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331. Production in a Digital Era: Commodity or Strategic Weapon?

Author:
John Zysman
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The rise of the digital economy reignites debates over the transformation of production in industrial economies. For several decades, analysts attempted to describe the central features of the next economic epoch with labels like the knowledge, information, or service economy. The conventional argument claimed that just as an agricultural economy gave way to a manufacturing economy, an industrial economy was giving way to a service economy. Hence, their arguments went, industrial production was of diminishing importance.
Topic:
Security, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology

332. Three Worlds of Working Time: Policy and Politics in Work-time Patterns of Industrialized Countries

Author:
Brian Burgoon and Phineas Baxandall
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Given the underdeveloped attention to political and policy origins of aggregate work time patterns in the work-time literature, and the lack of any significant attention to work-time in the broader comparative political economy literature, this paper has pursues a broad mandate: to bring more politics into the study of work-time, and work-time into the study of politics. Using data allowing better comparison among OECD countries, we argue that study of working time needs to consider annual hours per employee and per working-age person, shaped by a range of social as well as direct work-time policies. We also argue that union interest in work-time reduction is more ambiguous than customarily supposed, with union interests likely mediated by a range of other conditions, especially female labor market participation and female union membership. Finally, we argue that attention to party systems and policy clusters should begin with consideration of Social Democratic, Liberal and Christian Democratic worlds of work time. We support these arguments with cross-section time-series study of 18 OECD countries, and brief qualitative studies of work-time in Finland, the United States, and the Netherlands.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Netherlands

333. The Spanish Experiment: A Social Democratic Party-Union Relationship in a Competitive Union Context

Author:
Javier Astudillo Ruiz
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
A close relationship with a Social Democratic party has traditionally been regarded as one of the best strategies unions have to defend workers' interests. This conclusion still seems valid today, since the changes in the economic and social structure in the advanced capitalist societies alter the traditional content of their relationship, not the reason for cooperation. However, this belief assumes among a unitary labor movement. The experience of Southern Europe shows, on the contrary, that, when the union movement is divided according to different partisan preferences, union leaders are forced to choose between their relationship with their parties, or cooperating among themselves and being effective in the labor market. In addition, the divorce between the Spanish Socialist party and the Socialist Union reveals that, no matter how strong these organizations are, and despite their history of close ties, inter-union competition and a growing economy make their relationship even more damaging for the union's interests.
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

334. The Measure of India: What Makes Greatness?

Author:
Joydeep Mukherji
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
I join you tonight to consider India on the scales of greatness. In other words, to ask: by what standards do people regard a state as great? And how does India conform to those standards? I must say at the outset, that these are not questions on which I personally would fixate. Greatness in terms of power is not a standard that moves me as a human being. My impulse when looking at countries is to say, “what's so great about being great?” I think a country's taxi drivers tell us more about it than the number of nuclear bombs it might possess. The number of Ph.D. holders, engineers, and writers driving taxicabs in a country, and where they came from, tells me a lot about the country we're in and the country from whence they came. The taxi driver in Iran who complains bitterly about the ayatollahs and wants to talk about pop music and freedom, tells me something about Iran. The engineer who fled Nigeria for the opportunity possible in America, even if it's driving a cab, tells me something about Nigeria and the U.S. Great power has little to do with it.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
America, Iran, South Asia, India, and Nigeria

335. India's Slow Conversion to Market Economics

Author:
Joydeep Mukherji
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
According to the Bible, Saul of Tarsus converted almost instantly to Christianity on the road to Damascus. Subsequently, he neither ate nor drank for three days. The conversion of the world's second largest country, India, to a new way of life based on free markets and private enterprise will not be so rapid or disruptive. Nevertheless, India's conversion to market economics will, like Saul's, be thorough and deep. It will increasingly affect all of us in the global village, in which Indians constitute 17% of the inhabitants.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

336. Privatization: From Policy Formulation to Implementation: The View from the Inside

Author:
Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
It is both a privilege and a pleasure for me to deliver this year's Annual Fellows Lecture at the Center for Advanced Study of India. For many years in India, I used to receive an annual update on the activities of the Center when Dr. Francine Frankel visited Delhi and it is therefore particularly pleasant to visit the Center in person.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and New Delhi

337. Today's Profits, Tomorrow's Losses: The Commercialization of US Arms Export Reform and its Implications on National and Regional Security

Author:
Isaiah Wilson III
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Social Sciences at West Point, United States Military Academy
Abstract:
Changes in the global arms market during the 1990s heralded a global downsizing of national military establishments, shrinkage of national defense industries, and a domestic loss of appetite for conventional weaponry in the United States. One of the many results has been the increased significance of foreign exporting. Through enhanced exporting, advanced arms producing states, namely the United States, have been able to assist their defense industry and military establishments survive the post-cold war downturn in domestic demand for conventional arms. These international level changes also led to second-order domestic efforts to reform the arms export processes within the United States.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

338. Understanding the Silicon Valley Phenomena

Author:
Masahiko Aoki and Hirokazu Takizawa
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the "Silicon Valley model" as a novel economic institution in the domain of technological product system innovation such as computers. We focus on the information structural relationship as well as governance relationships between venture capitalists and a cluster of entrepreneurial firms. The informational conditions under which the Silicon Valley model is efficient are identified, leading to understanding the significance of standardization of interfaces, modularization and information encapsulation. We then examine the governance/incentive aspect of the model by integrating the models by Aoki (2001) and Baldwin and Clark (2000) to give comparative statics results regarding the optimal number of entrepreneurial firms competing in the same component product. The analyses enable us to evaluate the applicability of the model beyond specific localities and industries.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

339. Japan-U.S. Telecomunications Negotiations in A New Phase: States and Markets - Final Report by the STudy group on U.S. foreign Economic Policy Making Process

Author:
Toru Nakakita, Hajime Yamada, and Yuko Sada
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
For more than two decades, Japan and the United States have negotiated over trade in telecommunications equipment and services. Under the changing circumstances, however, Japan-US telecommunications negotiations entered upon a new phase in the late 1990s. The issue of telecommunications equipment is no longer on the table. Instead, the issue of telecommunications services has become a major point of contention, further internationalizing domestic regulatory politics. Last but not least, the World Trade Organizations (WTO) Telecom Pact of 1997 provided the parties with new opportunities and constraints, possibly altering the course of interactions among them.
Topic:
Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Israel

340. Restructuring "Germany Inc." The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union

Author:
John W. Cioffi
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The reform of German company law by the Control and Transparency Law ("KonTraG") of 1998 reveals politics of corporate governance liberalization. The reforms strengthened the supervisory board, shareholder rights, and shareholder equality, but left intra-corporate power relations largely intact. Major German financial institutions supported the reform's contribution to the modernization of German finance, but blocked mandatory divestment of equity stakes and cross-shareholding. Conversely, organized labor prevented any erosion of supervisory board codetermination. Paradoxically, by eliminating traditional takeover defenses, the KonTraG's liberalization of company law mobilized German political opposition to the EU's draft Takeover Directive and limited further legal liberalization.
Topic:
Government and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany