The Political Economy of Congressional Patent Policymaking in the Late 20th Century

Beginning in the early 1980s, the U.S. Government reformed the patent law in ways that made patents easier to acquire and defend, but further efforts to expand the rights of patent owners had stalled by the mid-1990s. I use a political economy model to explain these changes in terms of the shifting constituency interests represented by members of the U.S. Congress. As the distribution of patenting became less skewed in the 1980s, more members represented constituencies likely to benefit from inefficient patent policy. But as the distribution of patent holding became more skewed once again in the later 1990s, support for expansions of patent rights decreased

Victory by the Weakest: Effects of Negative Advertising in N\u3e2 Candidate Campaigns

The truel, or three way duel, has distinct properties from duels: the weakest contestant often has a very good chance to win. This paper explores application of the logic of truels to election campaigns involving negative advertising. We show that negative campaigning that pits the leading candidates against each other can create circumstances in which the third (or worse) place candidate wins in one or more of the Nash equilibria of the game. We then study whether the simulated existence of an opportunity for Nash equilibrium victory by third place candidates predicts such outcomes in U.S. state-wide elections

Assessing Spurious Correlations in Big Search Data

Big search data offers the opportunity to identify new and potentially real-time measures and predictors of important political, geographic, social, cultural, economic, and epidemiological phenomena, measures that might serve an important role as leading indicators in forecasts and nowcasts. However, it also presents vast new risks that scientists or the public will identify meaningless and totally spurious ‘relationships’ between variables. This study is the first to quantify that risk in the context of search data. We find that spurious correlations arise at exceptionally high frequencies among probability distributions examined for random variables based upon gamma (1, 1) and Gaussian random walk distributions. Quantifying these spurious correlations and their likely magnitude for various distributions has value for several reasons. First, analysts can make progress toward accurate inference. Second, they can avoid unwarranted credulity. Third, they can demand appropriate disclosure from the study authors

Do Non-Citizens Vote in U.S. Elections?

In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress

Emergence of a Norm from Resistance: Using Simulation to Explore the Macro Implications of Social Identity Theory

We usually hope that social norms discourage injustice. However, we are all witnesses to harmful norms enforced by governments, such as xenophobia, which need to be contested and changed. Previous studies have concluded that it is possible to change a harmful norm through contestation by powerless actors if suitable structural conditions exist. However, these structural conditions have not been sufficiently studied and, as such, are the focus of this paper. Our paper begins with a review of well-established micro-level theories of social identity theory (SIT), recast as a set of 42 discrete theoretical statements. These statements are then re-expressed in the form of a systems-level theory of macro-changes in societal norms using the system dynamics approach. The over-time dynamic behavior simulated using this structure is compared to events in two well-known case studies of changes in societal norms: women’s suffrage between 1830 and 1920, and the emergence of more tolerant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) norms in the US between 1950 and 2018. Further simulations of the model explore the roles of anger and social outrage, foreshadowing the ability of simulation-based experiments, such as the one presented here, to explore in a robust way a wide range of (undemocratic) regimes under counter-factual conditions

Life in Hampton Roads Report: The 13th Annual Life in Hampton Roads Survey

[From the Executive Summary] The Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Old Dominion University is pleased to present the results from the 13th annual Life in Hampton Roads (LIHR) survey. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into residents’ perceptions of the quality of life in Hampton Roads. This year, all survey data was collected via telephone interviews as was the case prior to the pandemic. More than two-thirds of respondents rated the quality of life in the region as excellent or good (69.3%). About 25% rated Hampton Roads’ quality of life as fair (24.7%) and 4.5% rated it as poor. Consistent with previous years, respondents rated the quality of life in their city and their neighborhood higher than they did for the region as a whole. Just over 70% rated the quality of life in their city as good or excellent (70.1%) and 24.2% rated their city as fair. Only 5.6% rated their city’s quality of life as poor. Neighborhood ratings of quality of life remain the highest, with 82.3% rating their neighborhood as excellent or good. Only 15.9% rated their neighborhood quality of life as fair and 1.8% rated it as poor

Life in Hampton Roads Report: The 12th Annual Life in Hampton Roads Survey

[From the Executive Summary] The Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Old Dominion University is pleased to present the results from the 12th annual Life in Hampton Roads (LIHR) survey. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into residents’ perceptions of the quality of life in Hampton Roads. It is important to note that the methodology for this year’s survey differs from previous Life in Hampton Roads surveys. The first ten years of the survey were conducted using a random sample of Hampton Roads residents via telephone. Last year state and university COVID-19 restrictions did not allow for staffing of the SSRC call center during the survey period. Therefore, on-line survey panels were used to solicit respondents to complete a web-based survey. This year, a mixed methods approach of telephone calls and web surveys were used to administer the survey. Given the continued and evolving pandemic conditions in Hampton Roads and the rest of the world, many of this year’s questions focused on residents’ experiences with and responses to continuing COVID-19 conditions

Life in Hampton Roads Report: The 11th Annual Life in Hampton Roads Survey

[From the Executive Summary] The Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Old Dominion University is pleased to present the results from the 11th annual Life in Hampton Roads (LIHR) survey. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into residents’ perceptions of the quality of life in Hampton Roads. It is important to note that the methodology for this year’s survey differs from previous Life in Hampton Roads surveys. The first ten years of the survey were conducted using a random sample of Hampton Roads residents via telephone. However, this year state and university COVID-19 restrictions did not allow for staffing of the SSRC call center during the survey period. Therefore, on-line survey panels were used to solicit respondents to complete a web-based survey. Given the pandemic conditions in Hampton Roads and the rest of the world, many of this year’s questions focused on residents’ experiences with and responses to COVID-19 conditions

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good