6,060 research outputs found
Second generation governance indicators
This paper summarizes progress made in a DfID-funded World Bank initiative to test and develop policy-relevant, politically acceptable, quantitative indicators of governance. There are two major components involved in the process of generating indicators that are practical means of reform. Political acceptability is key in developing neutral quantitative benchmarks of good governance that can be embraced by reformers. In addition to political acceptability, measuring governance must be comprehensive and institutionally specific so that reformers know which institutions to reform and how to do so. This paper explores some of the most promising second generation indicators of good governance and elaborates on how they are being used in World Bank operations
Do all stars in the solar neighbourhood form in clusters? A cautionary note on the use of the distribution of surface densities
Bressert et al. recently showed that the surface density distribution of
low-mass, young stellar objects (YSOs) in the solar neighbourhood is
approximately log-normal. The authors conclude that the star formation process
is hierarchical and that only a small fraction of stars form in dense star
clusters. Here, we show that the peak and the width of the density distribution
are also what follow if all stars form in bound clusters which are not
significantly affected by the presence of gas and expand by two-body
relaxation. The peak of the surface density distribution is simply obtained
from the typical ages (few Myr) and cluster membership number (few hundred)
typifying nearby star-forming regions. This result depends weakly on initial
cluster sizes, provided that they are sufficiently dense (initial half mass
radius of <0.3 pc) for dynamical evolution to be important at an age of a few
Myr. We conclude that the degeneracy of the YSO surface density distribution
complicates its use as a diagnostic of the stellar formation environment.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, MNRAS Letter; Updated to match final journal
styl
Liberty, National Security and the Big Society
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Second generation governance indicators
This paper summarizes progress made in a DfID-funded World Bank initiative to test and develop policy-relevant, politically acceptable, quantitative indicators of governance. There are two major components involved in the process of generating indicators that are practical means of reform. Political acceptability is key in developing neutral quantitative benchmarks of good governance that can be embraced by reformers. In addition to political acceptability, measuring governance must be comprehensive and institutionally specific so that reformers know which institutions to reform and how to do so. This paper explores some of the most promising second generation indicators of good governance and elaborates on how they are being used in World Bank operations.governance, institutions, development
Identifying technology spillovers and product market rivalry
Support for many R&D and technology policies relies on empirical evidence that R&D "spills over" between firms. But there are two countervailing R&D spillovers: positive effects from technology spillovers and negative effects from business stealing by product market rivals. We develop a general framework showing that technology and product market spillovers have testable implications for a range of performance indicators, and exploits these using distinct measures of a firm's position in technology space and product market space. We show using panel data on U.S. firms between 1981 and 2001 that both technology and product market spillovers operate, but that net social returns are several times larger than private returns. The spillover effects are also revealed when we analyze three hightech sectors in detail - pharmaceuticals, computer hardware andtelecommunication equipment. Using the model we evaluate three R&Dsubsidy policies and show that the typical focus of support for small and medium firms may be misplaced.Spillovers, R&D, market value, patents.
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