释——英、美土地制度和财产制度的变迁

科斯定理是从经济效益的角度来分配权利的,它的"拍卖式"法律价值取向贯穿于美国土地制度与财产制度的发展历程.在与科斯定理相关的"牛吃麦"案例上,美国初始选择了"圈出"规则,后又转向"圈入"规则,其规则的变动始终遵循着"经济效益最大化"原则;而英国自始至终选择了"圈入"规则,早期是为了维护公共财产利益,之后是为了维护私有财产利益,在这过程中,"权利保护原则"是其不变的宗旨.科斯定理纯粹从经济效益的角度来解释有着相同法治渊源与传统的英、美两国在"牛吃麦"案例上所适用规则的差异性,欠缺历史维度的法律分析.     

美国反避税立法之CFC规则研究

随着经济全球化的深入发展,跨国纳税人的避税行为日益频繁,反避税立法成为国际税法和国内税法的共同任务。美国是世界上最早进行反避税立法的国家,其中,其受控外国公司立法,是世界上第一个CFC规则,已经成为其他国家相关立法的模板。由于越来越多的跨国纳税人利用递延纳税进行避税,CFC规则价值凸显,其在美国反避税法律体系中的地位也日趋重要,具体规则也日趋严厉。尽管美国CFC规则也面临一定的冲突和挑战,其反避税价值仍然值得我们深入研究。近年来我国也面临严峻的反避税任务,对美国反避税相关立法进行研究,对中国具有直接的现实意义。     

Measuring U.S. innovative activity: business data at the U.S. Census Bureau

Innovation is seen as a source of strength and vitality in the U.S. economy. Better measures of innovative activity—including but not limited to innovation alone—could improve what we know about the sources of productivity and economic growth. The U.S. Census Bureau collects data on some measures of innovative activity that research shows affect economic performance. But understanding how the effects work requires more than just measures of innovative activity. It also requires solid statistical information about core measures of the economy so we can rule out the possibility that a measure of innovative activity merely proxies for something omitted from or measured poorly in the core data. Gaps in core measures can be filled by better integrating existing data and by more structured collections of new data. Versions of this paper were presented at the NSF/SRS Workshop, Advancing Measures of Innovation: Knowledge Flows, Business Metrics, and Measurement Strategies, Arlington VA, June 6–7, 2006, and circulated to the Advisory Committee on Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. This paper is unofficial and thus has not undergone the review accorded to official Census Bureau publications. Lucia Foster, Ron Jarmin, Jeffrey Mayer, Thomas Mesenbourg, and Daniel Weinberg, and the editors made valuable comments. However, the views expressed in the paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Census Bureau.     

Technology transfer between the U.S.A. and Europe

The premise is that technology gaps have an important impact on the economic life of nations and also have political consequences. Expressions of concern about the technology gap between Europe and the United States have become steadily less frequent in the recent years. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether some of the lessons that can be drawn from the European technology gap of the '60s contribute to the understanding of the present United States-European technology exchange controversies. This is accomplished by (1) reviewing the European arguments, (2) trying to find out how revelant they have proven to be after a few years, (3) investigating better ways to assess the impact of technological differences with reference to current United States arguments about technology export, and (4) attempting to derive some conclusions on policy implications of transferring technology. It was concluded that important policy decisions have been made and are still being made by technology importing countries with little analytical background on the cost and advantages of achieving a technological capacity. In addition, policy decisions by technology exporting countries are most likely to be made with little knowledge of the real phenomena involved.     

美国《拜杜法案》的重思与变革

1980年12月12日通过的美国<拜杜法案>是美国专利法制度的重要组成部分. 回顾该法案的制定动因和基本内容,梳理法案给美国大学带来的深远影响以及遭遇的批评和质疑,可以认为大学不是"专利怪客".克服<拜杜法案>的局限和"失灵"在于大学和其他利益方主体的利益平衡,美国<2009年专利法修改案>对于在成熟的知识经济时代的<拜杜法案>如何变革进行了回应.     

Position Taking and Cosponsorship in the U.S. House

Bill cosponsorship has become an important part of the legislative and electoral process in the modern House of Representatives. Using interviews with congressional members and staff, I explain the role of cosponsorship as a signal to agenda setters and a form of position taking for constituents. Regression analysis confirms that cosponsoring varies with a member's electoral circumstances, institutional position, and state size, but generally members have adapted slowly to the introduction of cosponsorship to the rules and practice of the House.     

U.S. CLS

This essay offers a brief account of the rise of cls thought in the United States and of its development within a largely hostile legal academy. As the essay suggests, cls thought has been variously deformed, arrested, normalized, and diffused – leaving the contemporary American legal academy in a state of suspended animation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Television and the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Elections

We use the structure of media markets within states and across state boundaries to study the relationship between television and electoral competition. In particular, we compare incumbent vote margins in media markets where content originates in the same state as media consumers versus vote margins where content originates out of state. This contrast provides a clear test of whether or not television coverage correlates with the incumbency advantage. We study U.S. Senate and state gubernatorial races from the 1950s through the 1990s and find that the effect of TV is small, directionally indeterminate, and statistically insignificant.     

美国疫苗伤害补偿计划及其对我国的启示

上世纪80年代,美国为了应对疫苗供应危机,颁布了《国家儿童疫苗伤害法》,1988年开始实行疫苗伤害补偿计划,经过几年的努力,初步实现了国会的双重立法目标。我国应借鉴美国的经验,明确立法目标,由国家制定统一的补偿标准,不断扩大补偿范围,制定更具操作性的规定,进一步完善我国的疫苗伤害补偿制度。     

Violence and the U.S. prohibitions of drugs and alcohol

This paper examines the relation between prohibitions and violence,using the historical behavior of the homicide rate in the UnitedStates. The results document that increases in enforcement ofdrug and alcohol prohibition have been associated with increasesin the homicide rate, and auxiliary evidence suggests this positivecorrelation reflects a causal effect of prohibition enforcementon homicide. Controlling for other potential determinants ofthe homicide rate does not alter the conclusion that drug andalcohol prohibition have substantially raised the homicide ratein the U.S. over much of the past 100 years.     

U.S. Social Structure and Imprisonment

An article by Joubert, Picon and McIntosh (1981) is found to contain several serious methodological flaws. A second analysis using a similar data set suggests that these methodological problems may have caused them to draw erroneous conclusions regarding the effects of social structural variables on prison admission and release rates.     

Innovation in the U.S. Service Sector

This paper contributes to ard a better understanding of innovation in the service sector by focusing on the disparate nature of R&D in the U.S. service sector as learned through case studies of the U.S. telecommunications, financial services, systems integration services, and research and development testing services industries. Based on this understanding of the nature and scope of R&D therein, a new policy-oriented model of innovation specific to the service sector is posited. Also, policy recommendations are offered with regard to the public sector’s collection and interpretation of R&D data related to the service sector.      

试论我国民事审前证据交换制度例外规则的完善——以英美证据开示例外范围比较为研究进路

证据开示制度有利于明确争点,固定证据,提高诉讼效率以及突袭性裁判的防止.但证据开示并非是所有证据的开示,应当有所选择,这也是域外的通行做法.我国新《民事诉讼法》未规定证据开示的例外范围,实践中极易导致特定社会关系的破坏.同时,也不利于准备程序争点整理、纾解诉源等功能的有效发挥,往往为庭审程序的散漫化及庭审效率的低下埋下伏笔.因此,我国《民事诉讼法》在下次修改时应当增加证据开示范围的立法内容,明确证据交换的例外范围,免除特殊人员的作证义务,并明确违反证据开示制度的法律后果.同时,为保证证据开示制度及其例外规则的良好运行,应在争点整理程序、摸索证明等制度上予以完善.     

Hidden convergence: toward a historical comparison of U.S. and U.K. health policy

The social science literature on the comparative history of the welfare state offers conflicting accounts of the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. At first blush, the comparative history of health care policy in the United States and the United Kingdom seems to affirm the dominant view that the U.S. and U.K. welfare states have diverged substantially during the twentieth century. A comparison of U.S. and U.K. health policy, however, suggests that there are more parallels and points of tangency between the two systems than are readily apparent. The comparative history of health policy over the past century reveals common political and policy challenges and frequent interchanges of policy ideas, and helps uncover the political dynamics behind the development of health policy in the two countries, which can, in turn, help illuminate the contemporary politics of reform in both countries.     

Congress and the political expansion of the U.S. districts courts

Expanding the number of U.S. district judgeships is often justifiedas a response to expanding caseloads. Increasing judgeshipsduring unified government, however, allows Congress and thePresident to engage in political (patronage and ideological)control of the federal district courts. This paper examinesempirically the relative importance of caseload pressure andpolitical motives for Congress to expand the number of federaldistrict judgeships. We demonstrate that politics dominatesthe timing of judgeship expansion in the U.S. District Courts.We also show that both politics and caseload affect the actualsize of those timed expansions. In particular, we find thatbefore 1970, Congress seemed to have strong political motivationsfor the size of an expansion. After 1970, Congress became muchmore attentive to caseload considerations.     

Northern Democrats and Party Polarization in the U.S. House

Abstract: Over the last 25 years, there has been a steady increase in party voting in the U.S. House, with much of this increase attributed to changes in the South. We argue that changes in the North are also important. Democrats now win a higher percentage of elections in the North, and a larger percentage of the congressional party comes from the North. Northern Democrats became steadily more liberal in the 1980s and 1990s, which increased the liberal record of the entire party. We examine two factors in the rise in liberal voting in the North. First, Democrats now win more seats in urban, lower‐income, nonwhite districts that tend to generate liberal voting records. Second, there has been an increase in the number of districts that tend to produce liberal‐voting Democrats. Together, these changes have resulted in more liberal Democratic Party voting and greater polarization between the parties.