The innovation challenge: A blueprint for American competitiveness in the twenty‐first‐century global economy?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91140/1/21470_ftp.pd

Sovereign wealth funds: National security risks in a global free trade environment

The proliferation of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) has resulted in an unstable political, legal, and regulatory environment for this form of foreign direct investment (FDI). This article explains SWF growth over the last half-century; discusses issues surrounding SWF “transparency” and host-country national security risk; reviews the legal and regulatory structures governing FDI in major national economies; examines proposed regulatory approaches to structure the FDI environment; and concludes with a discussion of SWF regulatory policy recommendations addressing corporate governance principles, national security restrictions on equity investment, and investment reciprocity, and suggests recommendations for executives considering engaging an SWF investment partner. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64327/1/20299_ftp.pd

The Obama Administration's Regulatory Review Initiative: A 21st Century Federal Regulatory Initiative?

On January 18, 2011, President Obama signed Executive Order 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, which instructs federal regulators to do the following: coordinate their agencies activities to simplify and harmonize rules that may be overlapping, inconsistent, or redundant; determine whether the present and future benefits of a proposed regulation justify its potential costs (including taking into account both quantitative and qualitative factors); increase participation of industry, experts, and the public (“stakeholders”) in the formal rule‐making process; encourage the use of warnings, default rules, disclosure requirements, and provisions of information to the public as an alternative to traditional “command‐and‐control” rule‐making restricting consumer choice; and mandate a government‐wide review of all existing administrative rules to remove outdated regulations. Executive Order 13563 includes a qualitative “values” provision to be considered in the required cost–benefit analysis, which can potentially counteract the alleged regulatory reform rationale of President Obama. Furthermore, in Executive Order 13563, President Obama established a deadline of May 18, 2011, for all executive branch agencies to submit their plans to streamline their rulemaking operations and repeal those “overlapping, inconsistent, or redundant” rules. These two issues, along with complementary regulatory review proposals being discussed in the U.S. Congress, are evaluated in this essay.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91369/1/j.1467-8594.2012.00404.x.pd

Obesity in America: A Market Failure?

Since the late 1980s, obesity in America has been a looming public health concern. Recently, medical researchers found that, for the 2011‐12 period, 35.3 percent of U.S. adults (aged 20 or older), 20.5 percent of teenagers (ages 12‐19), 17.7 percent of children (ages 6‐11), and 8.4 percent of young children (ages 2‐5) have obesity, and 6.3 percent of U.S. adults having severe obesity. In a recent working paper by Karnani, McFerran, and Mukhopadhyay (2015), these management scholars argue that obesity represents a market failure. In their study, Karnani et al. evaluate the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility, industry self‐regulation, social activism, and government regulation as to its effectiveness on consumer behavior and reducing obesity. Karnani et al. are advocates of “reasonable” government intervention, i.e., tax/subsidies, market regulation, and education, to address the public health issue of obesity. However, evidence shows that reasonable government intervention is also vulnerable to government failure and potential public health risk. Recommended is a mix of institutional activities found in corporate social responsibility, industry self‐regulation, social activism, and government intervention, all of which should provide the direction needed to continue this public health trend away from America’s epidemic levels of obesity.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146865/1/basr12157.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146865/2/basr12157_am.pd

Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai Or Goodbye?

Starting in 2007, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) from Asia and the Middle East have invested billions of dollars in major U.S. financial firms. The primary driving force behind their growth is rising commodity prices, in particular oil. Given that SWFs represent a relatively new, cash-rich investment group, we studied the public policy concerns with their investments, SWFs mode of entry, and how does the market react to the investment. SWFs lack of transparency with regards to their investment motives and governance structure is cause for concern. While taking full opportunity of depressed security prices as a result of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, they are also being prudent by investing mostly in preferred stocks and fixed-income convertible securities of large U.S. corporations that are followed by many analysts and are highly liquid. Despite investing handsomely in U.S. targets and adopting a hands-off approach toward management; the liquidity crisis continues to perpetuate the decline in SWF-targets’ stock price post-investment. Using an event study parameter approach, we found the short-run market reaction to be statistically insignificant in 11 out of 12 announcements of SWF investments; but in the months following the investment, SWF-targets underperform both the S&P500 and the Dow Jones Financial Services Index Fund.Stock Market, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), SWF-targets’ stock price post-investment

Multinational Enterprises, Employee Safety and the Socially Responsible Supply Chain: The Case of Bangladesh and the Apparel Industry

This article address the issue of employee safety and the social responsibility of multinational apparel retailers who contract with Bangladesh manufacturers in their global supply chain. Both the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh have been identified as the two primary facilitators for global apparel industry efforts to actively address this serious human rights issue; thus, they have the potential to help drive the success of the industry’s corporate citizenship efforts to successfully manage the issue of fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The article further explores these relationships within the context of the “global corporate citizenship” concept, and develops a rationale for the limits of a socially responsible supply chain. In the context of global corporate citizenship, the article describes the existing state of these two industry organizations remediation efforts to ensure a stable supply chain in Bangladesh, and offers an analysis of existing industry nonmarket strategy approaches to improving contractor’s factory fire and building safety environments for their employees. Lastly, a comprehensive set of nonmarket strategies for multinational apparel retailers is recommended when addressing their global corporate citizenship commitments to a safe working environment for Bangladesh garment manufacturing employees.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146286/1/basr12153_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146286/2/basr12153.pd

Regulatory Reform and the U.S. Manufacturing Sector

The Bush administration, through the Office ofManagement and Budget, Office of Information andRegulatory Affairs (OMB/OIRA), has shown renewedinterest in regulatory reform as an important publicissue, especially as it pertains to the nation’s manufacturingsector. On March 9, 2005, OMB/OIRAannounced that Federal agencies will be taking practicalsteps of an administrative nature to reduce the costburden on manufacturing firms operating in the UnitedStates by acting on 76 suggested reforms of federal regulationssuggested by the public. Recommended actionsrange from gathering and reporting additional informationto issuing modernized regulations, with reformsto be implemented through rulemaking procedures thatinclude an opportunity for public participation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45792/1/11369_2006_Article_20060107.pd

The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998: An Economic Analysis

This brief provides an economic analysis of the main feature of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 ('CTEA'), a twenty-year extension of the copyright term for existing and future works. Taken as a whole, the authors believe that it is highly unlikely that the economic benefits from copyright extension under the CTEA outweigh the additional costs.Technology and Industry

Violent Recidivism: A Long-Time Follow-Up Study of Mentally Disordered Offenders

Background: In this prospective study, mentally disordered perpetrators of severe violent and/or sexual crimes were followed through official registers for 59 (range 8 to 73) months. The relapse rate in criminality was assessed, compared between offenders sentenced to prison versus forensic psychiatric care, and the predictive ability of various risk factors (criminological, clinical, and of structured assessment instruments) was investigated. Method: One hundred perpetrators were consecutively assessed between 1998 and 2001 by a clinical battery of established instruments covering DSM-IV diagnoses, psychosocial background factors, and structured assessment instruments (HCR-20, PCL-R, and life-time aggression (LHA)). Follow-up data was collected from official registers for: (i) recidivistic crimes, (ii) crimes during ongoing sanction. Results: Twenty subjects relapsed in violent criminality during ongoing sanctions (n = 6) or after discharge/parole (n = 14). Individuals in forensic psychiatric care spent significantly more time at liberty after discharge compared to those in prison, but showed significantly fewer relapses. Criminological (age at first conviction), and clinical (conduct disorder and substance abuse/dependence) risk factors, as well as scores on structured assessment instruments, were moderately associated with violent recidivism. Logistic regression analyses showed that the predictive ability of criminological risk factors versus clinical risk factors combined with scores from assessment instruments was comparable, with each set of variables managing to correctly classify about 80% of all individuals, but the only predictors that remained significant in multiple models were criminological (age at first conviction, and a history of substance abuse among primary relatives). Conclusions: Only one in five relapsed into serious criminality, with significantly more relapses among subjects sentenced to prison as compared to forensic psychiatric care. Criminological risk factors tended to be the best predictors of violent relapses, while few synergies were seen when the risk factors were combined. Overall, the predictive validity of common risk factors for violent criminality was rather weak

Assessing sustainability in housing LED urban regeneration : insights from a housing association in Northern England

How far do current assessment methods allow the thorough evaluation of sustainable urban regeneration? Would it be useful, to approach the evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of housing regeneration schemes, by making both hidden pitfalls and potentials explicit, and budgeting costs and benefits in the stakeholders’ perspective? The paper aims at answering these questions, by focusing on a case study located in the Manchester area, the City West Housing Trust, a nonprofit housing association. Drawing from extensive fieldwork and including several interviews with key experts from this housing association, the paper first attempts to monetize the environmental and social value of two extant projects – a high-rise housing estate and an environmentally-led program. It then discusses whether and how a stakeholder-oriented approach would allow more engagement of both current and potential funders in the projects at hand. Findings from both the literature and the empirical data that was gathered show how in current housing regeneration processes, room for significant improvements in terms of assessment methods still exist. Findings additionally show that the environmental and social spillovers are largely disregarded because of a gap in the evaluation tools. This may also hinder the potential contributions of further funders in the achievements of higher impacts in terms of sustainability