Taste-based Discrimination: Empirical Evidence from a Shock to Preferences during WWI

A significant challenge to empirically testing theories of discrimination has been the difficulty of identifying taste-based discrimination and of distinguishing it clearly from statistical discrimination. This paper identifies taste-based discrimination through a two-part empirical test. First, it constructs quantitative measures of revealed preferences, which establish that World War I created a persistent change in ethnic preferences that switched the status of German Americans from a mainstream ethnicity to an ethnic minority until the late 1920s. Second, the paper uses this shock to preferences to identify the effects of taste-based discrimination on traders at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). A new data set of more than 5,000 applications for membership in the NYSE reveals that the War more than doubled the probability that applicants with German-sounding names would be rejected (relative to Anglo-Saxons).Taste-Based Discrimination, World War I, Shock to Preferences

How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs

This paper introduces a new internationally comparable data set that permits an empirical investigation of the effects of patent law on innovation. The data have been constructed from the catalogues of two 19th century world fairs: the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, 1851, and the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876. They include innovations that were not patented, as well as those that were, and innovations from countries both with and without patent laws. I find no evidence that patent laws increased levels of innovative activity but strong evidence that patent systems influenced the distribution of innovative activity across industries. Inventors in countries without patent laws concentrated in industries where secrecy was effective relative to patents, e.g., food processing and scientific instruments. These results suggest that introducing strong and effective patent laws in countries without patents may have stronger effects on changing the direction of innovative activity than on raising the number of innovations.

Why Don't Inventors Patent?

This paper argues that the ability to keep innovations secret may be a key determinant of patenting. To test this hypothesis, the paper examines a newly-collected data set of more than 7,000 American and British innovations at four world's fairs between 1851 and 1915. Exhibition data show that the industry where an innovation is made is the single most important determinant of patenting. Urbanization, high innovative quality, and low costs of patenting also encourage patenting, but these influences are small compared with industry effects. If the effectiveness of secrecy is an important factor in inventors' patenting decisions, scientific breakthroughs, which facilitate reverse-engineering, should increase inventors' propensity to patent. The discovery of the periodic table in 1869 offers an opportunity to test this idea. Exhibition data show that patenting rates for chemical innovations increased substantially after the introduction of the periodic table, both over time and relative to other industries.

An Empirical Test of Taste-based Discrimination Changes in Ethnic Preferences and their Effect on Admissions to the NYSE during World War I

A significant challenge to empirically testing theories of discrimination has been the difficulty of identifying taste-based discrimination and of distinguishing it clearly from statistical discrimination. This paper addresses this problem through a two-part empirical test of taste-based discrimination. First, it constructs measures of revealed preferences, which establish that World War I created a strong and persistent shock to ethnic preferences that effectively switched the status of German Americans to an ethnic minority. Second, the paper uses this shock to ethnic preferences to identify the effects of taste-based discrimination at the example of traders at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). A new data set of more than 4,000 applications for seats on the NYSE reveals that the War more than doubled the probability that German applicants would be rejected (relative to Anglo-Saxons). The mechanism of taste-based discrimination is surprising: Prices are unaffected by ethnic preferences, and discrimination operates instead entirely through admissions.

Compulsory Licensing - Evidence from the Trading with the Enemy Act

Compulsory licensing allows firms in developing countries to produce foreign-owned inventions without the consent of foreign patent owners. This paper uses an exogenous event of compulsory licensing after World War I under the Trading with the Enemy Act to examine the long run effects of compulsory licensing on domestic invention. Difference-in-differences analyses of nearly 200,000 chemical inventions suggest that compulsory licensing increased domestic invention by at least 20 percent.

Vorwort zu Medienbildung und Medienkompetenz

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes gehen auf die Fachtagung der Sektion Medienpädagogik der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (DGfE) zurück, welche im November 2010 an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Zürich stattfand. Die Tagung knüpfte an den Diskurs über Medienkompetenz – Medienbildung an, der zuvor vor allem in der Zeitschrift medien + erziehung geführt wurde. Die Gründe für diesen Diskurs sind vielschichtig und hängen u.a. mit der Akzentuierung unterschiedlicher theoretischer Begründungszusammenhänge, mit Weiterentwicklungen der Theoriebildung auf dem Hintergrund des rasanten medialen Wandels aber auch mit disziplinären Konstellationen bei dem Aufbau neuer BA- und MA-Studiengänge im Bereich Medienpädagogik und Medienbildung zusammen. Hier hat sich in den letzten Jahren Medienbildung auffällig in der Bezeichnung neuer Studiengänge etabliert

Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry

Members of a patent pool agree to use a set of patents as if they were jointly owned by all members and license them as a package to other firms. Regulators favor pools as a means to encourage innovation: Pools are expected to reduce litigation risks for their members and lower license fees and transactions costs for other firms. This paper uses the example of the first patent pool in U.S. history, the Sewing Machine Combination (1856-1877) to perform the first empirical test of the effects of a patent pool on innovation. Contrary to theoretical predictions, the sewing machine pool appears to have discouraged patenting and innovation, in particular for the members of the pool. Data on stitches per minute, as an objectively quantifiable measure of innovation, confirm these findings. Innovation for both members and outside firms slowed as soon as the pool had been established and resumed only after it had dissolved.

Did Plant Patents Create the American Rose?

The Plant Patent Act of 1930 was the first step towards creating property rights for biological innovation: it introduced patent rights for asexually-propagated plants. This paper uses data on plant patents and registrations of new varieties to examine whether the Act encouraged innovation. Nearly half of all plant patents between 1931 and 1970 were for roses. Large commercial nurseries, which began to build mass hybridization programs in the 1940s, accounted for most of these patents, suggesting that the new intellectual property rights may have helped to encourage the development of a commercial rose breeding industry. Data on registrations of newly-created roses, however, yield no evidence of an increase in innovation: less than 20 percent of new roses were patented, European breeders continued to create most new roses, and there was no increase in the number of new varieties per year after 1931.

Livelihood transitions in upland Lao PDR under the light of changing policies

In der vorliegenden Diplomarbeit „Livelihood transitions in upland Lao PDR under the light of changing policies. Can traditional rural institutions be maintained?“ werden die Auswirkungen und Veränderungen des Lebensunterhaltes und der Existenzsicherungsstrategien von bäuerlichen Institutionen im Norden von Laos, aufgrund von Regierungsinterventionen, dargestellt. Die Feldforschung fand vom Februar bis Mai 2007 in der Provinz Oudomxay im nördlichen Laos statt. Die Untersuchung beschränkt sich auf die „Khamu“, einer ethnischen Minderheit in Laos. In Laos dominiert immer noch Brandrodung als landwirtschaftliche Flächennutzung. Doch durch das zunehmende Bevölkerungswachstum wird diese traditionelle landwirtschaftliche Technik gefährdet. Die Nachhaltigkeit ist nicht mehr gesichert, da der Zeitraum, in dem das Land brachliegen sollte, um sich von Nutzung zu erholen, nicht mehr eingehalten werden kann. Verordnungen der Regierung, wie beispielsweise das Zusammenlegen von abgelegenen Dörfern, bringt zwar einige Vorteile und Zugang zum Gesundheits- und Bildungswesen für die ländliche Bevölkerung. Doch die natürlichen Ressourcen in den zusammengelegten Dörfern werden zunehmen knapp. Dieser Umstand erfordert alternative Strategien, um eine nachhaltige Existenzsicherung der bäuerlichen Bevölkerung im Hochland von Laos zu sichern. Solche neuen entwicklungspolitischen Strategien der laotischen Regierung bringen Veränderungen in sozialen und kulturellen Traditionen der bäuerlichen Bevölkerung mit sich. Mit der folgenden Forschung sollen Effekte einer Neueinführung von landwirtschaftlichen Strategien auf haushaltsinterne, geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede zum einen, und traditionelle Interaktionen zwischen bäuerlichen Haushalten und der Dorfgemeinschaft zum anderen, durchleuchtet werden. Dafür wird für jede landwirtschaftliche Strategie jeder notwendige Arbeitschritt auf haushaltsinterner und -externer Ebene untersucht. Teilstrukturierte Interviews, sowie der Einsatz von PRA (participatory rural appraisal) Techniken, wurden zur Datensammlung im Feld eingesetzt.This study tries to demonstrate the impact of livelihood transitions and government efforts on rural institutions in northern Lao PDR. Essentially intra- and inter-household institutions of the ethnic minority in Lao PDR, the Khamu, build the focus of the research. The research objectives are, on the one hand, to determine the likely effects of livelihood strategies and practices of households and communities and, on the other hand, to identify the impacts of development policies that foster equitable outcomes. In Lao PDR shifting cultivation is still a dominant land use practice. With increasing population pressures, resulting shorter fallow periods render the traditional land use system unsustainable. Policy to merged villages provides health and education services but cause localised pressured on natural resources. Thus alternative practices need to be developed and supported to enable the growing population to achieve sustainable livelihoods. New opportunities, many of which arise from development efforts, may alter longstanding social and cultural traditions. Promoted governmental livelihood activities include paddy rice, livestock, job’s tears, galangal and domestication of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). This research examines the effect of realising such new livelihood strategies on (1) the roles of men and women within households and (2) traditional interactions between households and their communities. To filter these effects this study is built on an exploration of every implementation procedure for each livelihood strategy of rural households