Competition, Innovation and Increasing Returns

This paper concerns the operation of competition in the presence of a high rate of innovation and increasing returns. Given free competition there is likely to exist, in this case, a tendency towards what may be called ‘dynamic equilibrium’, a tendency, that is to say, for the rate of investment in product development to rise or fall towards the level at which this investment yields only a normal return. Thus, competition, increasing returns and innovation may co-exist.Innovation, increasing returns, competition

Economic Analysis, Public Policy and the Software Industry

This paper focuses on three related matters. It analyses the process of competition in the software industry, this being important both in itself and for the light it throws on competition within all industries characterised by low or zero marginal costs and a high rate of technical development. The software industry, operating under private enterprise, is dependent on copyright, and the issues raised by intellectual property protection are therefore also considered. Given the need for inter-operability between different software products, and between these and associated hardware, standardisation is important within the industry, and the processes by which standards may be established are evaluated. Consideration is given to the public policy issues that are raised by these three topics.Software, competition, innovation, standardisation, intellectual property protection

An immediate survival focus : linking substance abuse, fight, flight, and prosocial behavior.

In the United States substance abuse takes a toll that is costly in both economic and human terms. In 2005 we paid 467.7 billion dollars to address the consequences of substance abuse, and each year we have lost an estimated 537,000 of our fellows to substance abuse related causes. It is important that we identify and intervene upon the mechanisms translating risk factors for substance abuse into the related behaviors. This study synthesized life history theory and dual process models of cognition to produce an adaptive and cognitive framework for explaining substance abuse. An immediate survival focus was proposed as a construct representing reliance on implicit cognitive processing for the purpose of quick evaluation and short-term strategy use in dangerous or unpredictable environments. This immediate survival focus was suggested as contributing to false positives in the detection of resources and threats critical to survival (i.e., irrational beliefs), and thus vulnerability to substance abuse. This study tested for an immediate survival focus and produced results consistent with the existence of the construct. A factor theorized to represent the ISF was extracted from constructs known to rely on implicit cognitive processing, and this factor was positively associated with both substance abuse and neighborhood danger, as predicted by the adaptive and cognitive framework advanced. In addition, this construct was negatively associated with prosocial behavior, which is known to operate to the relative exclusion of implicit cognitive processes. The strength of the relationships between the ISF and the study\u27s constructs was substantial for both sexes, though its relative importance to substance abuse was less for females. For the sample as a whole, the ISF accounted for 38% of the variance in substance abuse, therefore representing an important construct in efforts to learn about, treat, and prevent substance abuse

First record of an Odontaspidid shark in Ascension Island waters

The occurrence of the poorly understood shark species Odontapsis ferox is reported at an oceanic seamount in the central south Atlantic, within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Ascension Island. The presence of the species at this location is confirmed by the discovery of a tooth embedded in scientific equipment, and footage of at least one animal on autonomous underwater video. The new record of this shark species at this location demonstrates the knowledge gaps which still exist at many remote, oceanic structures and their candidacy for status as important conservation areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Production, Planning and Prices

Firms do not exist because of the cost of using the price mechanism, but because they enable actions to be carried out concurrently in conformity with a particular design. This concurrent coordination, which production requires, is distinct from the evolutionary coordination, which is the unintended consequence of market transactions. The two processes are alternatives only to a limited extent. Evolutionary adjustment cannot bring about concurrent coordination, and irreducible uncertainty limits the scope of the planning which does

What I learned, as an economist, from managing a business

This paper presents the lessons learnt by an economist from managing a publishing firm, Oxford University Press. Firstly, although decisions about pricing and output are important, they are by no means the only or even the chief concern of management. They abstract from decisions regarding the activities the firm should or should not be undertaking or the choice of an appropriate internal organisation. Thus, in managing a firm one learns that efficient resource allocation is no longer just a question of the logic of choice but a question of social organisation. Second, models of the economic system based on assumptions about perfect knowledge make no sense. It is precisely because knowledge is fragmented and imperfect that we require economic systems to further the efficient use of resources. In general, experience in business helps one to understand how firms, as well as being part of economic systems, are economic systems in themselves.Cet article porte sur les enseignements qu’un économiste peut tirer du management d’une entreprise d’édition, Oxford University Press. Premièrement, alors que les décisions prix et produit sont importantes, elle ne sont en aucun cas la seule ou même la principale préoccupation du management. Elles s’abstraient des décisions concernant les activités que la firme devrait ou non entreprendre, ou bien le choix d’une organisation interne adequate. Ainsi, en dirigeant une entreprise, on apprend que l’allocation efficace des ressources n’est plus seulement une question de logique de choix mais une question d’organisation sociale. Deuxièmement, les modèles du système économique basés sur des hypothèses de connaissance parfaite n’ont aucun sens. C’est précisément parce que la connaissance est divisée et imparfaite que l’on a besoin des systemes économiques pour faciliter l’utilisation efficace des ressources. En général, l’expérience dans le business nous aide à comprendre comment les firmes, tout en faisant partie des systèmes économiques, sont elles aussi des systèmes économiques

Economic Analysis, Public Policy and the Software Industry

This paper focuses on three related matters. It analyses the process of competition in the software industry, this being important both in itself and for the light it throws on competition within all industries characterised by low or zero marginal costs and a high rate of technical development. The software industry, operating under private enterprise, is dependent on copyright, and the issues raised by intellectual property protection are therefore also considered. Given the need for inter-operability between different software products, and between these and associated hardware, standardisation is important within the industry, and the processes by which standards may be established are evaluated. Consideration is given to the public policy issues that are raised by these three topics

The Psychometric Evaluation of Human Life Histories:A Reply to Figueredo, Cabeza de Baca, Black, Garcia, Fernandes, Wolf, and Woodley (2015)

A recent critique of Copping, Campbell, and Muncer raised several issues concerning the validity of psychometric assessment techniques in the study of life history (LH) strategies. In this reply, some of our key concerns about relying on aggregated psy- chometric measures are explained, and we raise questions generally regarding the use of higher order factor structures. Responses to some of the statistical issues raised by Figueredo et al. are also detailed. We stand by our original conclusions and call for more careful consideration of instruments used to evaluate hypotheses derived from LH theory

Exploring the Technical Expression of Academic Knowledge: The Science-in-CTE Pilot Study

The Science-in-CTE pilot study tested a curriculum integration model that enhanced the science that occurs in CTE curricula. The study replicated the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's (NRCCTE) Math-in-CTE experimental research design (Stone, Alfeld, & Pearson, 2008

The Old Bailey proceedings and the representation of crime and criminal justice in eighteenth-century London

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, published accounts of felony trials held at London’s central criminal court, were a remarkable publishing phenomenon. First published in 1674, they quickly became a regular periodical, with editions published eight times a year following each session of the court. Despite the huge number of trial reports (some 50,000 in the eighteenth century), the Proceedings, also known as the “Sessions Papers”, have formed the basis of several important studies in social history, dating back to Dorothy George’s seminal London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925). Their recent publication online, however, has not only made them more widely available, but also changed the way historians consult them, leading to greater use of both quantitative analysis, using the statistics function, and qualitative examination of their language, through keyword searching. In the context of recent renewed interest in the history of crime and criminal justice, for which this is the most important source available in this period, the growing use of the Proceedings raises questions about their reliability, and, by extension, the motivations for their original publication. Historians generally consider the Proceedings to present accurate, if often incomplete, accounts of courtroom proceedings. From this source, along with manuscript judicial records, criminal biographies (including the Ordinary’s Accounts), polemical pamphlets such as Henry Fielding’s Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers (1751), and of course the satirical prints of William Hogarth, they have constructed a picture of eighteenth-century London as a city overwhelmed by periodic crime waves and of a policing and judicial system which was forced into wide-ranging reforms in order to meet this challenge