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231. Creating an Environment: Developing Venture Capital in India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last decade, one of the most admired institutions among industrialists and economic policy makers around the world has been the U. S. venture capital industry. A recent OECD (2000) report identified venture capital as a critical component for the success of entrepreneurial high-technology firms and recommended that all nations consider strategies for encouraging the availability of venture capital. With such admiration and encouragement from prestigious international organizations has come various attempts to create an indigenous venture capital industry. This article examines the efforts to create a venture capital industry in India.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and India

232. On Incentives in Technology Policymaking: What the EU can learn from the U.S. developments

Author:
Wolfgang Gick
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the incentives political and bureaucratic actors face in the institutional setting of EU technology policy. In examining the implications and assumptions of neoclassical and evolutionary theories of technological change, it tries to answer why some approaches are difficult to translate into policy designs. By focusing on positive policymaking the paper examines why policy learning does not occur in certain institutional settings. A special focus is on the informational constraints that limit policy design. Since evaluation and oversight mechanisms have not been sufficiently developed and accepted within EU settings, there is much room for inefficiency, as a basic agency model with hidden information shows. If political planners have incomplete information about the state of the world, programs cannot be designed efficiently. Hence, a better link between evaluation and program design could reduce inefficiencies. Regarding this point, current discussions in U.S. policymaking seem to focus increasingly on program design effects and policy implementation.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

233. The Pugwash Policy Brief: US-Cuban Medical Cooperation: Effects of the US Embargo

Author:
Jeffrey Boutwell
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Abstract:
In 1995, the Pugwash Conferences and one of its cofounders, the physicist Sir Joseph Rotblat, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their decades-long work to reduce the threat of nuclear war and ultimately abolish nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Beginning with its first international conference in Pugwash, Nova Scotia in 1957, the Pugwash Conferences have brought together influential scientists, scholars and public figures concerned with reducing the danger of armed conflict and seeking cooperative solutions for global problems.
Topic:
International Relations and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

234. Why is there no mad cow disease in the United States? Comparing the politics of food safety in Europe and the U.S.

Author:
Christoph Strünck
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper compares approaches towards food safety regulation in Europe and the United States. It focuses on mad cow disease and examines how the British Government and the European Union handled the first big crisis in the nineties, juxtaposed to the American response. This worst public health disaster in Europe has led to new agencies and policies. However, these institutional changes do not abolish fragmentation, but extend the existing landscape regulatory bodies. The paper emphasizes that fragmentation-as the American case shows despite its shortcomings-prevents science from being captured by the state, allows interest groups broader access and ensures a distinct pattern of checks and balances.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

235. Microsoft's Appealing Case

Author:
Alan Reynolds and Robert A. Levy
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's final judgment in the Microsoft case indicates that he has fallen hook, line, and sinker for the government's flawed arguments. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is unlikely to be so accommodating. The Justice Department's case will crumble as a result of procedural errors, flawed fact-finding, wrongheaded legal conclusions, and Jackson's preposterous plan to break up the software company most directly responsible for America's high-tech revolution.
Topic:
Government, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and America

236. Market, Technology, and Policy Drivers: The Future Structure of the Electricity Industry

Author:
Elizabeth Malone
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The electricity industry is being challenged on the one hand by restructuring and on the other by the potential of new technologies. Restructuring is proceeding slowly and unevenly, with uncertain national leadership, disputes over the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), continuing and increasing environmental concerns, and a plethora of state policies and regulations.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

237. Changing Rules In the Market for Attention: New Strategies for Minority Programming

Author:
Richard P. Adler
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
In July 1999, a controversy erupted that focused public attention on the issue of the representation of blacks and other minorities in the media. It began when Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), expressed dismay that only one of the twenty-six new prime time television programs planned by the four major broadcast networks for the upcoming fall season included a black actor in a leading role. Shortly thereafter, representatives of several other minority groups, including Hispanics and Asians, claimed that their members were also underrepresented in network programming. The controversy generated a good deal of discussion about how television programs are developed and cast. Eventually, the NAACP and the four networks reached agreements that identified a variety of steps the networks would take to increase minority participation in network programming.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

238. Campaigns in Cyberspace: Toward A New Regulatory Approach

Author:
Anthony Corrado
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The explosive growth of the Internet as a medium for political activity is transforming our conceptions of political communication and the methods by which campaigns for public office are conducted. This rapidly evolving technology has already made possible an unprecedented flow of information and new modes of citizen participation in the electoral process. The Internet has provided candidates with a means of communicating directly with voters without the inter-mediation or interpretation of the news media. Candidates now use web sites to offer voters texts of public statements and detailed information on their policy positions, as well as audio and video materials. These sites allow individuals to “customize” information so that they may access materials that are relevant to their particular concerns or interests. Similarly, these sites allow candidates to provide individuals with updated information as it becomes available, facilitating a type of interaction between campaigns and individual voters that was not possible before the advent of digital communications.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

239. Coming Together -- Bridging the Gap between Investors and Minority Internet Entrepreneurs

Author:
Robert M. Entman
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
A group of about two dozen entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, researchers, and nonprofit community development leaders met on April 7-8, 2000, at the Aspen Institute Wye River Conference Center in Queenstown, Maryland, to discuss “Coming Together: Bridging the Gap between Investors and Minority Internet Entrepreneurs.” The group identified a series of problems that impede minorities' success in raising sufficient capital to launch and maintain entrepreneurial enterprises in the Internet market, and brainstormed creatively about resources, institutions, and processes to improve the situation.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Maryland

240. Ecologies of Innovation: The Role of Information and Communications Technologies

Author:
David Bollier
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
It has become a truism in recent years that technological innovation lies at the core of a robust economy. Once an arcane matter for economists, innovation has moved from the back salons of corporate strategy to the grand ballroom of mainstream culture. Fueled by the World Wide Web and other electronic technologies, unknown entrepreneurs with big ideas have joined with investment bankers, multinational corporations, and Main Street investors on a relentless search for The New New Thing, as the title of Michael Lewis' book on Silicon Valley calls it.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States