Fair Copy: Protecting Access to Scientific Information in Post‐War Britain

This paper extends recent discussions about copyright and the public domain by looking at attempts in post‐war Britain to promote access to scientific information. More specifically, it concentrates on the Royal Society's Fair Copy Declaration (1950) and the related library copying provisions introduced in the Copyright Act 1956, which were designed to protect access to information. While the UK library copying provisions were presented as an expanded version of the Fair Copy Declaration recast in a statutory format, we show that the library copying provisions reflected a specific way of thinking about creation, production and distribution that differed markedly from those that underpinned the Fair Copy Declaration. We also argue that the logic of creation reflected in the library copying provisions shaped copyright law over the course of the twentieth century and beyond.     

Grand Theft Auto is a “Sandbox” Game,but There are Weapons,Criminals, and Prostitutes in the Sandbox: Response to Ferguson and Donnellan (2017)

In this issue, (Ferguson, C. J., & Donnellan, B. D., Journal of Youth and and Adolescence, published online 21 June 2017) criticize one of our studies (Gabbiadini, A., Riva, P., Andrighetto, L., Volpato, C., & Bushman, B. J., PLoS ONE, 11: 1–14, 2016) that found violent sexist video games can reduce empathy for female violence victims in male players who identify with violent male game characters, and do so by increasing masculine beliefs. Their main criticism is a “straw person” argument built on a claim that we never made (i.e., a direct effect of sexist-violent video games on empathy). They also made several other criticisms of our article. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to their criticisms in this article. We also point out some flaws in their reanalysis. Despite their criticisms, the core contributions of our original article remain intact.     

The growth effects of sport franchises,stadia, and arenas

This paper investigates the relationship between professional sports franchises and venues and real per capita personal income in 37 standard metropolitan statistical areas in the United States over the period 1969 to 1994. Our empirical framework accounts for the entry and departure of professional football, basketball, and baseball franchises; the construction of arenas and stadia; and other sports related factors over this time period. In contrast to other existing studies, we find evidence that some professional sports franchises reduce the level of per capita personal income in metropolitan areas and have no effect on the growth in per capita income, casting doubt on the ability of a new sports franchise or facility to spur economic growth. We also find evidence that results obtained from estimating reduced‐form relationships, a common practice in the literature, are not robust to alternative reduced‐form specifications. © 1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Most Unique of all Unique Species

This article identifies the shortcomings of “orthodox neo-Darwinians” such as Richard Dawkins, George Williams and Daniel Dennett in their efforts to describe human nature and human pro-social behavior. As an alternative to the views of these thinkers, the efforts of Peter Richerson, Robert Boyd, and other “dual inheritance” theorists to describe the evolution of human nature are also characterized. It is argued that dual inheritance theorists have surpassed the orthodox neo-Darwinians in their explanations for very important and uniquely human features such as our extensive sociability, complex cumulative culture and morality.

Public Preferences for Program Tradeoffs: Community Values for Budget Priorities

A growing literature concerns techniques to improve community-based reforms and citizen-centered governance in order to reinforce the trust in democratic government. We analyze a contingent choice technique that systematically collects information about individual citizens' relative values of a set of state public programs. Individual citizens are asked to allocate a fixed increment of public funds. Individuals reveal their marginal willingness to trade off (MWTTO) additions in one program for additions in another. MWTTO values provide program rankings and information concerning the relative strength of citizen preferences. An example of a contingent choice survey is described.     

Busting the Myth of the Unavailability of Insurance Rule's Application to Loss Allocation for Pollution Liability Claims Since 1986

Tens of millions of dollars in pollution liability losses have been mistakenly allocated to general liability insurers under the “Unavailability of Insurance” rule in jurisdictions that employ it. Under this rule, a policyholder is not allocated losses for years when they claim that pollution liability was unavailable – mainly after the advent of the 1986 “absolute” pollution exclusion. Recent research has been compiled to include thousands of pages of evidence that by 1986 and to this date there was and has been a viable pollution liability insurance market that would not only underwrite a current year's risks, but also erase any prior pollution insurance coverage gaps by insuring decades of prior acts. This article looks at this rule and the enormous impact it could have on insurers' pollution liability reserves if it continues to be misapplied.     

Cognitive Heterogeneity and Economic Voting: A Comparative Analysis of Four Democratic Electorates

This article examines the cognitive foundations of economic voting in four diverse democratic electorates: Canada, Hungary, Mexico, and Taiwan. We present a theory of heterogeneous attribution, where an individual's level of political sophistication conditions his or her ability to attribute responsibility for economic conditions to governmental actors. In contrast to previous literature, we argue that higher, not lower, levels of political sophistication prompt citizens to "vote their pocketbook." Using data from surveys done in conjunction with recent elections in all of these countries, we find that more politically sophisticated respondents are more likely to make use of pocketbook evaluations in their decisions to support or oppose the incumbent government. These findings both present a significant challenge to the conventional wisdom on political sophistication and economic voting and shed light on the necessary cognitive preconditions for democratic accountability.