Licences, "Use or Lose" Provisions and the Time of Investment

Exclusive rights granted by public authorities, like concessions to develop natural resources or electromagnetic spectrum licences, often have option-like features. However, to avoid licences being unused for lengthy periods, regulators sometimes set time limits, after which the exclusive right of exercise may be revoked. In this paper we analyse the impact of use or lose ("UOL") provisions upon the private time of investment. We find that the risk of losing the licence because of inaction generally increases the probability of early investment. However, when capital costs are expected to decline over time, UOL provisions may involve a "perverse effect", by increasing, rather than reducing, the expected time of investment, with respect to a situation where the date of investment is left entirely to the licencee’s discretion.Licences, Real Options, Use or Lose Provisions, Time of Investment

Scaling Up Inclusive Business -- Solutions to Overcome Internal Barriers

Sustainability challenges including poverty, social unrest, climate change and environmental degradation have become ever more urgent. Business has the technology, innovation capacity, resources, and skills to play a key role in providing the radical solutions the world desperately needs.The objective of this brief is to kick off greater dialogue on the internal barriers companies face along the pathway to scale in inclusive business and how to overcome them. Building on the hands-on experience of businesses active in this space and the valuable insights of experts, the following pages identify some of the most common internal barriers and the solutions that leading companies are using to tackle them. We gained new insights by looking at the work of thirteen companies: CEMEX, Grundfos, Grupo Corona, ITC Ltd., Lafarge, Masisa, Nestlé, Novartis, Novozymes, SABMiller, Schneider Electric, The Coca-Cola Company, and Vodafone. We also interviewed two leading academics doing research in this area, Cornell University's Erik Simanis (United States) and Universidad de los Andes' Ezequiel Reficco (Colombia)

Net neutrality discourses: comparing advocacy and regulatory arguments in the United States and the United Kingdom

Telecommunications policy issues rarely make news, much less mobilize thousands of people. Yet this has been occurring in the United States around efforts to introduce "Net neutrality" regulation. A similar grassroots mobilization has not developed in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in Europe. We develop a comparative analysis of U.S. and UK Net neutrality debates with an eye toward identifying the arguments for and against regulation, how those arguments differ between the countries, and what the implications of those differences are for the Internet. Drawing on mass media, advocacy, and regulatory discourses, we find that local regulatory precedents as well as cultural factors contribute to both agenda setting and framing of Net neutrality. The differences between national discourses provide a way to understand both the structural differences between regulatory cultures and the substantive differences between policy interpretations, both of which must be reconciled for the Internet to continue to thrive as a global medium