An Institutional Analysis of Environmental Pollution Disputes in Taiwan: Cases of 'Self-Relief'

During the late 1980s and early 1990s in Taiwan, people's protests against environmental pollution often took the form of "self-relief," meaning that they attempted to fight polluters using their own resources, without relying on legal or administrative procedures. Why did such an extreme form of disputes become so widespread? What institutional changes did these movements bring about? These questions are analyzed using the analytical framework of "law and economics." Our research shows that "self-relief" functioned to a certain extent as a means of realizing quick compensation for victims, and for reflecting the opinions of local people concerning development projects; in addition, it served to promote the formulation of law and administrative systems. However, as it was based on direct negotiations between the parties concerned, the outcome of each dispute only reflected the transient balance of forces, and the experience gained in negotiations was not accumulated as a social norm.

Institutional Development of Capital Markets in Nine Asian Economies

This paper is conducting a comparative analysis of the development of securities markets in nine Asian economies: Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. This study focuses on two aspects: the history and institutional development of securities market, such as legal systems, payment systems, etc. From the analyses, this paper reveals several common features of the development of securities markets in nine Asian economies. First, most economies had an informal capital market in the early period of their history. Second, the background of the foundation of their official markets was influenced by experiences of colonization. Third, most governments recognized the importance of the capital market for economic development and had a positive attitude in promoting the market. Fourth, statistics clearly showed that most economies experienced several booms in their capital market from the late 1980s.

The causal relationships in mean and variance between stock returns and foreign institutional investment in India

This paper examines the causalities in mean and variance between stock returns and Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) in India. The analysis in this paper applies the Cross Correlation Function approach from Cheung and Ng (1996), and uses daily data for the timeframe of January 1999 to March 2008 divided into two periods before and after May 2003. Empirical results showed that there are uni-directional causalities in mean and variance from stock returns to FII flows irrelevant of the sample periods, while the reverse causalities in mean and variance are only found in the period beginning with 2003. These results point to FII flows having exerted an impact on the movement of Indian stock prices during the more recent period.

Yangtze River Delta's system integration: institutional barriers and countermeasures

This paper addresses the issue of institutional barriers to the Yangtze River Delta integration and the resulting slow development. It analyzes the problems including the coordination of local interests and regional interests, market segmentation during the regional integration, competition for the local government‘s investment on the public goods, labor movement within the delta. The paper argues that to reduce the negative impacts of these barriers and to promote the further integration of the Yangtze Delta region, the central government should strengthen the coordination between local governments, regulate their disorderly competition and reform the official evaluation system.

Promoting institutional connectivity in the Asia Pacific region : a study of supply chain and trade in services

This paper analyzes "institutional connectivity", or the degree of seamless trade in services centering on the distribution sector. Foreign equity participation in mode 3 (commercial presence) of trade in services and business firms’ investment performance has been studied closely. Net economic benefits of transparent institutional connectivity in the wholesale sector have also been revealed statistically in the case of Japan’s bilateral FTAs with other APEC members. Given these results, APEC could work on establishing its own harmonized "service trade commitment table" with only the foreign capital participation as its simple policy restriction. This would surely enhance an APEC-wide, institutional supply chain connectivity.

Aiming at improving access to research output through the institutional repository

The paper is to introduce the institutional repository (IR) as a powerful tool to support the researchers of the institution to archive and disseminate their research findings freely to the scholarly community on the Internet. The IR can improve the access to an institution’s research output enormously. The operations of an IR also require various interactions with researchers, which enables the library to gain a solid understanding of research needs and expectations. Through such interaction, the relationship and mutual trust between researchers and the library are strengthened. The experiences of the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) library can be useful to other special libraries.

The impact of institutional environment and cultural context in the four different approaches to social enterprise

This article analyzes the characteristics of four different social enterprise schools of though (social economy, earned-income school in developed countries, earned-income in emerging countries, and social innovation) and the influence of the contextual elements (cultural, political, economic and social) on their configuration. This article draws on the qualitative discussions of social enterprise in different regions of the world. This paper is intended to contribute to the field of social enterprise by broadening the understanding of the influence of environment and institutions on the emergence of social enterprise.

A governação de territórios metropolitanos. Contexto institucional e de planeamento nas regiões de Madrid, Barcelona, Paris e Lisboa / The regional metropolitan governance. Institutional mark and planning in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Lisbon

Resumo Em resposta aos desafios atuais de muitas grandes cidades, o contexto institucional e o planeamento territorial formam dimensões para melhorar a governação metropolitana. No quadro das regiões capitais do sudoeste europeu, quais poderão ser as inovações e diferenças nos seus modelos e processos em curso? Este artigo propõe uma investigação aplicada para apresentar a análise da governação metropolitana. Através do método de estudos de caso em perspectiva comparada, vários elementos e entrevistas são ponderados qualitativamente nas regiões de Madrid, Barcelona, Paris e Lisboa. As conclusões encontram uma tendência para o equilíbrio entre os esforços dessas duas dimensões da governação territorial metropolitana, não impedindo registrar os seus diferentes percursos: por exemplo Ile-de-France desenvolveu boas iniciativas em matéria de planeamento, que então pedem alguns ajustamentos no quadro político, enquanto Madrid teve “menos actividade” nos últimos anos, em resultado da sua grande estabilidade institucional. A região de Lisboa permanece talvez numa “posição intermédia”, com uma dinâmica de evolução pouco previsível. Mas de acordo com este argumento, admite-se que os seus processos podem levar a melhorias graduais no sistema de governação, com o seu próprio percurso, implementando acções que devem respeitar, em particular, a geografia do território. Abstract Addressing the running challenges of several greater cities, the institutional mark and regional planning are dimensions for improving metropolitan governance. Regarding the southwest European capital regions, what can be the innovations and differences in their currently processes and models? This paper proposes an applied framework to present the metropolitan governance analysis. Through a comparative case study methodology, various elements and interviews are qualitatively measured in the regions of Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Lisbon. The conclusions find a tendency to balance between the efforts on those two regional metropolitan governance dimensions, which does not prevent to register their different paths: for example Ile-de-France has developed good initiatives in terms of planning, which then require some adjustments in the political mark, while Madrid had in recent years “less activity”, in result of his institutional stability. The Lisbon region maybe stays in an “intermediate position” with a dynamic evolution that is difficult to predict. But according to that argument, it’s possible to admit that his processes can gradually lead to small improvements in his governance system, with his own path, implementing actions that must respect, in particularly, the geography of the territory.

RELIGIÃO E ETNICIDADE: O HERÓI CABOCLO BERNARDO E A CONSTRUÇÃO DA IDENTIDADE ÉTNICA NA VILA DE REGÊNCIA AUGUSTA - ES

Na Vila de Regência Augusta, às margens do Rio Doce no município de Linhares - ES, uma intricada dinâmica sócio-religiosa reveste de atribuições religiosas um herói cujo feito remonta os finais do século XIX. Bernardo José dos Santos, morador da vila, ficaria conhecido em âmbito nacional como o herói Caboclo Bernardo ao ser homenageado por Princesa Isabel, por realizar o salvamento de 128 dos 142 tripulantes do naufrágio do Navio de Guerra Imperial Marinheiro , próximo à foz do Rio Doce. O evento e suas conseqüências tornaram-se um marco na história da vila, inclusive o assassinato do herói nos meados da segunda década do século XX. Na continuidade narrativa, ritual e simbólica do ato heróico do Caboclo Bernardo esta investigação lança suas preocupações. Atualmente acontece na vila, todos os anos, a Festa de Caboclo Bernardo, uma festividade para onde convergem religiosos de diversas etnias tupiniquim, botocudo, negros e caboclos com o intuito de prestar homenagens ao herói na capela que leva seu nome. Neste sentido, esta etnografia pretende analisar o processo de construção da identidade étnico-religiosa na vila, pois, ele acontece concomitantemente e está umbilicalmente relacionado ao processo que eleva o herói ao patamar dos santos padroeiros das bandas de congo na região. Para isso, analisado será o contexto dramático onde a identidade da vila é construída; as confluências históricas, narrativas e simbólicas que contribuem para a atual configuração da identidade; e o contexto político-institucional organizado em torno do Caboclo Bernardo, paradigma central da construção da identidade. O método etnográfico, a antropologia interpretativa e a antropologia visual forneceram os contornos metodológicos desta investigação, que se constituiu como uma descrição densa.(AU)

RELIGIÃO E ETNICIDADE: O HERÓI CABOCLO BERNARDO E A CONSTRUÇÃO DA IDENTIDADE ÉTNICA NA VILA DE REGÊNCIA AUGUSTA - ES

Na Vila de Regência Augusta, às margens do Rio Doce no município de Linhares - ES, uma intricada dinâmica sócio-religiosa reveste de atribuições religiosas um herói cujo feito remonta os finais do século XIX. Bernardo José dos Santos, morador da vila, ficaria conhecido em âmbito nacional como o herói Caboclo Bernardo ao ser homenageado por Princesa Isabel, por realizar o salvamento de 128 dos 142 tripulantes do naufrágio do Navio de Guerra Imperial Marinheiro , próximo à foz do Rio Doce. O evento e suas conseqüências tornaram-se um marco na história da vila, inclusive o assassinato do herói nos meados da segunda década do século XX. Na continuidade narrativa, ritual e simbólica do ato heróico do Caboclo Bernardo esta investigação lança suas preocupações. Atualmente acontece na vila, todos os anos, a Festa de Caboclo Bernardo, uma festividade para onde convergem religiosos de diversas etnias tupiniquim, botocudo, negros e caboclos com o intuito de prestar homenagens ao herói na capela que leva seu nome. Neste sentido, esta etnografia pretende analisar o processo de construção da identidade étnico-religiosa na vila, pois, ele acontece concomitantemente e está umbilicalmente relacionado ao processo que eleva o herói ao patamar dos santos padroeiros das bandas de congo na região. Para isso, analisado será o contexto dramático onde a identidade da vila é construída; as confluências históricas, narrativas e simbólicas que contribuem para a atual configuração da identidade; e o contexto político-institucional organizado em torno do Caboclo Bernardo, paradigma central da construção da identidade. O método etnográfico, a antropologia interpretativa e a antropologia visual forneceram os contornos metodológicos desta investigação, que se constituiu como uma descrição densa.(AU)

Flows of knowledge from universities and federal laboratories: Modeling the flow of patent citations over time and across institutional and geographic boundaries

The extent to which new technological knowledge flows across institutional and national boundaries is a question of great importance for public policy and the modeling of economic growth. In this paper we develop a model of the process generating subsequent citations to patents as a lens for viewing knowledge diffusion. We find that the probability of patent citation over time after a patent is granted fits well to a double-exponential function that can be interpreted as the mixture of diffusion and obsolescense functions. The results indicate that diffusion is geographically localized. Controlling for other factors, within-country citations are more numerous and come more quickly than those that cross country boundaries.

Star scientists and institutional transformation: Patterns of invention and innovation in the formation of the biotechnology industry

The most productive (“star”) bioscientists had intellectual human capital of extraordinary scientific and pecuniary value for some 10–15 years after Cohen and Boyer’s 1973 founding discovery for biotechnology [Cohen, S., Chang, A., Boyer, H. & Helling, R. (1973) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 70, 3240–3244]. This extraordinary value was due to the union of still scarce knowledge of the new research techniques and genius and vision to apply them in novel, valuable ways. As in other sciences, star bioscientists were very protective of their techniques, ideas, and discoveries in the early years of the revolution, tending to collaborate more within their own institution, which slowed diffusion to other scientists. Close, bench-level working ties between stars and firm scientists were needed to accomplish commercialization of the breakthroughs. Where and when star scientists were actively producing publications is a key predictor of where and when commercial firms began to use biotechnology. The extent of collaboration by a firm’s scientists with stars is a powerful predictor of its success: for an average firm, 5 articles coauthored by an academic star and the firm’s scientists result in about 5 more products in development, 3.5 more products on the market, and 860 more employees. Articles by stars collaborating with or employed by firms have significantly higher rates of citation than other articles by the same or other stars. The U.S. scientific and economic infrastructure has been particularly effective in fostering and commercializing the bioscientific revolution. These results let us see the process by which scientific breakthroughs become economic growth and consider implications for policy.