Copyright

The purpose of copyright laws is discussed. Copyright is essentially about protecting the autonomy of authors

Are Class Size Differences Related to Pupils' Educational Progress and Classroom Processes? Findings from the Institute of Education Class Size Study of Children Aged 5-7 Years

Despite evidence from the USA that children in small classes of less than 20 do better academically there is still a vociferous debate about the effects of class size differences in schools, and considerable gaps in our understanding of the effects of class size differences. This article summarises results from the most complete UK analysis to date of the educational consequences of class size differences. The study had two aims: first, to establish whether class size differences affect pupils' academic achievement; and second, to study connections between class size and classroom processes, which might explain any differences found. The study had a number of features that were designed to be an improvement on previous research. It used an 'observational' approach, rather than an interventionist one, in order to capture the nature of the relationship between class size and achievement across the full range of observed classes, and it employed a longitudinal design with baseline assessment to adjust for possible non-random selection of children into classes. The study followed a large sample of over 10,000 children from school entry through the infant stage, i.e. children aged 4-7 years. It used multilevel statistical procedures to model effects of class size differences while controlling for sources of variation that might affect the relationship with academic achievement, and a multimethod research approach, integrating teachers' judgements and experiences with case studies, and also carefully designed time allocation estimates and systematic observation data. Results showed that there was a clear effect of class size differences on children's academic attainment over the (first) Reception year. In the case of literacy, the lowest attainers on entry to school benefited most from small classes, particularly below 25. Connections between class size and classroom processes were examined and a summary model of relationships presented. Effects were multiple, not singular; in largeclasses there are more large groups and this presented teachers with more difficulties, in smaller classes there was more individual teacher contact with pupils and more support for learning, and in larger classes there was more pupil inattentiveness and off-task behaviour. Results support a contextual approach to classroom learning, within which class size differences have effects on both teachers and pupils. It is concluded that much will depend on how teachers adapt their teaching to different class sizes and that more could be done in teacher training and professional development to address contextual features like size of class

Comment on Lessons From Studying the International Economics of Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright is the dog that didn\u27t bark in Keith Maskus\u27s paper, Lessons from Studying the International Economics of Intellectual Property Rights. Like virtually every other economic study of intellectual property and trade, the Maskus paper confines its examples and analysis to the industrial side of intellectual property-mainly patents and know-how-and leaves the authorial side-copyright-untouched. As a small step toward repairing this imbalance, and toward opening a corner of policy inquiry that has so far been largely unexamined, I would like here to make a few observations on copyright and trade in developing economies. The regular omission of copyright from economic analyses of international trade parallels the comparatively limited treatment copyright has received in analyses of single economies, and probably for the same reason: the quaint but surprisingly tenacious view that the conditions surrounding the production and distribution of literary and artistic works are more closely connected to untethered creative genius than to the dour calculus of economic incentives, costs and revenues. The omission may also stem from another fact, one that deserves to be taken more seriously and that, indeed, frames the remainder of my remarks: more so than the conditions surrounding technological innovation, the conditions affecting the production and distribution of literary and artistic works ramify widely into the domain not only of economics but of national cultural and political life, the conditions of civil society. Even apart from copyright\u27s connections to a nation\u27s cultural and political life, copyright\u27s practical economics separate it from other intellectual properties, underscoring the danger of applying to copyright the economics-based policy prescriptions formulated for patents in the developing world. To take just one ex- ample, the costs of plant and infrastructure differ markedly between patent industries and copyright industries. Few new pharmaceuticals are cooked up in the course of a week\u27s work or produced in the back of a garage. Yet, modestly priced digital equipment, along with some measure of talent, are all that it takes today to produce a high-quality music CD; thanks to the Internet, distribution costs of digitally encoded content have fallen by orders of magnitude. It is only a matter of time before audiovisual works en- joy these same digital economies, and we can count in years rather than decades the time that will pass before creators (and pirates) in every country in the world have the technical means to distribute the full range of entertainment products. This difference in capital requirements between the patent and copyright industries explains why the standard riposte to rigorous international patent norms- that it is cynical to claim that they will enable the world\u27s poorest countries to develop vibrant patent industries-has less force against the claims for rigorous international copyright norms. Widespread digital facilities for producing and distributing creative works will in many places be seen to threaten entrenched local cultures. The European Community\u27s misguided 1989 Broad- cast Directive, requiring member states to impose a 49.9 percent ceiling on non-European (mainly American) broadcast content, ostensibly in the interest of preserving European culture, echoes today in warnings that globalized entertainment markets will obliterate diverse local cultures and lead to a worldwide dominance of American-style mass culture. It is likely that entertainment, and information generally, will in the future play a larger role in daily life than it does today; but, while mass culture may become more abundant in daily fare, so, too, will more localized offerings. From a policy perspective, it is significant that these localized offerings will probably require a regime of copyright to sustain them. In any event, there is no reason to believe that a weak copyright in the developing world is a prescription for defeating the importation of mass foreign culture. The history of American importation of British books, free of copyright, throughout the nineteenth century argues otherwise

Copyright in the New Information Age

This Article is adapted from a lecture delivered on April 12, 1991, at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America, as part of the Brendan Brown Lecture Series

Copyright in the New Information Age

This Article is adapted from a lecture delivered on April 12, 1991, at the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America, as part of the Brendan Brown Lecture Series

International Coordination of Economic Policies: Scope, Methods, and Effects

This paper discusses the scope, methods, the effects of international coordination of economic policies. In addressing the scope for and of coordination, the analysis covers the rationale for coordination, barriers to coordination, the range and specificity of policies to be coordinated, the frequency of coordination, and the size of the coordinating group. Turning to the methods of coordination, the emphasis is on the broad issues of rules versus discretion, single-indicator versus multi-indicator approaches, and hegemonic versus more symmetric systems. In an attempt to shed some light on the effects of alternative rule- based proposals for coordination, we present some simulations of a global macroeconomic model (MULTIMQD) developed in the International Monetary Fund. The simulations considered range from 'smoothing rules for monetary and fiscal policy that imply only minimal international coordination, to more activist "target-zone" proposals that place greater restrictions on national authorities in the conduct of monetary and/or fiscal policies. The simulation results are compared to the actual evolution of the world economy over the 1974-87 period. Our findings suggest that simple mechanistic rule-based proposals are unlikely to lead to improved performance.