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1441. Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice

Author:
Joe Karaganis and Jennifer M. Urban
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Assembly at Columbia University
Abstract:
It has been nearly twenty years since section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act established the so-called notice and takedown process. Despite its importance to copyright holders, online service providers, and Internet speakers, very little empirical research has been done on how effective section 512 is for addressing copyright infringement, spurring online service provider development, or providing due process for notice targets. This report includes three studies that draw back the curtain on notice and takedown: 1. using detailed surveys and interviews with more than three dozen respondents, the first study gathers information on how online service providers and rightsholders experience and practice notice and takedown on a day-to-day basis; 2. the second study examines a random sample from over 100 million notices generated during a six-month period to see who is sending notices, why, and whether they are valid takedown requests; and 3. the third study looks specifically at a subset of those notices that were sent to Google Image Search.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
America

1442. Contagion Exposure and Protection Technology

Author:
Deigo Cerdeiro
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
People adopt diverse measures to protect from contagion. I propose a taxonomy of protection technologies, and present a model to study the implications of the technology on the prevalence of infections and on welfare at different levels of exposure. People adopt diverse measures to protect from contagion. I propose a taxonomy of protection technologies, and present a model to study the implications of the technology on the prevalence of infections and on welfare at different levels of exposure. I find that the effect of aggregate exposure on prevalence and on protection inefficiencies depends crucially on the characteristics of the available protection technology. For example, under certain conditions the existence of a vaccine will lead to lower infection rates and smaller welfare costs of decentralization as the society becomes denser. I discuss the implications for disease eradication, the equilibrium consequences of antigenic drift, the desirability of interventions in the absence of universal vaccines, and coordination failures in protection.
Topic:
Health, Science and Technology, Infectious Diseases, and Medicine
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1443. The Prince('s) Rules: Economic Theories and Political Struggle in Europe

Author:
Orsola Costantini
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The Cyclically Adjusted Budget (CAB) is the estimated size of the public budget at some previously defined level of output which may represent the ‘normal’ output or a policy target and that usually is considered to be unaffected by business fluctuations or cycles. Such an estimate is supposed to isolate the automatic movements of revenues and expenditures, given the current structure of tax and transfers, from discretionary fiscal interventions and indicate the “impact” and sustainability of fiscal action. But this definition hardly does justice to the long and contentious history of this fateful estimate, which has been differently named, interpreted and calculated over the years and played a crucial role in many of the most important controversies in macroeconomics and public policy. This paper traces the evolution of the concept through time, tying it to the history of economic thought as well as economic history and policymaking. The reconstruction illustrates the important role the distribution of power plays in the evolution of economic theory and policy as the historical forms of the state-market relationship evolve. Here, however, we will focus mainly on the case of the European Union and Eurozone.
Topic:
Government, Politics, Science and Technology, History, Inequality, and Innovation
Political Geography:
Europe

1444. Social investment for inclusive growth: a Southern European perspective

Author:
Annamaria Simonazzi
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Inequality has emerged as a major economic issue: sharp increases in the share of income going to those at the very top of the income distribution, a rising share of income going to profits, stagnant real wages, and a fall in median family income have raised concern over the sustainability of our economies and societies.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Inequality, Investment, Innovation, and Social Investment
Political Geography:
Southern Europe

1445. Severing the Innovation-Inequality Link: Distribution Sensitive Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Developed Nations

Author:
Amos Zehavi and Dan Breznitz
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Innovation is essential to economic growth. However, it appears that the ways in which we pursue innovation policies have aggravated inequality. Inequality is an increasingly contentious political issue in both wealthy and emerging economies. Yet, it is becoming clear that use of traditional state instruments to alleviate inequality by redistributive means, is no longer sufficient. For those reasons, in this paper we consider other state instruments that are rarely associated with distributive goals. Specifically, we inquire whether we can successfully devise and employ Distributive-Sensitive Science and Technology and Innovation Policies focused on disadvantaged groups of users and consumers of technology. Following an exploratory theoretical approach, the paper first develop four types of such programs, and then utilize a comparative approach to analyze existing programs that fit into these categories, first, in Israel, and then, in the United State, Germany, and Sweden. We conclude by arguing that although these programs are currently driven primarily by economic efficiency concerns and not by distributive ones, they show the promise of our approach of utilizing innovation policy to reach social policy goals.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Science and Technology, Inequality, Economic Growth, and Innovation
Political Geography:
Israel, Germany, Sweden, and United States of America

1446. Leveraging the network: a stress-test framework based on DebtRank

Author:
Stefano Battiston, Guido Caldarelli, Marco D'Errico, and Stefano Gurciullo
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
We develop a novel stress-test framework to monitor systemic risk in financial systems. The modular structure of the framework allows to accommodate for a variety of shock scenarios, methods to estimate interbank exposures and mechanisms of distress propagation. The main features are as follows. First, estimate and disentangle not only first-round effects(i.e. shock on external assets) and second-round effects (i.e. distress induced in the interbank network), but also a third-round effect induced by possible fire sales. Second, monitor at the same time the impact of shocks on individual or groups of financial institutions as well as their vulnerability to shocks on counterparties or certain asset classes. Third, estimate loss distributions, thus combining network effects with familiar risk measures such as VaR and CVaR. Fourth, in order to do robustness analyses and cope with incomplete data, generate sets of networks of interbank exposures coherent with the total lending and borrowing of each bank. As an illustration, we carry out a stress–test exercise on a dataset of listed European banks over the years 2008-2013. We find that second-round and third-round effects dominate first-round effects, therefore suggesting that most current stress-test frameworks might lead to a severe underestimation of systemic risk.
Topic:
Debt, Science and Technology, Inequality, Finance, and Innovation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1447. The New York Times and American Tax Policy: Representing Citizens or Echoing Elites?

Author:
Daniel Chomsky
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
A recent New York Times article observed that Americans want action to address inequality. 2016 presidential candidates from both parties also acknowledge that inequality is a pressing concern. But not one of the candidates has proposed to do anything meaningful about it, sharing wealthy Americans’ (understandable) opposition to any solution (Scheiber 2015). Perhaps nothing has been done because there is nothing to do about it. Some treat inequality as an inevitable or intractable feature of the global economy, or at least impossible to alter at acceptable cost (Cowen 2013). But inequality may be subject to political circumstances, and public policies including progressive taxes might reduce it without adversely affecting economic growth (Diamond and Saez 2011, Piketty 2014). It may be that Americans are just unwilling to support policies that would reduce inequality. Progressive taxation and other policies may reduce inequality. But policy reflects public preferences (Stimson, Mackuen, and Erikson 2002), and the American people just hate taxes. Martin Gilens (2012) effectively demonstrated that policy makers favor the wealthy over the majority when opinions diverge. Yet he accepted that the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000s reflected broad consensus opinion. Public opposition to taxes is seen as so powerful that even observers seeking programs to promote economic equality often abandon progressive taxes as a remedy (Kenworthy 2013).
Topic:
Race, Science and Technology, History, Culture, Ethics, Philosophy, Tax Systems, and Innovation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

1448. How Money Drives US Congressional Elections: More Evidence

Author:
Thomas Ferguson, Paul Jorgenson, and Jie Chen
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The protesters who swirled into parks, churches, and town squares around the world in the fall of 2011 to challenge the primacy of the “1%” hammered relentlessly on one theme above all others: that economic inequality has deep roots in the political system. Many social scientists and intellectuals who have picked up from where the Occupy movement left off share this conviction; they, too, have broken with the taboos that for so long segmented discussions of politics from economics. Piketty, in his monumental study, for example, avows that income distribution is a basically a question of “political economy” not pure economics. Stiglitz in The Price of Inequality is equally forthright – “increasingly, and especially in the United States, it seems that the political system is more akin to ‘one dollar one vote’ than to ‘one person one vote.’”
Topic:
Government, Politics, Science and Technology, History, Elections, Inequality, and Money
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

1449. Austeritarianism in Europe: What Options for Resistance?

Author:
Richard Hyman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
In much of Europe, the social rights and social protections won in the first post-war decades, by labour movements in particular, have subsequently been seriously eroded, and are further threatened by neoliberal austerity. Efforts to resist have been largely unsuccessful; but is an effective fight-back possible? In this paper I first outline the role of the European Union (EU) as a key driver of the recommodification of labour, through its growing emphasis on market ‘freedoms’ as an overriding priority, and on ‘competitiveness’ as the central policy objective for national governments. I discuss how this orientation has been reinforced by the economic crisis, and the ensuing pursuit of austerity and the imposition of ‘new economic governance’. I then survey a range of forms of protest and opposition: trade union action, ‘new’ social movements and engagement in the formal political arena. I suggest that a nuanced evaluation of success and failure is necessary. In conclusion I propose that the articulation of different forms of resistance – cross-nationally and between different actors – is essential in order to stem the neoliberal hegemony.
Topic:
Race, Science and Technology, History, Culture, Inequality, Finance, Ethics, Philosophy, Macroeconomics, and Austerity
Political Geography:
Europe

1450. Input Diffusion and the Evolution of Production Network

Author:
Vasco Carvalho and Nico Voigtlander
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The adoption and diffusion of inputs in the production network is at the heart of technological progress. What determines which inputs are initially considered and eventually adopted by innovators? We examine the evolution of input linkages from a network perspective, starting from a stylized model of network formation. The adoption and diffusion of inputs in the production network is at the heart of technological progress. What determines which inputs are initially considered and eventually adopted by innovators? We examine the evolution of input linkages from a network perspective, starting from a stylized model of network formation. Producers direct their search for new inputs along vertical linkages, screening the network neighborhood of existing suppliers to identify potentially useful inputs. A subset of these is then adopted, following a tradeoff between the benefits from input variety and the costs of customizing new inputs. Guided by this framework, we document a novel stylized fact at both the sector and the firm level: producers are more likely to adopt inputs that are already used – directly or indirectly – by their current suppliers. In particular, using disaggregated input-output data, we show that initial network proximity of a sector in 1967 significantly increases the likelihood of adoption throughout the subsequent four decades. A one-standard deviation decrease in network distance is associated with an increase in the adoption probability by one third to one half. Similarly, U.S. firms are significantly more likely to develop new input linkages among their suppliers’ network neighborhood. Our results imply that the existing production network plays a crucial role in the diffusion of inputs and the evolution of technology.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, Microeconomics, and Emerging Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus