Policy Issues for R&D Investment in a Knowledge-Based Economy

The Internet Revolution induced an unbalanced perspective on future economic growth strategies. Because information technology (IT) largely constitutes an infrastructure upon which other economic activity is based, its economic role is to facilitate the productivity of investment in a wide range of products and services that meet final demand. Other economies around the world can and are investing in the same infrastructure, so the efficiency advantages now being realized by the U.S. economy will be fleeting unless U.S. R&D efforts produce a new and broad range of innovative products and services that take advantage of this infrastructure. A deep and diverse technology-based manufacturing sector must be a core objective of a national R&D strategy. United States manufacturing contributes $1.5 trillion to GDP, employs 20 million workers, accounts for more than 70% of industrial R&D, and constitutes the main source of technology for the larger service sector. While knowledge-based services are the largest source of economic growth for the U.S. economy, their long-term performance is highly dependent on synergies with a domestic manufacturing sector. These synergies will be even more important in the future because services are increasingly exposed to foreign competition. Knowledge-based services can be supplied from anywhere in the world—as long as these foreign sources can rapidly access and assimilate the necessary technology components. This caveat is the critical point for economic growth policy. Considerable research supports the argument that hardware and software components are most efficiently supplied to services by a manufacturing sector that is geographically close and institutionally integrated with the service applications. Policy debates have raged for decades over the nature and magnitude of underinvestment in manufacturing R&D. The need to resolve the relevant policy issues has increased, as industry is funding less of the long-term, high-risk research that creates the technology platforms supporting new industries and future economic growth. Unfortunately, only about a third of U.S. manufacturing is high-tech by conventional definitions. Some of the remaining industries develop technologies internally, but most purchase a large proportion of their technology from the high-tech sector. Because a technology acquisition strategy can be more easily imitated by foreign competitors, traditional industries are much more susceptible to exchange rate variations, global economic cycles, and secular shifts in foreign competition. Thus, with global technological capabilities relentlessly increasing, the long-term prospects for the moderate and low R&D-intensive portions of U.S. manufacturing are not good. This paper presents a conceptual framework and available data as inputs for the analysis of Federal R&D investment strategies. Such strategies must recognize the full range of public and private technology assets constituting a national innovation system. A developed and efficient innovation system has characteristics making imitation by foreign competitors difficult and thereby enables sustained competitive advantage.     

Death during theft from electric utilities

Utilities that supply power are subject to theft of service and theft of hardware used to provide service. Individuals who try to steal from a power utility risk electrocution. We conducted a retrospective study of all individuals examined by the Jefferson County Coroner Medical Examiner Office from January 1981 through December 2001 and found that 8 individuals died trying to steal from a power utility. All decedents were men, with an average age of 33 years. Seven decedents were stealing copper, and 1 was stealing electricity. Only 1 decedent survived long enough to be admitted to a hospital. Five decedents were intoxicated, 3 with ethanol, 1 with cocaine, and 1 with both cocaine and ethanol. Seven decedents sustained electrical burns in keeping with the high voltage to which they were subjected. The unburned decedent died of laceration of the aorta at its origin from the heart, an injury sustained when the decedent fell from the power pole. All 8 decedents attempted their theft during daylight. Items found in the decedent's pockets, the presence of a ladder nearby, or the presence of electrical tools around the body may help to establish the attempted act of theft.     

Neuroleptic-induced akathisia and violence: a review

Surprisingly, the association of neuroleptic-induced akathisia and aggressive behavior was not formally recognized until nearly two and one-half decades of antipsychotic prescribing had passed. Using a search of the anglophonic literature, this phenomenon is reviewed. Advances in psychopharmacology have reduced neuroleptic-induced akathisia and hold promise to eliminate it altogether. Nonetheless, important clinical and forensic aspects of neuroleptic-induced akathisia and aggression remain and are explored.     

Promoting Public Service Integrity: A Case for Responsible Accountability

We discuss below difference between the concepts of accountability and responsibility, in the context of government administration. We argue that New Zealand's public sector reforms, in particular, have depended on an essentially mechanistic as distinct from an organic interpretation of public organisations. A mechanistic approach focuses disproportionately on notions of organisational accountability at the expense of responsibility, and as a consequence may prove counterproductive over the longer term in maintaining high standards of ethical probity. A concept of responsible accountability needs to be developed further as a means of countering this possibility. We speculate on whether the emphasis on contractualism has enhanced or undermined an integrity-based as opposed to a compliance-based ethics regime, and the possible implications of this for the maintenance of ethical standards.     

The Power of EU Collective Action: The Impact of EU Data Privacy Regulation on US Business Practice

Contemporary critiques of globalisation processes often focus on the potential levelling of regulatory standards and the export by the United States of neoliberal norms of deregulation and market facilitation. This paper, in contrast, examines the extra-jurisdictional impact of EU regulatory policy on the behaviour of foreign private parties, even in powerful states such as the United States. Shaffer finds that the threat of curtailing access to the EU's large market provides the EU with leverage. By acting collectively, EU Member States can magnify the impact of European policy on US business practice and enhance EU Member State clout in the negotiation of de jure and de facto foreign standards. The site of analysis is the current dispute between the United States and the European Union over the provision of 'adequate' data privacy protection in accordance with the EU Directive on data privacy. The paper explores the many ways in which the Directive affects US practice through changing the stakes of US players – including regulators, businesses, privacy advocates, lawyers and privacy service providers – and thereby shifting the playing field in the United States on which competing interest groups clash. In examining the interaction of EU law, US practice and international trade rules, the author finds that WTO law, rather than constraining the Directive's extra-jurisdictional impact, provides the EU with a shield against US retaliatory threats, thereby facilitating a trading up of data privacy standards. The paper concludes by examining the conditions under which cross-border exchange can lead to a leveraging up of social protections: the desire for firms to expand their markets, Member States' collective bargaining power buttressed by market clout, the nature of luxury goods, the externalities of foreign under-regulation legitimising EU intervention, and the constraints of supranational trade rules.     

Measuring Attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court

It is conventional in research on the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court to rely on a survey question asking about confidence in the leaders of the Court to indicate something about the esteem with which that institution is regarded by the American people. The purpose of this article is to investigate the validity of this measure. Based on a nationally representative survey conducted in 2001, we compare confidence with several different measures of Court legitimacy. Our findings indicate that the confidence replies seem to reflect both short-term and long-term judgments about the Court, with the greater influence coming from satisfaction with how the Court is performing at the moment. We suggest a new set of indicators for measuring the legitimacy of the Court and offer some evidence on the structure of the variance in these items.     

Price Effects around a Sales Tax Holiday: An Exploratory Study

Tax relief from a sales tax holiday depends on lower final prices for the eligible goods. In this article, prices are compared for ten goods across several retail locations before, during, and after the 2001 Florida sales tax holiday period. The comparison is also extended to the same items in a metropolitan statistical area just outside of Florida. The exploratory data indicate that before-tax prices are slightly higher in Florida retail establishments during the sales tax holiday, but it is not clear whether these prices reflect less generous markdowns by Florida managers or pricing decisions for much larger regions. Whichever the case, the tax policy forces consumers to speculate on non-holiday prices and choose items where the final price is, in fact, lower during the holiday.     

The Role of Family for Youth Friendships: Examining a Social Anxiety Mechanism

The quality of family relationships and youth friendships are intricately linked. Previous studies have examined different mechanisms of family-peer linkage, but few have examined social anxiety. The present study examined whether parental rejection and family climate predicted changes in youth social anxiety, which in turn predicted changes in friendship quality and loneliness. Possible bidirectional associations also were examined. Data for mothers, fathers, and youth (M _age at Time 1?=?11.27; 52.3% were female) from 687 two-parent households over three time points are presented. Results from autoregressive, cross-lagged analyses revealed that father rejection (not mother rejection or family climate) at Time 1 (Fall of 6th Grade) predicted increased youth social anxiety at Time 2 (Spring of 7th Grade), which in turn, predicted increased loneliness at Time 3 (Spring of 8th Grade). The indirect effect of father rejection on loneliness was statistically significant. Mother rejection, father rejection, and a poor family climate were associated with decreased friendship quality and increased loneliness over time. Finally, there was some evidence of transactional associations between father rejection and youth social anxiety as well as between social anxiety and loneliness. This study’s findings underscore the important role of fathers in youth social anxiety and subsequent social adjustment.