Intellectual Capital and Revitalizing Manufacturing

In December 2009, the White House released a paper outlining their manufacturing policy, A Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing. The Framework makes an excellent case that the federal government has a strong role to play in reinvigorating this important sector of the U.S. economy. It outlines the challenges facing manufacturing while describing the opportunities in new product areas. However, the ongoing transformation in manufacturing to a knowledge-intensive activity will require attention to all the inputs to the production process -- technology, worker skills, and organizational structures. The Framework recognizes that the nature of the economy has changed and implicitly accepts this basic premise. "Intellectual capital, such as patents from research and development as well as managerial know-how," the document states, "is a vital component in determining costs, growth rates and the creation of new industries." But while patents and managerial know-how are important components, a successful manufacturing framework must embrace the full range of intellectual capital and intangible assets. This Policy Brief makes a number of recommendations to directly incorporate intellectual capital into a manufacturing strategy and best position the United States for accelerated job, productivity, and economic growth in the coming year

The Measurement of Human Intellectual Capital in the United States Air Force

For centuries, companies used basically the same accounting system developed in the fifteenth century to measure economic performance. Through much of this period the tangible value of a firm, its plants, property and equipment, was closely related to the market value of the firm. With the dawning of the information age, America has evolved from a manufacturing based economy to a service oriented economy. Closely related to this change from a blue collar to white collar workplace has been the widening gap between the market value of a company and its tangible assets. Roughly equal before, now the tangible assets may represent as little as ten percent of the market value of a company. This difference in value between the tangible assets and the market value represents the value of the intangible assets. Many people define the intangible assets of a company as its intellectual capital. Since the intangible assets might represent ninety percent of the value of the firm, investors and managers alike are seeking ways to define and measure these assets. The Air Force, in many ways, is similar to a large corporation. It deals with budgets, rapidly changing world environments, performance expectations, retention, training and similar concerns. The Air Force reduced the officers in the active duty force from 98,059 in 1989 to 69,892 in 1997. This research addresses the effect of the draw down on the USAF\u27s intellectual capital. The uniqueness of the military is discussed and measures are developed specifically for the Air Force. The measures developed for the Air Force are evaluated for the years of the military draw down and conclusions are made based upon the results

A Tale of Two (and Possibly Three) Atkins: Intellectual Disability and Capital Punishment Twelve Years after The Supreme Court\u27s Creation of a Categorical Bar

This article examines empirically the capital cases decided by the lower courts since the United States Supreme Court created the categorical ban against the execution of persons with intellectual disability twelve years ago in the Atkins decision

A Tale of Two (and Possibly Three) Atkins: Intellectual Disability and Capital Punishment Twelve Years after The Supreme Court\u27s Creation of a Categorical Bar

This article examines empirically the capital cases decided by the lower courts since the United States Supreme Court created the categorical ban against the execution of persons with intellectual disability twelve years ago in the Atkins decision

Lifting the burden: fundamental tax reform and U.S. economic growth

This paper presents a comprehensive treatment of the cost-of-capital approach for analyzing the economic impact of tax policy. This approach has provided an intellectual impetus for reforms of capital income taxation in the United States and around the world. The most dramatic example is the Tax Reform Act of 1986 in the United States. In this landmark legislation the income tax base was broadened by wholesale elimination of tax preferences for both individuals and corporations. Revenues generated by base broadening were used to finance sharp reductions in tax rates at corporate and individual levels. The cost-of-capital approach presented in this paper shows that important opportunities for tax reform still remain. This approach suggests two avenues for reform. One would retain the income tax base of the existing U.S. tax system, but would equalize tax burdens on all forms of assets as well as average and marginal rates on labor income. Elimination of differences in the tax treatment of all forms of assets would produce gains in efficiency comparable to those from the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Equalization of marginal and average tax rates on labor income would more than double these gains in efficiency. Proposals to replace income by consumption as a tax base were revived in the United States during the 1990's. The Hall-Rabushka Flat Tax proposal would produce efficiency gains comparable to those from equalizing tax burdens on all forms of assets under the income tax. However, a progressive National Retail Sales Tax, collected on personal consumption expenditures at the retail level, would generate gains in efficiency exceeding those from the Flat Tax by more than 50 percent! Equalizing marginal and average rates of taxation on consumption would double the gains from the Flat Tax.

Some considerations on the influence of economic liberalism in the May Revolution of 1810 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The revolutionary process of May 1810 in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, occurred within the context of the French Revolution, the United States’ struggle for independence and various changes in the European countries’ economies. Liberal ideas played an essential role, and the opinions of Belgrano, Vieytes and Moreno, among others, are the key to understanding the economic perspectives of the revolutionary men. Late mer-cantilists, physiocrats and classical economists marked these men’s economic thought. The purpose of this paper is to review these intellectual influences on the leaders of the May Revolution.The revolutionary process of May 1810 in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, occurred within the context of the French Revolution, the United States’ struggle for independence and various changes in the European countries’ economies. Liberal ideas played an essential role, and the opinions of Belgrano, Vieytes and Moreno, among others, are the key to understanding the economic perspectives of the revolutionary men. Late mer-cantilists, physiocrats and classical economists marked these men’s economic thought. The purpose of this paper is to review these intellectual influences on the leaders of the May Revolution

Essays On Economic Growth And The Economics Of Innovation

In my dissertation, I study how legal institutions and financial system affect innovation and their impact on economic growth. This dissertation consists of two chapters. The themes of chapter 1 and 2 are intellectual property rights and the venture capital system, respectively. Chapter 1 studies the impact of intellectual property rights on the business scope of firms. Stronger intellectual property rights induce specialization and contribute to economic growth. In the United States, a sweeping legal reform in 1982 created a more pro-patent legal environment. This legal reform fostered specialization and enhanced firm performance. Around the world, countries experience faster economic growth when their innovating sectors are characterized by a higher level of specialization. An endogenous growth model with endogenous firm boundaries is developed to disentangle the relationship between legal institutions, firm boundary decisions, and economic growth. I characterize the optimal strength of patent rights and evaluate the actual patent law enforcement in the United States. The pro-patent legal reform in 1982 was welfare-enhancing, but it was too extreme. Swinging back the legal pendulum and weakening patent rights can improve welfare. Chapter 2 evaluates the contribution of venture capital (VC) to promoting entrepreneurship and spawning innovation. We assemble the stylized facts of venture capital, innovation, and economic growth. Funding by venture capitalists is positively associated with patenting activity. VC-backed firms have higher IPO values when they are floated. Following flotation, they have higher R&D-to-sales ratios and grow faster in terms of employment and sales. At the country level, VC investment is positively linked with economic growth. The relationship between venture capital and growth is examined using an endogenous growth model incorporating dynamic contracts between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. The model is matched with stylized facts about venture capital; viz., statistics by funding round concerning the success rate, failure rate, investment rate, equity shares, and the value of an IPO. We examine how the innovative activity is affected by the capital gains tax rate. Raising capital gains taxation reduces growth and welfare

What is Business History? Why it is important?

This contribution discusses the intellectual and institutional development of the discipline of business history, whichwas created at the Harvard Business School in 1927. It explores the shifting research agenda of the subject, which has transitionedfrom looking at large capital-intensive manufacturing industries in the United States and Europe to research onbusiness groups, family business, societal and cultural impact, and Latin America and on other emerging markets. Theessay highlights the importance of business history in management education.Keywords: history, management education, Harvard, globalizatio

The Development of Intellectual Disabilities in United States Capital Cases and the Modern Application of Moore v. Texas to State Court Decisions

Although in 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States initially held that the Eighth Amendment did not prohibit executing persons with intellectual disabilities in Penry v. Lynaugh, in 2002 it subsequently reversed this decision in Atkins v. Virginia, citing changing state legislation. Since the Atkins decision, state courts have interpreted the Court’s Atkins provisions in a variety of ways, some more faithfully than others. As a result, the Court provided additional clarification in its 2014 and 2015 Hall v. Florida and Brumfield v. Cain decisions, ruling that states must apply a Standard Error of Measurement of +5/-5 to all capital defendant IQ test scores. Despite this requirement, some state courts still delivered opinions contrary to the Court’s Atkins and Hall holdings, prompting the Court to offer yet more guidance in 2017. In Moore v. Texas I, the Court established that states must evaluate intellectual disabilities in capital defendants according to current medical standards, which include: (1) using the diagnostic criteria outlined in the DSM-5 or AAIDD-11; (2) focusing on adaptive deficits, not strengths; and (3) prohibiting determinations of intellectual disability from being based on functioning in prison. In 2019 the Court determined in Moore v. Texas II that the analysis undertaken by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals continued to offend Court precedent. Given the long history of some state courts disregarding clear holdings of the Supreme Court, this Article examines how state courts have interpreted Moore I and Moore II

Application of social capital theory to examine the relationship between IT-business alignment and organizational performance outcomes in health care

Health care organizations are facing increasing challenges as they strive to keep pace with evolving service delivery and reimbursement models. In this context, the effective use of Information Technology (IT) is widely acknowledged as a critical factor for achieving the quadruple aim of health care: better outcomes, lower cost, improved patient experience, and improved clinician experience. Even so, health care organizations have struggled to develop effective working relationships between IT and business units and there remains a dearth of research on the impact that the quality of the relationship between IT and business employees has on organizational performance outcomes. Applying social capital theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the quality of the relationship between IT and non-IT employees is correlated with organizational performance outcomes in a hospital setting. Hypothesized relationships between the structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions of the social capital and intellectual capital were examined. Multi-level SEM path analysis was employed to analyze survey data from 143 IT Field Service workers who provide services in one of the 34 hospitals within a single health system in the western United States. Multivariate and ordinary least squares linear regression was used to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital (aggregated by hospital, N = 34) and extant data from four hospital performance metrics: hospital quality, employee productivity, patient length of stay, and patient satisfaction. A positive correlation was observed between structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital (Std. β = 0.550, p = 0.003), cognitive and relational dimensions of social capital (Std. β = 0.581, p = 0.001), and between the cognitive dimension of social capital and intellectual capital (Std. β = 0.643, p = 0.001). Intellectual capital was positively correlated with employee productivity (Std. β = 0.468, p = 0.005) and negatively correlated with patient length of stay (Std. β = -0.422, p = 0.032). These correlational results provide direction for future experimental research and offer guidance for health care IT leaders as they examine whether the development of structural and social capital between IT and non-IT employees has a casual impact on hospital performance