Gary D. Libecap - Böcker

Examining the political and economic forces that have shaped the civil service system from the Pendleton Act of 1883 through today, the authors explain why, despite efforts to overhaul the federal bureaucracy (most recently by Vice President Al Gore), significant change remains a formidable challenge. Although politicians criticize the unwieldiness of the bureaucracy, this volume shows how they have been largely responsible for its design. The authors examine the development of federal employee interest groups and their negotiations with the president and Congress over hiring policies, salaries and conditions for terminating employment. Using transaction cost analysis and public choice theory, this book aims to provide a new understanding of the growth of the federal bureaucracy and the political and economic obstacles to reforming it.

A collection of the most advanced and authoritative agricultural-economic research in the face of increasing water scarcity.Agriculture has been critical in the development of the American economy. Except in parts of the western United States, water access has not been a critical constraint on agricultural productivity, but with climate change, this may no longer be the case. This volume highlights new research on the interconnections between American agriculture, water resources, and climate change. It examines climatic and geologic factors that affect the agricultural sector and highlights historical and contemporary farmer responses to varying conditions and water availability. It identifies the potential effects of climate change on water supplies, access, agricultural practices, and profitability, and analyzes technological, agronomic, management, and institutional adjustments. Adaptations such as new crops, production practices, irrigation technologies, water conveyance infrastructure, fertilizer application, and increased use of groundwater can generate both social benefits and social costs, which may be internalized with various institutional innovations. Drawing on both historical and present experiences, this volume provides valuable insights into the economics of water supply in American agriculture as climate change unfolds.

The Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, is the last frontier in Brazil. The settlement of large and small farmers, squatters, miners, and loggers in this frontier during the past thirty years has given rise to violent conflicts over land as well as environmental duress. Titles, Conflict, and Land Use examines the institutional development involved in the process of land use and ownership in the Amazon and shows how this phenomenon affects the behavior of the economic actors. It explores the way in which the absence of well-defined property rights in the Amazon has led to both economic and social problems, including lost investment opportunities, high costs in protecting claims, and violence. The relationship between land reform and violence is given special attention. The book offers an important application of the New Institutional Economics by examining a rare instance where institutional change can be empirically observed. This allows the authors to study property rights as they emerge and evolve and to analyze the effects of Amazon development on the economy. In doing so they illustrate well the point that often the evolution of economic institutions will not lead to efficient outcomes. This book will be important not only to economists but also to Latin Americanists, political scientists, anthropologists, and scholars in disciplines concerned with the environment.Lee Alston is Professor of Economics, University of Illinois, and Research Associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research. Gary Libecap is Professor of Economics and Law, University of Arizona, and Research Associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research. Bernardo Mueller is Assistant Professor, Universidade de Brasilia.

Environmental Markets explains the prospects of using markets to improve environmental quality and resource conservation. No other book focuses on a property rights approach using environmental markets to solve environmental problems. This book compares standard approaches to these problems using governmental management, regulation, taxation, and subsidization with a market-based property rights approach. This approach is applied to land, water, wildlife, fisheries, and air and is compared to governmental solutions. The book concludes by discussing tougher environmental problems such as ocean fisheries and the global atmosphere, emphasizing that neither governmental nor market solutions are a panacea.

In this book the author examines the problems encountered in negotiations among claimants and the political and economic considerations that influence property rights arrangements. The histories of mineral rights, rights to range and timber land, as well as fishery and crude oil production rights in the United States are examined and reveal a surprising variety of contractual negotiations and economic outcomes. The author concludes that in addition to an analysis of distributional outcomes, an examination of the details of the political bargaining underlying property rights contracts is essential to an understanding of why rights emerge as they do. The book is an important contribution to both property rights theory and to American economic history.

This is the ninth volume in a series of studies on entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. The work looks at social and technological factors affecting mid-size businesses, including: education; job training; health policy; and, information technology.

This is the tenth volume in a series of studies on entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. The work looks at legal, regulatory and policy changes that affect entrepreneurial midsize firms.

This volume includes a series of papers which examine the contributions of entrepreneurship education on the performance of graduates. Using survey data for 2,484 entrepreneurship and non-entrepreneurship graduates, the analysis indicates that entrepreneurship education contributes to risk taking, the formation of new ventures, and firm growth. The second chapter continues with an assessment of the effects of entrepreneurship and technological change historically, focusing on the computer industry. Chapter three also examines the development of property rights in the computing industry with an assessment of the special problems of the internet. Chapter four turns to broader questions of the bases for entrepreneurial behavior within firms and presents survey data from South Africa and the US. Chapter five continues the analysis of entrepreneurial activities. A model is presented and implications are drawn. The final two chapters examine specific marketing issues for entrepreneurial firms. With ease of entry and intense competition, marketing strategies become especially critical.

The performance of economies depends upon entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs identify new opportunities, implement new technologies, provide new products and services, and generally, make an economy vibrant. Yet, little is understood of the institutional structure that supports entrepreneurship or of the economic and sociological factors that encourage entrepreneurial activity. The papers in this volume represent research on these issues. The material is relevant for both an academic and lay audience. Three papers by Kortum and Lerner; Thomas; and Ziedonis and Hall examine the US patent system and its relationship to venture capital, its impact on R&D expenditures and access to new technologies, and its affect on "patent portfolio races." Two others by Prasad, Vozikis, and Bruton, and Quadrini address financing issues, including the importance of private savings by entrepreneurs for self financing of new ventures and for signaling venture quality. Quadrini shows that entrepreneurs experience greater upward mobility than do others in the population. A related paper by Lowe explores the role and experience of start-ups in commercializing university inventions, a growing source of new technology. Kerkvliet and Shogren examine innovation in the institutions used by firms to obtain productive inputs. Two other papers by Roberson-Saunders and Holcombe examine the characteristics of entrepreneurs and the importance of entrepreneurial activity in the economy in the generation of new products, processes, and services and outlines policies for encouraging entrepreneurship. This collection of papers highlights the variety of issues associated with gaining a better understanding of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is recognized as critical for the growth of both individual firms and overall economies. Entrepreneurship fosters the introduction of new products, processes and organizations. It provides the flexibility and dynamism required for responding to new market opportunities and challenges. Despite all of this, entrepreneurship is not well understood. Who is an entrepreneur? What conditions promote entrepreneurship? How does it differ across firms and across countries? Fortunately, as revealed in the chapters included in this volume, there is an active research agenda on entrepreneurship. There is information for academics, business people, and a lay audience on vital issues including, collaborations between R&D firms, corporate entrepreneurship and firm growth, technological change and entrepreneurship in Taiwan, venture capital, cross country comparisons of entrepreneurship by women, the characteristics of high-tech enterepreneurs, and the leading US business plans competition, MOOT Corp.

The papers in this volume represent some of the leading work on intellectual property. They address the question of how to create incentives to develop new technologies and how to protect those technologies once developed from theft. They also ask when valuable property might be developed even under weak ownership conditions. Other papers address how firms balance the trade offs in considering costly patent litigation and they examine the antitrust implications. Although issues of intellectual property rights would seem to be ones of interest only to obscure groups of academics and lawyers, they have become topics of everyday discussion among the regular population. Alleged copyright infringements by people downloading music from the internet and accompanying threats of prosecution as well as charges of strategic patenting to harm competitors in recent high profile antitrust cases have placed intellectual property into public and political debate. The incentives provided by secure property rights for promoting research and development, investment, production, and exchange are well known. These are the major arguments for patents, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property.

This volume of 12 chapters contains some of the latest research on university-based technology transfer, intellectual property issues, and the entrepreneurship program/technology transfer interface. Eleven of the papers are from the Colloquium on Entrepreneurship Education and Technology Transfer held at the White Stallion Ranch, Tucson, Arizona, January 21-23, 2005, organized by the Karl Eller Center, University of Arizona, and funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Patterns of technology transfer are outlined in papers by Donald Siegel, Phillip Phan, David Mowery, and David Audretsch, Max Keilbach, and Erik Lehmann. They describe the determinants of technology transfer, its impact, and challenges within a university setting. The history of university licensing activity is provided. Intellectual property issues and questions of the relationship between traditional basic university research and applied, potentially commercial research are described in papers by Katherine Strandburg, David Adelman, and Brett Frischmann. The ineffectiveness of university blocking patents in certain areas of the biosciences is discussed, along with broader questions of licensing and ownership. Interdisciplinary university entrepreneurship programs are outlined in papers by Jerry Thursby, Marie Thursby, Thomas Byers and Andrew Nelson, and Arthur Boni and S. Thomas Emerson. The authors detail the approaches taken at four universities to link entrepreneurship programs to technology transfer and technology transfer offices. The insights for adoption elsewhere are valuable. The final chapter by Morton Kamien is an essay on the characteristics and importance of entrepreneurs in the growth of a society.

In May 1999, over 50 scholars from all over the world gathered to honour Gordon Tullock, one of the most versatile scholars of his generation. Tullock is best known for his work in "Public Choice," the study of how self-interested individuals interact with governments. Tullock's research in public choice has contributed to the understanding of the decisions made by elected officials and bureaucrats, as well as knowledge and how individuals and pressure groups both inside and outside the government seek to shape it. The text includes contributions that were influenced by Tullock's work. His influence on studies of governance is illustrated by the nine papers in this volume. These papers and the discussion touch upon an array of aspects of public choice and of Tullock's research.

In the contemporary West, pressures to more effectively reallocate water to meet growing urban and environmental demands are increasing as environmental awareness grows and climate change threatens existing water supplies. The legacy of Owens Valley raises concerns about how reallocation can occur. Although it took place over seventy years ago, the water transfer from Owens Valley to Los Angeles still plays an important role in perceptions of how water markets work. The memory of Owens Valley transfer is one of theft and environmental destruction at the hands of Los Angeles. In reassessing the infamous transfer, one could say that there was no "theft." Owens Valley landowners fared well in their land and water sales, earning more than if they had stayed in agriculture. In another sense, however, "theft" did occur. The water was not literally stolen, but there was a sharp imbalance in gains from the trade—with most of the benefits going to Los Angeles. Owens Valley, then, demonstrates the importance of distributional issues in water trades when the stakes are large.Los Angeles water rights in the Owens Valley and Mono Basin have again been a front-page issue since 1970. New environmental and recreational values and air pollution concerns have ushered in demands to curtail the shipment of water from source regions for urban use.Owen's Valley Revisited: A Reassesment of the West's First Great Water Transfer carefully explores how these sagas were addressed, considering the costs involved, and alternative approaches that might have resulted in more rapid and less contentious remedies. This analysis offers insights to guide the ongoing conversation about water politics and the future thereof.

In the contemporary West, pressures to more effectively reallocate water to meet growing urban and environmental demands are increasing as environmental awareness grows and climate change threatens existing water supplies. The legacy of Owens Valley raises concerns about how reallocation can occur. Although it took place over seventy years ago, the water transfer from Owens Valley to Los Angeles still plays an important role in perceptions of how water markets work. The memory of Owens Valley transfer is one of theft and environmental destruction at the hands of Los Angeles. In reassessing the infamous transfer, one could say that there was no "theft." Owens Valley landowners fared well in their land and water sales, earning more than if they had stayed in agriculture. In another sense, however, "theft" did occur. The water was not literally stolen, but there was a sharp imbalance in gains from the trade—with most of the benefits going to Los Angeles. Owens Valley, then, demonstrates the importance of distributional issues in water trades when the stakes are large.Los Angeles water rights in the Owens Valley and Mono Basin have again been a front-page issue since 1970. New environmental and recreational values and air pollution concerns have ushered in demands to curtail the shipment of water from source regions for urban use.Owen's Valley Revisited: A Reassesment of the West's First Great Water Transfer carefully explores how these sagas were addressed, considering the costs involved, and alternative approaches that might have resulted in more rapid and less contentious remedies. This analysis offers insights to guide the ongoing conversation about water politics and the future thereof.

Successful technology commercialization requires the integration of multiple perspectives and collaboration of experts from very different backgrounds. More often than not, key individuals in the process reside in different organizational units--each with their own mission, agendas, and cultures. This volume addresses the challenges that can arise when individuals from technical, business, and legal environments must converge on the goal of commercialization. Specifically, it brings together studies from organizational behavior, marketing, economic, and sociological perspectives on commercialization of university technologies. Chapter foci range from theoretical research on academic entrepreneurship, multidisciplinary student team management conflicts such as background, purpose, communication, and learning style, to a patent data examination of sociological factors in technology paths in nanotechnology innovation. New results are presented on career goals of PhD scientists and engineers highlighting their desire for education providing skills from these other domains. Educational responses such as cross disciplinary team models, as well as multidisciplinary entrepreneurship centers and specialized masters programs for scientists are presented.

Editorial Objectives This series aims to present the latest research on entrepreneurship, innovation and the impact on economic performance. Topicality Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth (ASEIEG) provides a timely and relevant discussion and exploration of entrepreneurial topics, their impact, and ties to key values in today’s society, such as social, environmental and economic issues and challenges. Topics range from aspects of entrepreneurial behavior to determinants of entrepreneurial research with contributions from top scholars across the US and the globe. Key Benefits Organization and history of series allows a rich, multi faceted foundation for entrepreneurial topics in a rapidly changing information age. Research can be disseminated in a clear and effective manner to promote communication between the business and academic communities and to foster entrepreneurship within the society. Key Audiences Key audiences range from private industry to policy officials to researchers and educators. The role and understanding of entrepreneurship, the implications for current critical conditions and sustained vibrant economies, is rapidly growing. This series provides each with a highly useful blend of topics and scholarly perspectives. Coverage The series includes related articles and papers, frequently driven by organized colloquia and other business/academic exchange, with interdisciplinary perspectives including those of economics, marketing, law, finance, management, history, science, higher education administration and sociology. Coverage includes but is not limited to: Institutional entrepreneurial development Intellectual property concerns, patenting, and other property rights issues Environmental entrepreneurship and innovation Innovation within and across firms Effect of government regulation and tax policies Organizational factors, market structure effects and marketing strategies Entrepreneurship programmes and other educational activities Relative performance of entrepreneurial firms.

Ronald Coase's Nobel work outlined gains by reducing transaction costs and promoting property rights and markets to confront externalities. Countering market failure assertions and calls for centralized government intervention, Coase retorted that decentralized market negotiations could be welfare-improving by promoting collaborative, efficient problem solving, and releasing resources to the general economy. Despite this, his approach is not central to any US environmental law implemented after 1970. Federal government mandates dominate. Where's Coase? explains why. The private objectives of political agents lead to policies that are likely to be too costly and inequitable, despite provision of public goods. Citizens face high collective action costs and lack information to distinguish between public goods and private agent benefits. Examining three major environmental laws: the Clean Air Act, the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Act, and the Endangered Species Act, the book explores policy development and assesses the resulting costs relative to Coase's framework.

Ronald Coase's Nobel work outlined gains by reducing transaction costs and promoting property rights and markets to confront externalities. Countering market failure assertions and calls for centralized government intervention, Coase retorted that decentralized market negotiations could be welfare-improving by promoting collaborative, efficient problem solving, and releasing resources to the general economy. Despite this, his approach is not central to any US environmental law implemented after 1970. Federal government mandates dominate. Where's Coase? explains why. The private objectives of political agents lead to policies that are likely to be too costly and inequitable, despite provision of public goods. Citizens face high collective action costs and lack information to distinguish between public goods and private agent benefits. Examining three major environmental laws: the Clean Air Act, the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Act, and the Endangered Species Act, the book explores policy development and assesses the resulting costs relative to Coase's framework.

Environmental Markets explains the prospects of using markets to improve environmental quality and resource conservation. No other book focuses on a property rights approach using environmental markets to solve environmental problems. This book compares standard approaches to these problems using governmental management, regulation, taxation, and subsidization with a market-based property rights approach. This approach is applied to land, water, wildlife, fisheries, and air and is compared to governmental solutions. The book concludes by discussing tougher environmental problems such as ocean fisheries and the global atmosphere, emphasizing that neither governmental nor market solutions are a panacea.

In May 1999, over 50 distinguished scholars from all over the world gathered to honor Gordon Tullock, one of the most prolific, original, and versatile scholars of his generation. Tullock is best known for his pioneering work in Public Choice, the study of how self-interested individuals interact with governments. Tullock's research in public choice has contributed to the understanding of the decisions made by elected officials and bureaucrats, as well as knowledge and how individuals and pressure groups both inside and outside the government seek to shape it. Public Choice Essays in Honor of a Maverick Scholar: Gordon Tullock includes contributions that were strongly influenced by Tullock's work. His influence on studies of governance is well illustrated by the nine papers in this volume. These papers and the discussion touch upon a broad array of aspects of public choice and of Tullock's research.

This is the eighth volume in a series on research in community and mental health.

Editorial Objectives This series aims to present the latest research on entrepreneurship, innovation and the impact on economic performance. Topicality Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth (ASEIEG) provides a timely and relevant discussion and exploration of entrepreneurial topics, their impact, and ties to key values in today’s society, such as social, environmental and economic issues and challenges. Topics range from aspects of entrepreneurial behavior to determinants of entrepreneurial research with contributions from top scholars across the US and the globe. Key Benefits Organization and history of series allows a rich, multi faceted foundation for entrepreneurial topics in a rapidly changing information age. Research can be disseminated in a clear and effective manner to promote communication between the business and academic communities and to foster entrepreneurship within the society. Key Audiences Key audiences range from private industry to policy officials to researchers and educators. The role and understanding of entrepreneurship, the implications for current critical conditions and sustained vibrant economies, is rapidly growing. This series provides each with a highly useful blend of topics and scholarly perspectives. Coverage The series includes related articles and papers, frequently driven by organized colloquia and other business/academic exchange, with interdisciplinary perspectives including those of economics, marketing, law, finance, management, history, science, higher education administration and sociology. Coverage includes but is not limited to: Institutional entrepreneurial development Intellectual property concerns, patenting, and other property rights issues Environmental entrepreneurship and innovation Innovation within and across firms Effect of government regulation and tax policies Organizational factors, market structure effects and marketing strategies Entrepreneurship programmes and other educational activities Relative performance of entrepreneurial firms.

Editorial Objectives This series aims to present the latest research on entrepreneurship, innovation and the impact on economic performance. Topicality Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth (ASEIEG) provides a timely and relevant discussion and exploration of entrepreneurial topics, their impact, and ties to key values in today’s society, such as social, environmental and economic issues and challenges. Topics range from aspects of entrepreneurial behavior to determinants of entrepreneurial research with contributions from top scholars across the US and the globe. Key BenefitsOrganization and history of series allows a rich, multi faceted foundation for entrepreneurial topics in a rapidly changing information age. Research can be disseminated in a clear and effective manner to promote communication between the business and academic communities and to foster entrepreneurship within the society. Key Audiences Key audiences range from private industry to policy officials to researchers and educators. The role and understanding of entrepreneurship, the implications for current critical conditions and sustained vibrant economies, is rapidly growing. This series provides each with a highly useful blend of topics and scholarly perspectives. Coverage The series includes related articles and papers, frequently driven by organized colloquia and other business/academic exchange, with interdisciplinary perspectives including those of economics, marketing, law, finance, management, history, science, higher education administration and sociology. Coverage includes but is not limited to: Institutional entrepreneurial development Intellectual property concerns, patenting, and other property rights issues Environmental entrepreneurship and innovationInnovation within and across firms Effect of government regulation and tax policies Organizational factors, market structure effects and marketing strategies Entrepreneurship programmes and other educational activities Relative performance of entrepreneurial firms.

This is the seventh volume in a series of studies on entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. The work looks at reinventing government and the problem of bureaucracy.

This volume, comprised of authors from the U.S., Canada, Africa, and Europe, centers on the development, transformation, and role of geographic /regional economies-- specifically in the globalized, post-2009 era. The authors address topics that every region must consider in responding to idea age, globally competitive, regionally driven economies. The volume builds on a large body of scholarship specific to regional economic development and geography by providing a much needed post-2009 perspective on regional economic environments and activities. Among the topics addressed are the emergence and boundaries of new economic geographies; the actors, characteristics, and functions of regional innovation systems as well as the opportunities and challenges associated with region-specific cultural and environmental interactions. It also examines the relationship of regional economies to diminishing country based economies and the critical relationship to globalization.

Innovation is a central mechanism in the progression of society and often captures the imagination and enthusiasm of corporate leaders, public policy makers, and so on. However, the cultural, political and social complexities of innovation that extend beyond economic and technological contexts are often overlooked. In this volume, a novel approach to deeply understanding innovation in contexts that range from the socio-cultural to the technological is presented. The fundamental principles and constructs of innovation are identified and described according to an interdisciplinary lens that gives particular focus to a variety of historical examples of innovation. This exploration leads to the development of a learning model that serves as an alternative to mainstream innovation curricula.

This volume presents a series of perspectives that evaluate the merits of and potential for establishing institutionalized social valuation protocols within university settings. The volumes open with a comprehensive overview of the existing literature that addresses issues related to assessing the social value of university innovations. The first section provides sociological, organizational, and economic perspectives on issues informing the forecasting and/or demonstrating the social value of university innovations. The second section explores potential metrics and measures for either forecasting or demonstrating the social and economic value of university innovations. The third section concludes by considering issues of governance over and the organizational positioning institutionalized protocol for forecasting and demonstrating the social and economic value of university innovations.