Setting people in their environment: plant and animal remains from Anglo-Scandinavian York

INTRODUCTION: For the past millennium, the inhabitants of the centre of York have, whether hey knew it or not, been living on top of a compost heap in which are preserved all kinds of remains of Anglo-Scandinavian and early post-conquest life. The preservation of this mass of organic matter has come about because, for reasons which are not fully understood, the deposits show anoxic waterlogging - in other words they have remained moist, and decay has been inhibited by lack of free oxygen. Later citizens must often have encountered these 'peaty' deposits and wondered about some of the more recognisable biological remains, as well as the numerous artefacts, surviving in them. However, it was not until the early 20th century that the value of all this material in investigating the past started to be appreciated

Actively decaying or just poorly preserved? Can we tell when plant and invertebrate remains in urban archaeological deposits decayed?

We have recendy argued that poorly preserved delicate macrofossil remains of plants and invertebrates in near-surface deposits in York are in active decay, rather than being preserved in stasis, part-way down the decay trajectory. Observations of both archaeological and modern deposits suggest empirically that remains either survive for a long period (if conditions are conducive) or decay rapidly (if they are not). The hypothesis that very gradual decay has led to large numbers of deposits containing remains in a similar state appears illogical. It is more likely that, where poorly preserved biological remains are found, they either decayed in the past and then were stabilised when ground conditions became anoxic, or are currently in decay. Long-term patterns of decay cannot easily be investigated experimentally, but arguments concerning patterns and rates of decay can be. Apart from the question of in-ground preservation, understanding patterns of decay will allow us to address a range of taphonomic problems fundamental to drawing archaeological information from these remains

The Financing of Research and Development

Evidence on the 'funding gap' for R&D is surveyed. The focus is on financial market reasons for underinvestment in R&D that persist even in the absence of externality-induced underinvestment. The conclusions are that 1) small and new innovative firms experience high costs of capital that are only partly mitigated by the presence of venture capital; 2) evidence for high costs of R&D capital for large firms is mixed, although these firms do prefer internal funds for financing these investments; 3) there are limits to venture capital as a solution to the funding gap, especially in countries where public equity markets are not highly developed; and 4) further study of governmental seed capital and subsidy programs using quasi-experimental methods is warranted.

The Effect of Takeover Activity on Corporate Research and Development

It is widely thought that increases in corporate mergers and acquisitions of the sort which the United States has experienced in the recent past lead to a reduction in such long term investment activities as R&D because of a shortened horizon on the part of managers. This paper uses a newly created dataset containing all acquisitions of publicly traded firms in the manufacturing sector in the last ten years to answer some basic questions which pertain to this issue. I find that the firms involved in acquisitions and mergers where both partners are in the manufacturing sector have roughly the same pattern of R&D spending as the sector as a whole and that the acquisition itself does not cause a reduction in R&D activity on the part of these firms. Moreover, the R&D capital thus acquired is valued more highly by the acquiring firm than by the stock market. On the other hand, I also find that the substantial increase in the number and size of acquisitions made by privately held firms in the eighties is concentrated primarily on firms with low R&D intensity which also are in non-R&D intensive industries. Because the pattern of low investment in R&D is longstanding, and because the firms taken over have less rather than more R&D capital than the industry as a whole, it seems unlikely that the recent increase in takeover activity has had a significantly negative effect on R&D spending in these industries.

Business Method Patents, Innovation, and Policy

The trickle of business method patents issued by the United States Patent Office became a flood after the State Street Bank decision in 1998. Many scholars, both legal and economic, have critiqued both the quality of these patents and the decision itself. This paper discusses the likely impact of these patents on innovation. It first reviews the facts about business method and internet patents briefly and then explores what economists know about the relationship between the patent system and innovation. It concludes by finding some consensus in the literature about the problems associated with this particular expansion of patentable subject matter, highlighting remaining areas of disagreement, and suggesting where there are major gaps in our understanding of the impact of these patents.

The Manufacturing Sector Master File: 1959-1987

This document describes the panel of publicly traded United States manufacturing firms which was created and updated at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1978 through 1990 within the Productivity Program. The panel consists of 2726 large manufacturing firms with one to twenty-nine years of data each; the period covered by the sampling frame was 1976 through 1987, with data back to 1959 where possible. There are about 90 variable for each firm-year of data: the variables give the complete income statement, balance sheet, statement of changes, and data on the market value f the common stock. The firms on the file are identified both by their CUSIP number and by name, making it feasible to match this data to other sources. A special feature of this data file is that all exits from the file between 1976 and 1987 have been identified and the reasons for exit have been tabulated in a diskette file. This file is described in Appendix A of this document.

Business and financial method patents, innovation, and policy

Two court decisions in the 1990s are widely viewed as having opened the door to a flood of business method and financial patents at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and to have also impacted other patent offices around the world. A number of scholars, both legal and economic, have critiqued both the quality of these patents and the decisions themselves. This paper reviews the history of business method and financial patents briefly and then explores what economists know about the relationship between the patent system and innovation, in order to draw some tentative conclusions about their likely impact. It concludes by finding some consensus in the literature about the problems associated with this particular expansion of patentable subject matter, highlighting the remaining areas of disagreement, and reviewing the various policy recommendations.intellectual property, State Street, software, internet, business methods, patents, innovation

Innovation and Diffusion

The contribution made by innovation and new technologies to economic growth and welfare is largely determined by the rate and manner by which innovations diffuse throughout the relevant population, but this topic has been a somewhat neglected one in the economics of innovation. This chapter, written for a handbook on innovation, provides a historical and comparative perspective on diffusion that looks at the broad determinants of diffusion, economic, social, and institutional, viewed from a microeconomic perspective. A framework for thinking about these determinants is presented along with a brief nontechnical review of modeling strategies used in different social scientific literatures. It concludes with a discussion of gaps in our understanding and potential future research questions.

Exploring the Patent Explosion

This paper looks more closely at the sources of patent growth in the United States since 1984. It confirms that the increase is largely due to US patenters, with an earlier surge in Asia, and some increase in Europe. Growth has taken place in all technologies, but not in all industries, being concentrated in the electrical, electronics, computing, and scientific instruments industries. It then examines whether these patents are valued by the market. We know from survey evidence that patents in these industries are not usually considered important for appropriability, but are sometimes considered necessary to secure financing for entering the industry. I compare the market value of patents held by entrant firms to those held by incumbents (controlling for R&D). Using data on publicly traded firms 1980-1989, I find that in industries based on electrical and mechanical technologies the market value of entrants' patents is positive in the post-1984 period (after the patenting surge), but not before, when patents were relatively unimportant in these industries. Also, the value of patent rights in complex product industries (where each product relies on many patents held by a number of other firms) is much higher for entrants than incumbents in the post-1984 period. For discrete product industries (where each product relies on only a few patents, and where the importance of patents for appropriability has traditionally been higher), there is no difference between incumbents and entrants.