social polarisation and socioeconomic segregation in a welfare state the case of oslo this paper looks at the competing theses of polarising convergence and policy related divergence in the study of socioeconomic segregation using data from oslo norway it is shown that the level of segregation has remained fairly stable or has even declined in spite of increasing income inequality this spatial stabilisation is causally related to a more flexible design in city planning and policy it is however not a development in accordance with the welfare state approach proposed by chris hamnett and some other scholars rather we observe a perverse effect where social democracy has been helped by opposition policies in consequence the paper suggests the use of models of action and the identification of closed and open processes of change

the social ecology of the post fordist global city economic restructuring and socio spatial polarisation in the toronto urban region numerous authors have asserted that globalisation and occupational changes associated with post fordist economic restructuring have led to a growth in intraurban social disparity and even polarisat

escaping car dependence in the outer suburbs of paris the outer suburbs of paris are home to a large number of low income households driven from the centre by the workings of the property market this shift could give rise to a new form of socio spatial segregation insofar as the elevated costs of mobility in such highly car dependent areas restrict and change these households mobility patterns these effects were observed in data on three groups of working people from the 2001 global transport survey however the socio spatial impact of this outward movement is significantly reduced by the residential mobility of low income households which move from the most car dependent areas to denser areas with better public transport provision the presence of social housing in these areas only partially explains these migrations these results obtained from 1999 census micro data cast doubt upon the emergence of a new form of segregation in the outer suburbs described by dodson and sipe

the benefits and costs of strong patent protection a contribution to the current debate abstract today s conventional wisdom is that strong patent rights are conducive to economic progress yet not long ago students of the patent system took a more nuanced position arguing that often strong patents were not necessary to induce invention and entailed significant economic costs several empirical studies have supported this position however the current advocacy invokes theories of the positive benefits of patents that were repressed in the earlier more negative analyses this essay reviews these theories and the empirical evidence that might bear on them the authors conclude that there is reason for concern that the present movement towards stronger patent protection may hinder rather than stimulate technological and economic progress

search money and prices it is well known that models in which money is used as a medium of exchange to lubricate trading frictions display multiplicity of equilibria i show that the amount of activity varies as the value of money differs across these equilibria when production opportunities involve random fixed costs when money has high value trade is more profitable therefore there will be more agents engaged in trade relative to equilibria in which money has lower value the higher activity equilibria display higher production not only because more is produced and exchanged per transaction but also because more transactions occur per period this diamond style result is obtained without increasing returns in the matching technology

social polarisation in global cities theory and evidence this paper examines the debate over social polarisation in global cities it focuses on the claims made by sassen that the processes of economic change in such cities are leading to a growing polar

when do more patents reduce r d this paper develops a simple duopoly model in which investments in r d and patents are inputs in the production of firm rents patents are necessary to appropriate the returns to the firm s own r d but patents also create potential claims against the rents of rival firms analysis of the model reveals a general necessary condition for the existence of a positive correlation between the firm s r d intensity and the number of patents it obtains when that condition is violated changes in exogenous parameters that induce an increase in firms patenting can also induce a decline in r d intensity such a negative relationship is more likely when 1 there is sufficient overlap in firms technologies so that each firm s inventions are likely to infringe the patents of another firm 2 firms are sufficiently r d intensive and 3 patents are cheap relative to both the cost of r d and the value of final output this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment abstract this paper develops a product cycle model with endogenous innovation imitation and foreign direct investment fdi we use this model to determine how stronger intellectual property rights ipr protection in the south affects innovation imitation and fdi we find that stronger ipr protection keeps multinationals safer from imitation but no more so than northern firms instead the increased difficulty of imitation generates resource wasting and imitation disincentive effects that reduce both fdi and innovation the greater resources absorbed in imitation crowd out fdi reduced fdi then transmits resource scarcity in the south back to the north and consequently contracts innovation

patent protection imitation and the mode of technology transfer abstract this paper analyzes a model in which a firm endowed with a new technology can choose between exports licensing and direct investment as entry modes in a foreign market i endogenize the vintage of the transferred technology and allow for imitation by the licensee subsidiary production and exports circumvent imitation but involve higher costs for the innovating firm the firm can strategically use the vintage of the technology to deter imitation by the licensee as a result transfers to affiliates might be of later vintage than technologies sold to outsiders through modification of the imitation costs the host country s system of patent protection influences the mode of technology transfers which in turn affects the welfare of the recipient economy

licensing in the theory of innovation this article analyzes licensing in a noncooperative r d game we ask two questions what are the incentives for licensing a production technology and what is the impact of licensing on the pattern of innovation and the consequent evolution of industry costs and market structure the gainsfrom trading information through licensing contracts are achieved through the replacement of inefficient production techniques the ex post incentive and the elimination of inefficient research expenditures the ex ante incentive in a duopoly the availability of licensing encourages research when the firms initial production technologies are close in costs and discourages research when initial costs are asymmetric

inclusion or exclusion the role of housing subsidies and benefits this paper explores the reasons why the uk has ended up with such an extensive system of intervention in the housing market particularly through providing subsidised council and housing association housing and through housing benefit the most important justification which remains valid is to enable those who would not otherwise be able to do so to afford to live in housing of acceptable quality and to do so while avoiding the area polarisation which would result from the operation of the free market however the way in which social housing and subsidies operate in britain today often reinforces rather than counters social polarisation and divisions looking ahead as society becomes more affluent including in an optimistic scenario those with low incomes these problems may become even more acute as housing quality and consumer choice become more important systems of rationed provision with little tenant choice or control and no trade off between cost and quality or location will look increasingly

densification what does it mean for fuel poverty and energy justice an empirical analysis energy is increasingly at the forefront of the global political agenda while there is a longstanding literature relating to fuel poverty and increasingly energy justice there remains little evidence which explores its link with the urban form specifically the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the urban consolidation hypothesis and the cultivation of energy justice in australia this study uses data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey years 2007 2014 a national probability sample and indefinite life panel the substantive findings of this study demonstrate that for low income and renting households greater urban density corresponds to a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty further for households with a dwelling type described as an apartment two or three storeys there is a separate and quite generalisable indication that this type of dwelling is associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty this study connects the debate regarding urban consolidation and energy consumption to the fuel poverty and energy justice literature alongside this contribution this study also provides policymakers and planners with new evidence to inform remediation policies that are directed at supporting the fuel poor

petrol prices and subjective wellbeing abstract we examine the effect of petrol prices on subjective wellbeing swb using household panel data to do so we use 17 waves of the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey based on our preferred instrumental variable estimates we find that a standard deviation increase in petrol prices leads to a decline of 0 0157 0 0245 standard deviations in swb the finding that increases in petrol prices significantly lower swb is robust to alternative measures of wellbeing and alternative ways of addressing endogeneity as well as employing different sources of fuel price data measured at a range of frequencies we also examine the channels through which petrol prices influence swb and find that maintaining social networks is an important way through which petrol prices influence swb

the optimal allocation of prizes in contests we study a contest with multiple not necessarily equal prizes contestants have private information about an ability parameter that affects their costs of bidding the contestant with the highest bid wins the first prize the contestant with the second highest bid wins the second prize and so on until all the prizes are allocated all contestants incur their respective costs of bidding the contest s designer maximizes the expected sum of bids our main results are 1 we display bidding equlibria for any number of contestants having linear convex or concave cost functions and for any distribution of abilities 2 if the cost functions are linear or concave then no matter what the distribution of abilities is it is optimal for the designer to allocate the entire prize sum to a single first prize 3 we give a necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring that several prizes are optimal if contestants have a convex cost function

oil vulnerability in the australian city assessing socioeconomic risks from higher urban fuel prices global oil prices have risen markedly over the past 18 months generating considerable speculation regarding their economic and social impacts cities that are highly dependent on petroleum for urban transport are likely to be most adversely affected by rising oil prices yet there has been little recent scholarly engagement with the socioeconomic implications of increasing oil prices this paper develops a basic framework and methodology for assessing the socioeconomic oil vulnerability of australian cities the paper demonstrates that there is wide spatial variability in the vulnerability of australia s urban populations to rising fuel costs which may compound existing socio spatial divisions and speculates on some underlying causal factors the paper calls for better data and new methods to understand the issue

trips trade and growth a two country model of endogenous growth is employed to assess the importance of intellectual property rights to trade growth and technology transfer the paper provides theoretical results linking the intellectual property rights regime to trade patterns aggregate r d worldwide growth and aggregate welfare measures failure to provide patent protection for foreign made innovations forces innovators to employ less than the best practice research technologies reduces aggregate r d activities worldwide effectively eliminates technology transfer across countries and reduces worldwide growth copyright 1994 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

welfare effects of global patent protection this paper uses a simple model of invention and patent protection to examine the welfare effects of extending patent protection from the country where invention takes place to another country that is only a consumer of invented products it is shown that while the welfare of the inventing country certainly rises with the extension of patent protection that of the other country probably falls and may well fall by more than the increase in welfare of the inventing country in particular as patent protection is extended to a larger and larger portion of the world the effect on the welfare of the world as a whole of extending it to the rest of the world becomes negative

heterogeneity and lotteries in monetary search models we introduce ex ante heterogeneity into the berentsen molico and wright monetary search model with lotteries we show that their three main results regarding lotteries do not survive this modification of the environment

spatial mismatch and costly suburban commutes can commuting subsidies help proponents of the spatial mismatch hypothesis argue that job decentralisation harms low income residents of central cities because of barriers that limit their access to suburban labour markets such barriers can take the form of housing discrimination exclusionary zoning or long and difficult commutes this paper uses an urban equilibrium model of spatial mismatch to analyse the impact of commuting subsidies on the welfare of low income central city households with restricted mobility specifically it seeks to determine how effective such subsidies are at reducing the welfare impact of spatial mismatch while subsidised outward commuting is found to raise the welfare of the low income households the welfare gains are only a small portion of the welfare loss due to spatial mismatch

on market activity and the value of money in a random matching monetary economy efficient and inefficient sellers choose between home or market production since inefficient sellers bargain up their prices two equilibria may existnwith high or low market participationn depending on extent of heterogeneity and frictions in equilibrium the presence of inefficient sellers in the market has two opposing effects it raises trading frequencies so it lowers consumption risk but it lowers the value of money raising prices this may reduce trading efficiency equilibria with full and limited participation can coexist when average efficiency is high and agents are patient limited participation is socially preferable

car dependence and housing affordability an emerging social deprivation issue in london this paper investigates the combined problem of high car dependence and housing affordability in view of likely continued volatility in oil prices and hence higher petrol and diesel prices and rising house prices household budgets are likely to be stretched where there are high levels of car dependency and housing unaffordability with little flexibility for rising costs in either or both of these a composite car dependence and housing affordability cdha index is developed using indices of oil vulnerability related to car travel and housing affordability greater london is used as the case study with 2001 and 2011 data analysed at the level of lower super output areas and presented using geographic information system and r statistical software the findings reveal that there are high levels of composite car dependence and housing price vulnerability in many suburban areas across greater london adding to the previous areas of social deprivation found mainly in east london the composite cdha i

imitation costs and patents an empirical study it has long been recognised that the costs of imitating new products have an important effect on the incentives for innovation in a market economy as arrow i962 and others have pointed out if firms can imitate an innovation at a cost that is substantially below the cost to the innovator of developing the innovation there may be little or no incentive for the innovator to carry out the innovation in their discussions of the innovation process economists frequently have called attention to the major role played by the costs of imitation but there has been little or no attempt to measure these costs to test various hypotheses concerning the factors influencing them or to estimate their effects in this paper we report some findings of what seems to be the first study of this topic in addition we present data regarding the effects of patents on imitation costs and on the rate of innovation

energy requirements of consumption urban form climatic and socio economic factors rebounds and their policy implications household consumption requires energy to be used at all stages of the economic process thereby directly and indirectly leading to environmental impacts across the entire production chain the levels structure and determinants of energy requirements of household consumption therefore constitute an important avenue of research incorporating the full upstream requirements into the analysis helps to avoid simplistic conclusions which would actually only imply shifts between consumption categories without taking the economy wide effects into account this paper presents the investigation of the direct and indirect primary energy requirements of australian households contrasting urban suburban and rural consumption patterns as well as inter and intra regional levels of inequality in energy requirements furthermore the spatial and socio economic drivers of energy consumption for different categories of energy requirements are identified and quantified conclusions regarding the relationships between energy requirements household characteristics urban form and urbanization processes are drawn and the respective policy implications are explored

money and prices a model of search and bargaining abstract this paper makes commodities divisible and incorporates bargaining into the search theoretic model of money to determine the purchasing power of money or price it is shown that two monetary equilibria always coexist where fiat money is universally accepted the two equilibria differ in price output welfare and the velocity of money sunspot monetary equilibria exist in which money is universally accepted in all states of the economy multiplicity has novel implications on the effectiveness of currency substitution and exchange market intervention journal of economic literature classification numbers c78 e40

how broad should the scope of patent protection be i explore the trade off between a patent s length that is its lifetime and its width that is its scope of coverage a wider patent generally reduces the distortion of consumers choices between the patented brand of the product and unpatented lower priced varieties sold by competitors but also permits higher prices which increase relative to profits the deadweight losses from consumers switching consumption out of the product class i show under what conditions infinitely lived but very narrowly focused patents are the socially efficient way to reward innovation and under what conditions very short lived but very broad patents are optimal

the changing spatial concentration of income and poverty among suburbs of large us metropolitan areas after developing a longitudinal data base of civil divisions within 27 large metropolitan areas msas from the 1970 1990 us censuses this study examines changes in the spatial concentration of income and poverty within these msas a series of cross sectional analyses of geographical and social determinants of poverty rates and median household income are used to analyse whether the determinants are changing over time large older central cities in the north east and mid west have experienced increasing poverty and decreases in income relative to their own history and relative to their own suburbs there is some evidence of economic decline in the inner suburbs of these central cities relative to other suburbs but not relative to the central cities the geographical shifts in msa population among suburbs by income between 1970 and 1990 are analysed relative to initial social characteristics of civil divisions the study concludes that the filtering of older residential buildings to and the lower margi

patent protection and r d with endogenous market structure in a model with endogenous number of innovating firms we show that whether patent protection increases r d investment is ambiguous and depends on the market demand function and the cost of r d if the market size increases with number of firms patent protection reduces r d investment if the cost of r d is sufficiently high and higher product differentiation increases the possibility of lower r d investment under patent protection if the market size does not increase with number of firms patent protection never reduces r d investment we find that welfare is lower under patent protection than under no patent protection

endogenous product cycles we construct a model of the product cycle featuring endogenous innovation and endogenous technology transfer competitive entrepreneurs in the north expend resources to bring out new products whenever expected present discounted value of future oligopoly profits exceeds current product development costs each northern oligopolist continuously faces the risk that its product will be copied by a southern imitator at which time its profit stream will come to an end in the south competitive entrepreneurs may devote resources to learning the production processes that have been developed in the north there too costs of reverse engineering must be covered by a stream of operating profits we study the determinants of the long run rate of growth of the world economy and the long run rate of technological diffusion we also provide an analysis of the effects of exogenous events and of public policy on relative wage rates in the two regions

intellectual property rights and the mode of technology transfer abstract transferring technology in an environment where patent protection is uncertain can pose significant risks to an innovating firm s ability to appropriate rents this paper incorporates asymmetric information in a screening game where the innovating firm has the choices of licensing a new product at arm s length to a foreign firm exporting it or licensing it to a subsidiary subsidiary production avoids the risk of imitation but involves higher costs for the innovating firm the gains to the southern country from the lack of intellectual property right protection may be offset by strategic behavior by northern firms who opt for technology transfer via subsidiary or monopoly production

indivisibilities lotteries and monetary exchange we introduce lotteries randomized trading into search theoretic models of money in a model with indivisible goods and fiat money we show goods trade with probability 1 and money trades with probability where 1 iff buyers have sufficient bargaining power with divisible goods a nonrandom quantity q trades with probability 1 and again money trades with probability where 1 iff buyers have sufficient bargaining power moreover q never exceeds the efficient quantity not true without lotteries we consider several extensions designed to get commodities as well as money to trade with probability less than 1 and to illuminate the efficiency role of lotteries