The Global Publishing Industry in 2021

Mixed forces shaped global publishing activity in 2021. The spread of different COVID-19 variants throughout the world still caused hardship and widespread social distancing. At the same time, the rollout of vaccines helped to contain the pandemic’s impact and enabled a recovery of the global economy, which grew by around 6 percent in 2021. The preliminary release of data from WIPO’s global survey of publishing activity shows that recovery extended to the publishing industry. Still, industry performance varies by country, reflecting the nature of book markets and other local economic forces. The highest number of books published and deposited in a national repository in 2021 was recorded by Germany (413,158), followed by the United States (197,931), the United Kingdom (152,355), Japan (116,914) and the Republic of Korea (100,242). China’s 2021 data are unavailable, but in 2020 the National Library of China received 414,409 books, similar in magnitude to Germany. Data for all countries where available are presented

Effects of institutional support on innovation and performance: roles of dysfunctional competition

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of institutional support on product and process innovation and firm performance and describe how dysfunctional competition influences relevant outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: This study develops a research model based on institution-based view and tests it using structural equation modeling and empirical data collected from 300 manufacturers in China. Findings: The results show that institutional support positively affects product and process innovation and firm performance. Both product and process innovation improve firm performance. The findings reveal that dysfunctional competition significantly reduces the positive effects of institutional support on product and process innovation but leaves the effects of institutional support and product and process innovation on firm performance unaffected. Originality/value: This study contributes to innovation literature by providing insights into the impact of China’s institutional environment on manufacturing firms’ product and process innovation decisions. The findings also contribute to institution-based view literature by providing empirical evidence on the joint effects of institutional support and dysfunctional competition on product and process innovation and firm performance. This study can help manufacturers in China take advantage of institutional environment and adjust product and process innovation decisions accordingly

Financial Development, Structure and Growth : New Data, Method and Results

The existing weight of evidence suggests that financial structure (the classification of a financial system as bank-based versus market-based) is irrelevant for economic growth. This contradicts the common belief that the institutional structure of a financial system matters. We re-examine this issue using a novel dataset covering 69 countries over 1989-2011 in a Bayesian framework. Our results are conformable to the belief - a market-based system is relevant - with sizable economic effects for the high-income but not for the middle-and-low-income countries. Our findings provide a counterexample to the weight of evidence. We also identify a regime shift in 2008.JEL Classification Codes: G0, O4, O16http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/leon_gonzalez_roberto

Patent Classifications as Indicators of Intellectual Organization

Using the 138,751 patents filed in 2006 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, co-classification analysis is pursued on the basis of three- and four-digit codes in the International Patent Classification (IPC, 8th edition). The co-classifications among the patents enable us to analyze and visualize the relations among technologies at different levels of aggregation. The hypothesis that classifications might be considered as the organizers of patents into classes, and that therefore co-classification patterns--more than co-citation patterns--might be useful for mapping, is not corroborated. The classifications hang weakly together, even at the four-digit level at the country level, more specificity can be made visible. However, countries are not the appropriate units of analysis because patent portfolios are largely similar in many advanced countries in terms of the classes attributed. Instead of classes, one may wish to explore the mapping of title words as a better approach to visualize the intellectual organization of patents

Design and development challenges for an E2E DRM content business integration platform

Current studies on Digital Rights Management (DRM) have focused on controlling access to and copies of contents, centered exclusively on the end of the value chain (end users). This focus has been oriented towards security and encryption as a means of solving the issue of illegal copying by purchasers. In this paper, we propose End-to-End Digital Rights Management (E2E DRM) that involves the protection of the content throughout the entire value chain. This concept is given form in the new technologies for representing intellectual property (IP) which, in a secure and unequivocal manner, identify the content at each point in the value chain: from the author to the end user, the content is identifiable in any of the transactions and statuses through which it passes. The key concept which E2E DRM must provide is not only the governability of access and copying, but also that of all the processes associated with the content business. We establish an E2E DRM model and architecture, and propose the R&D management of its design and implementation that makes it possible to protect content from content creator to purchaser. Finally, the paper also analyzes their impact from a global perspective

Catching Up to the Technology Frontier: The Dichotomy between Innovation and Imitation

Using data for 55 developing and developed countries, this research examines the roles of technology transfer, research intensity, educational attainment and the ability to absorb foreign technology in explaining cross-country differences in productivity growth. The results show that innovation is an important factor for growth in OECD countries whereas growth in developing countries is driven by imitation. Furthermore the interaction between educational attainment and the distance to the frontier is a significant determinant of growth in the overall sample

Cultural diversity, copyright, and international trade

This chapter argues that the international copyright system, which is now embedded in the international trading system as a consequence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), has operated at least in relation to some types of copyright-protected cultural goods and services (as defined in the 2005 UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions) as a fetter on cultural diversity and self-determination. This effect has been produced by certain aspects of copyright law itself allied with aspects of behavior in the global market for cultural goods and services. The chapter analyses the extent to which these fettering effects have been exacerbated by other WTO agreements. It then considers whether or not the WTO system can be regarded as being in conflict with the emerging international regime for the protection of cultural diversity as embodied in the 2005 UNESCO Convention