Digital Commons Network^™

Designing Efficient Markets For Carbon Offsets With Distributional Constraints, Antonio Bento, Ravi Kanbur, Benjamin Leard

Antonio M. Bento

No abstract provided.

Does Titling Matter? Evidence From Housing Markets In India, Antonio Bento, Somik Lall, Joel Landry

Antonio M. Bento

No abstract provided.

Global Adversarial Legalism: The Private Regulation Of Fdi As A Species Of Global Administrative Law, Ariel Meyerstein

Ariel Meyerstein, JD, PhD

This article explores the theoretical paradigm I refer to as “global adversarial legalism,” building on Robert Kagan’s description of the American legal system. Adversarial legalism has also been explained as a governance strategy deployed by the relatively weak central governance institutions of the European Union as a means of spreading EU law. It usefully captures the fragmented political authority and relatively weak hierarchical control of the global governance, or lack thereof, of foreign direct investment.

One facet of this global adversarial legalism, already much debated, is the concern that investment arbitration tribunals exercise an overly broad and perhaps illegitimate form …

Forecasting Innovation Pathways For New And Emerging Science & Technologies, Douglas Kr Robinson, Lu Huang, Ying Guo, Alan L. Porter

alan l porter

New & Emerging Science & Technologies (“NESTs”) promise tremendous innovation potential, but this is coupled with enormous uncertainties and often many unknowns. This paper offers a framework to analyze NESTs to help ascertain likely innovation pathways. We have devised a 10-step framework based on extensive Future-oriented Technology Analyses (“FTA”) experience, enriched by in-depth case analyses. In the paper, we describe our analytical activities in two case studies. The nanobiosensors experience is contrasted with that of deep brain stimulation in relative quantitative and qualitative emphases. We close the paper by reflecting on this systematic FTA framework for emerging science and technologies, …

Validating Indicators Of Interdisciplinarity: Linking Bibliometric Measures To Studies Of Engineering Research Labs, David Roessner, Alan L. Porter, Nancy J. Nersessian, Stephen J. Carley

alan l porter

This article examines the extent to which specific features of interdisciplinary research are accurately reflected in selected bibliometric measures of scholarly publications over time. To test the validity of these measures, we compare knowledge of research processes and impact based on ethnographic studies of a well-established researcher’s laboratory, together with personal interview data, against bibliometric indicators of cognitive integration, diffusion, and impact represented in the entire portfolio of papers produced by this researcher over time.

Can We Actually Calculate The Social Cost Of Carbon?, Kyle Mckay

Kyle McKay

Social cost of carbon calculations poorly integrate the risk of worse-case scenarios and their impact on social equity, primarily due to the fundamental limitations of cost-benefit analysis. Continued use of the social cost of carbon is preferable to policy that assumes no social cost to carbon emissions, but risks overconfidence in modeling and political clashes around insufficiently important regulatory changes that could impair necessary larger scale policy changes.

Evaluating Social Impact Bonds As A New Reentry Financing Mechanism: A Case Study On Reentry Programming In Maryland, Kyle Mckay

Kyle McKay

Maryland Department of Legislative Services evaluation of the benefits, risks, costs, and feasibility of using social impact bonds as a financing mechanism for reentry programs in Maryland.

Innovations In Citizen-State Interaction In Vanuatu: Grassroots Approaches To Maintaining Bio-Cultural Diversity, Thomas Dick, Cherise Addinsall

Thomas Dick

Many countries in the South Pacific are currently failing to adequately address issues in regards to bio-cultural diversity, which is leading to escalating environmental and health problems for Pacific Islanders (Morrison & Munro, 1999). These issues have the potential to undermine the Pacific way of life, which requires healthy ecosystems and continued access to natural resources for livelihoods and cultural enrichment (SPREP, 2011). The disposal of waste in small island developing states is limited due to small land areas, shallow water tables and population pressures. The consequences from insufficient waste management can consist not only of obvious aesthetic problems but …

The Cultural Sociology Of Human Rights, Mark D. Jacobs, Lester R. Kurtz

Lester R. Kurtz

These cases of China, Occupy, and Gandhi suggest the value of the sociology of culture for understanding human rights. Since human rights is a cultural construct, human rights issues are in-flected by the same set of semantic tensions as the culture concept itself. The sociology of culture thus recommends a method for studying human rights: to explicate--indeed, to weave into an exegetical deep structure--those various tensions. This helps to see beneath the distortions that power and other forms of domination introduce into the discourse of human rights, and to recognize the full multiplicity of interests and voices.

Review _ The Argumentative Turn Revisited. Public Policy As Communicative Practice Edited By Frank Fischer And Herbert Gottweis, Robert Hoppe

Robert Hoppe

No abstract provided.

Critical Thinking About Political Problems, Robert Hoppe, Margarita Jeliazkova

Robert Hoppe

No abstract provided.

Κύπρος Και Εξωτερική Πολιτική: Κεφαλαιοποιώντας Την Περιφερειοποίηση Του Διεθνούς Συστήματος [Cyprus And Foreign Policy: Capitalizing The Regionalization Of The International System], Zenonas Tziarras

Zenonas Tziarras

No abstract provided.

Clemency, Parole, Good-Time Credits, And Crowded Prisons: Reconsidering Early Release, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J Larkin Jr.

No abstract provided.

Public Choice Theory And Overcriminalization, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J Larkin Jr.

No abstract provided.

High School Graduation In The Context Of Changing Elementary And Secondary Education Policy And Income Inequality: The Last Half Century, Nora Gordon

Nora Gordon

Goldin and Katz (2008) document the key role that the educational attainment of native-born workers in the U.S. has played in determining changing returns to skill and income distribution in the twentieth century, emphasizing the need to understand the forces driving the supply of educated workers. This paper examines stagnation in high school graduation rates from about 1970 to 2000, alongside dramatic changes in elementary and secondary educational institutions and income inequality over those years. I review the policy history of major changes in educational institutions, including but not limited to the massive increase in school spending, and related literature. …

Q-Ing For Health – A New Approach To Eliciting The Public’S Views On Health Care Resource Allocation, Rachel M. Baker, John Wildman, Helen Mason, Cam Donaldson

Professor Rachel Baker

The elicitation of societal views about health care priority setting is an important, contemporary research area and there are a number of studies which apply either qualitative techniques or quantitative preference elicitation methods. However there are methodological challenges in connecting qualitative information (what perspectives exist about a subject) with quantitative questions (to what extent are those perspectives ‘supported’ in a wider population). In this paper we present an integrated, mixed-methods approach to the elicitation of public perspectives in two, linked studies applying Q methodology. In the first study we identify three broad viewpoints on the subject of health priorities. In …

Mandatory Foreign Language Training For All Military Members, Samuel W. Bettwy

Samuel W Bettwy

For too long now, DOD and the military services have been paying lip service to the need for foreign language capability across all ranks. It’s about time that DOD made real progress by mandating foreign language instruction at all levels of military training and schooling and by obtaining the funding needed to expand DLI’s mission to include meaningful language instruction for all servicemembers, both linguists and non-linguists. And by the way, shouldn’t the service academies make foreign language proficiency a requirement for graduation?

Multinational Corporations Are Overlooked Players In Stability, Security, Transition And Reconstruction Operations, Samuel W. Bettwy

Samuel W Bettwy

It has long been acknowledged that multinational corporations have acquired legal personality under international law. Unlike states, however, MNCs are not precluded by notions of sovereignty and territorial inviolability. In the narrative of rogue and failing states and the emerging international norm of humanitarian intervention, most observers characterize MNCs as villainous predators. In states that have a permissive regulatory environment, MNCs exploit cheap labor, enable authoritarian regimes, and pollute the environment. Some observers believe that MNCs are also positive forces that contribute to the economic and political stability of the state and its people. Either way, combatant commanders need to …

Two Cheers For The Fcc's Mobility Fund Reverse Auction, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The United States held its first competitive bidding, or “reverse auction,” for universal service subsidies in September 2012. While it is far too early to investigate whether this national auction generated improvements in mobile voice and broadband service in underserved areas, it is not too soon to evaluate the auction itself. This paper investigates the outcome of the Mobility Fund Phase 1 Auction (Auction 901) and considers what we could learn from it for universal service and for future planned reverse auctions, such as the upcoming incentive auction, which aims to reallocate spectrum from broadcasters to those who place a …

Poverty In India And Its Decompositions: A Critical Appraisal Of The New Method, Durgesh C. Pathak, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This paper has two objectives. First, it critically discusses the new method of measuring poverty. In doing so, it raises some concerns implicit in the report - (a) the need to go beyond calories to have an understanding of nutritional requirement, which could not be adequately addressed in the new method, (b) the need to incorporate expenditure on health, education and sanitation, as these are not being adequately provided by the state, which also raises serious apprehensions on whether India is a welfare state, and (c) the need to come up with multi-dimensional measures of poverty. Nevertheless, the paper contends …

Pro-Poor Nanotechnology Applications For Water: Characterizing And Contextualizing Private Sector Research And Development, Matthew Harsh, Thomas Woodson

Thomas Woodson

Nanotechnology has been proposed as a possible solution to the dire problems caused by contaminated water in impoverished communities. We characterize the global landscape of nanotechnology research and development using bibliometric and patent data to ascertain how private firms are using nanotechnology to create improved filters and other technologies that might create benefits for the ‘poor’. Research and development on nanotechnology applications for water is very international, but is occurring mostly in China, the USA and wealthy countries. Nanowater patents focus mostly on filtration systems. Other research areas like nanosensors and desalination have fewer nanowater patens which suggest that those …

Seven Types Of Privacy, Rachel L. Finn, David Wright, Michael Friedewald

Michael Friedewald

No abstract provided.

Entrepreneurship Education In The Research-Intensive Entrepreneurial University, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Knowledge commercialisation and commodification are important components of universities’ “Third Mission” to contribute to the development of their home regions by strengthening their engagement with the public, private, and third sectors. Entrepreneurship education programmes have tended to develop in parallel to such “entrepreneurial university” initiatives, rather than in intentional alignment with them. This is reflected in the research literature as well, where the analysis of the “entrepreneurial university” and studies of entrepreneurship education have little overlap. This paper examines the evolution of the entrepreneurship education initiative of a single research-intensive institution—the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom—and the ways …

Isserman's Impact: Quasi-Experimental Comparison Group Designs In Regional Research, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Applications using quasi-experimental comparison group designs in regional science and geography have increased substantially over the last three decades, inspired by the work of Andrew Isserman and colleagues in the 1980s and 1990s, robust literatures on quasi-experimental design in fields like education and psychology, a vast program evaluation literature, observational studies methodology in statistics, and the growing interest in experimental and non-experimental (natural) designs in empirical economics. This paper discusses the state of quasi-experimental comparison group research today, with a primary focus on studies in which regions—Census tracts, counties, cities, metropolitan areas, provinces, or states—are the units of analysis. There …

Smart Power For Hard Problems: The Role Of Special Operation Forces Strengthening The Rule Of Law And Human Rights In Africa, Kevin H. Govern

Kevin H. Govern

This article will assess the roles and responsibilities of Special Operations Forces (SOF) within the newly created U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) as an active proponent of a so-called “smart power” national security strategy. In particular, it will outline the economic, political, and military challenges faced in Africa; specifically, how and why SOCAFRICA is the U.S. force of choice for promoting human rights and rule of law in Africa. With the goals of the U.S. military in mind, questions will necessarily arise as to “what success looks like” for both the U.S. and African nations, and the roles of each in …

Efficiency And Substitutability Of Transit Subsidies And Other Urban Transport Policies, Leonardo Basso, Hugo E. Silva

Hugo E. Silva

This paper analyzes the efficiency and the substitutability between three urban congestion management policies: transit subsidization, car congestion pricing and dedicated bus lanes. The model features user heterogeneity, cross-congestion effects between cars and transit, inter-temporal and total transport demand elasticities, and is simulated using data for London, UK and Santiago, Chile. We find that the substitutability between policies is large and, in particular, the marginal contribution of increased transit subsidies, as other policies are implemented first, diminishes rapidly. Bus lanes are an attractive way to increase frequencies and decrease fares without injecting public funds.

Access To Knowledge As A New Paradigm For Research On Icts And Intellectual Property Rights, Jeremy De Beer, Sara Bannerman

Jeremy de Beer

No abstract provided.

The Informal Economy, Innovation And Intellectual Property – Concepts, Metrics And Policy Considerations, Jeremy De Beer, Kun Fu, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent

Jeremy de Beer

No abstract provided.

Beyond Nemesis And Salvation: A Reorientation Of The Debate On The Greek Economic Crisis, Nikolaos Tzifakis, Pantelis Sklias

Nikolaos Tzifakis

No abstract provided.

Revisitando El Debate Sobre Los Abogados Integrantes Y La Independencia Del Poder Judicial, Sergio Verdugo Sverdugor@Udd.Cl, Carla Ottone

Sergio Verdugo R.

Se revisa el debate sobre la conveniencia del sistema de reemplazo judicial basado en los abogados integrantes y se analiza especialmente la crítica que sostiene que ellos no son independientes de los intereses del Poder Ejecutivo. Para ello, se examina el comportamiento de votación de los abogados integrantes de la tercera sala de la Corte Suprema en causas de indemnización de perjuicios donde el Fisco es parte, y se compara con la manera en que votan los ministros titulares. Se concluye que casi todos los jueces de esta sala votan de una manera generalmente favorable al interés fiscal, aunque esta …