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Certain Sectors (certain + sector)
Selected AbstractsNAFTA-ization: Regionalization and Domestic Political Adjustment in the North American Economic AreaJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2009MARK ASPINWALL Europeanization is an example of initial bargains between states leading to ongoing political adjustment within the states. In this article I apply the concept to NAFTA and look at two of its member states, finding that despite the low level of institutionalization, NAFTA has set in motion new forms of political organization and behaviour, and new demands for political action. This is especially marked in Mexico, and in certain sectors. It is also clearly visible in the changing patterns of cross-border bureaucratic communication. The main conclusions are that: (1) even in a lightly institutionalized regional trade agreement, the institutional, legal and civil society capacity of less-developed members is strengthened; (2) despite the absence of a formal process of policy or institutional development and the lack of legislative instruments, NAFTA has begun a hidden process of domestic adjustment in technical and specialized areas; and (3) like the EU, pressures to expand and strengthen NAFTA have emerged as a result of the initial agreement as well as extraneous factors. These conclusions may offer lessons to the study and practice of regional organizations elsewhere. [source] A qualitative study of adaptation to the euro in the Republic of Ireland: I. attitudes, the ,euro illusion' and the perception of pricesJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Rob Ranyard Abstract This is the first of two reports of a study using semi-structured, in-depth interviews to explore the current and recollected experiences of Irish people for the period before, during, and after the introduction of euro notes and coins (1 January 2002). Twenty-four adults, 12 males and 12 females, covering a range of ages and educational attainment, were interviewed between October 2002 and February 2003. We found that most had welcomed the new currency initially, though some had felt less positive about it, whilst current experiences were more mixed. People's explanations for their attitudes seemed to focus more on the economic and practical aspects of currency change rather than symbolic meanings. Initially, most had experienced a euro illusion (prices in euros seeming to be more expensive than in punts). However, for most, the strength of the illusion appeared to diminish quite quickly. Nonetheless, current prices were believed to be higher, and many respondents attributed this either directly or indirectly to the change of currency. Although independent evidence found that there had been price increases in certain sectors, it was concluded that perceived price rises were, in part, illusory, and driven by expectations and selective price monitoring. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Half a Century of Public Software Institutions: Open Source as a Solution to Hold-Up ProblemJOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 4 2010MICHAEL SCHWARZ We argue that the intrinsic inefficiency of proprietary software has historically created a space for alternative institutions that provide software as a public good. We discuss several sources of such inefficiency, focusing on one that has not been described in the literature: the underinvestment due to fear of hold-up. An inefficient hold-up occurs when a user of software must make complementary investments, when the return on such investments depends on future cooperation of the software vendor, and when contracting about a future relationship with the software vendor is not feasible. We also consider how the nature of the production function of software makes software cheaper to develop when the code is open to the end users. Our framework explains why open source dominates certain sectors of the software industry (e.g., programming languages), while being almost non existent in some other sectors (e.g., computer games). We then use our discussion of efficiency to examine the history of institutions for provision of public software from the early collaborative projects of the 1950s to the modern "open source" software institutions. We look at how such institutions have created a sustainable coalition for provision of software as a public good by organizing diverse individual incentives, both altruistic and profit-seeking, providing open source products of tremendous commercial importance, which have come to dominate certain segments of the software industry. [source] Lingual and Educational Policy toward "Homeland Minorities" in Deeply Divided Societies: India and Israel as Case StudiesPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 5 2009AYELET HAREL-SHALEV In a bilingual or multilingual society, certain sectors may be regarded as disloyal should they speak the language of state enemies or be associated in one way or another with neighboring hostile countries. Within this framework, the present article analyzes how two deeply divided democracies, India and Israel, determined and implemented language and educational policies with respect to two major minority languages, Urdu and Arabic. A comparison is conducted between the policies of secular democratic India, regarding Urdu, a language of its Muslims minority, and of Israel, an ethnic democracy, regarding Arabic, the language of its Arab-Palestinian minority. The findings indicate that both states have consigned the minority language to a marginal position on the public stage. Moreover, albeit that a certain level of autonomy in the educational sphere is given to the minority, the educational status of the minority is markedly low in comparison to the majority. En una sociedad bilingüe o multilingüe, ciertos sectores pueden ser considerados como desleales si hablan el idioma de estados enemigos o fueran asociados de una u otra forma con países vecinos hostiles. Dentro de este marco, el presente artículo analiza como dos democracias sumamente divididas, India e Israel, determinaron e implementaron las políticas lingüisticas y educacionales de los dos más importantes idiomas minoritarios, el Urdu y el Árabe, respectivamente. Se lleva a cabo una comparación entre las políticas de la democracia secular de India, en lo que respecta al Urdu, un idioma de su minoría Musulmana, y de la democracia étnica Israelí, con respecto al Árabe, el idioma de su minoría Árabe-Palestina. Las conclusiones indican que ambos estados han consignado el idioma minoritario a una posición marginal en el escenario de la vida pública. Además, el status educativo de la minoría es considerablemente bajo en comparación con el de la mayoría, aunque un cierto nivel de autonomía en la esfera educacional es dado al idioma. [source] M&As AND THE GLOBAL STRATEGIES OF TNCsTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 4 2002JOHN CANTWELL Most of the motivations for M&As that feature in the global strategies of transnational corporations (TNCs) are a means of reshaping competitive advantages within their respective industries. They have some effect on the TNCs of all or most industries and so to that extent they are not necessarily sector-specific. However, it may be that some of the motives which we outline affect some industries more than others, and in that sense they can be expected to be associated with a greater intensity of M&As in certain sectors than others. We identify the likelihood of M&As across industries, and discuss how the general factors that have promoted the recent M&A wave have had a bigger impact on the global strategies of TNCs in the industries in which the propensity to engage in M&As has been the highest. The regional dimension is also considered. [source] Firm strategy and the Canadian Voluntary Climate Challenge and Registry (VCR),BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 6 2009Keith Brouhle Abstract The Canadian VCR is a climate change mitigation program that relies on firms' desire to signal environmental responsibility to external stakeholders through voluntary information disclosure. We analyze indicators of strategic behavior through three measures of engagement with the VCR program (annual participation behavior, quality of action plans and repeat participation), and test for differences in these measures among firms subjected to different regulatory climates that arise over time, across provinces and across economic sectors. Our findings suggest an increased perception of a regulatory threat in later years, as evidenced by an increase in participation rates, higher quality of action plans and higher rates of repeat participation. We also find higher levels of engagement with the VCR program in provinces with large petroleum (Alberta) and manufacturing (Ontario) industries and that have established provincial level greenhouse gas reporting mechanisms, and in certain sectors such as petroleum, electric utilities and to some extent services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] | ||||||||||