Patent litigation insurance and R&D incentives

A major policy concern regarding patenting activity is related to the actual enforceability of the patents granted by Patent Offices. The risk of facing elevated legal costs to defend patent rights can affect ex-ante incentives to invest in R&D. This paper analyses whether the availability of insurance policies that cover legal expenditures for patent litigation could increase the appropriability of the innovation. We model a situation in which an incumbent innovator is endowed with a valid patent and an entrant imitator can either directly enter the market or try to apply for a patent, hoping that an error will be made by the Patent Office. The incumbent can accommodate the entrant, file a suit to a civil court or offer a settlement agreement. We model the presence of heterogeneity in the risk that the patents will face an error by both patent examiners at Patent Offices and judges at civil court. We analyse the changes in expected profits for the innovator when given the possibility of buying an insurance policy which will cover legal costs in the event of trial. We compare the cases in which (i) coverage is voluntary and the insurer can discriminate perfectly between risky patents; (ii) coverage is voluntary and the insurer cannot discriminate between patents, and (iii) coverage is compulsory. The model highlights a set of peculiar strategic characteristics of insurance for legal expenditures which contribute to singling out the reasons underlying the underdevelopment of this market. We suggest that the crucial reason for such a failure is not adverse selection; consequently, we challenge the benefits of making coverage compulsory.     

资产专用性视角的产业集群竞争优势研究——日本汽车产业集群的分析与启示

与美国的汽车产业相比,日本汽车产业集群具有低交易成本与高专用性双重优势,对美日汽车产业集群的比较分析可以为我国区域经济发展的产业集群战略提供借鉴与指导。政府的产业规划不仅是产业区域发展的地理空间规划(工业园区、开发区建设),更应该是企业间分工的产业价值链规划;政府的经济干预不应该局限在税收等产业政策的安排,更应该注重以信誉为核心的制度建设。     

降低县级政府行政成本

本文从行政管理学和经济学相结合的角度 ,运用统计调查、分析对比方法 ,分析了影响县级政府行政成本的相关因素 ,提出了降低县级政府行政成本的对策     

危机意识下的行政成本探究

本文从政府危机管理的角度出发,分析了危机意识的概念、意义,指出了三种不同的危机意识对行政成本的影响,政府在危机管理中降低行政成本的意义,最终指出合理、客观、实际的危机意识能够有效地降低行政成本。     

经济伦理视角下发展意蕴的再审视

重新认识发展的意蕴,必须将发展置于经济伦理学的检视之下,回答"发展是什么"、"发展为了什么"以及"如何对待发展的代价"等问题。传统的发展观缺乏经济伦理意蕴,忽视了人的主体性,其结果是发展的代价被普遍低估,而作为发展主体的人却被不同程度异化,社会为此付出了沉重代价。要正确理解发展的意蕴,必须赋予发展以新的经济伦理蕴含,把握发展中所内含的反发展倾向,正确认识和处理发展的代价。     

March divided,fight united? Trade union cohesion and government appeal for concertation

Why does the government appeal for concertation? Starting from the principal?agent framework and delegation theory, the article argues that the government is more willing to share decision-making power with trade unions when the policy preferences endorsed by the unions are closer to those of the cabinet. Furthermore, it maintains that government propensity to negotiate with trade unions increases as the heterogeneity of union policy preferences grows because the cabinet can exploit its agenda-setting power to divide the union front. The article tests these two hypotheses through a longitudinal analysis of the Italian case (1946–2014). In detail, it takes advantage of two original datasets built through content analysis that provide unique in-depth information on the policy preferences of parties and cabinets and measures the policy positions of the main Italian trade unions, thus allowing assessment of their reciprocal heterogeneity. The results confirm the expectations.     

《诉讼收费办法》第十七条应当修改

《人民法院诉讼收费办法》第十七条规定的内容存在母法废止、违法不究、责任他负的弊端,容易导致滥用上诉权、诉讼费流失,可能违反当事人平等原则,应当在重新制定“诉讼收费(办)法”时予以修改。     

一些与公司本质有关的理论问题探讨

中国公司法是应公有制企业向私有制转化的实际需要而产生的。相应地 ,与西方发达国家相比 ,在中国没有许多关于公司个性和公司人格的学术讨论。然而 ,这些问题曾长久地困扰了西方学者。公司的独立人格自从被法律确定后就一直成为人们讨论的话题。在西方世界 ,已有许多法学家对什么是法人的本质进行了探索和争论 ,但不得不说经济学的学者们在这个问题上的探讨是更锲而不舍的。对公司本质的解释成就了一代著名学者 ,奠定了新微观经济学理论的基础。考斯的一篇《企业的本质》成为 2 0世纪 30年代后研究微观经济学的必读之作。从此 ,有关公司治理的一系列经济法律理论应运而生。这充分显示了经济和法律的相辅相成关系     

The Calculus of Voting in Compulsory Voting Systems

Compulsory voting laws have consistently been demonstrated to boost electoral participation. Despite the widespread presence of compulsory voting and the significant impact these laws appear to have on voting behavior, surprisingly little effort has been devoted to analyzing how mandatory voting alters the decision-making calculus of individual voters in these systems. Moreover, studies that investigate the influence of compulsory voting laws on electoral participation generally treat these policies monolithically, with scant attention to the nuances that differentiate mandatory voting laws across systems and to their consequences for voting rates. Analyses that explicitly and empirically examine the effects of penalties and enforcement are surprisingly rare. This study aims to fill that void by adapting rational choice models of participation in elections for compulsory voting systems. I find that the level of penalties countries impose for non-compliance and the degree of penalty enforcement impact turnout rates. Voters in mandatory voting systems abstain least when both the penalties and the likelihood of enforcement are high, and abstain most when both meaningless.