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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Antonio R. Andrés (Al Akhawayn University, School of Business Administration); Simplice A. Asongu (African Governance and Development Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper employs a recent methodological innovation on intellectual property rights (IPRs) harmonization to project global timelines for common policies against business software piracy. The findings on 99 countries are premised on 15 fundamental characteristics of software piracy based on income-levels (high-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income and low-income), legal-origins (English common-law, French civil-law, German civil-law and, Scandinavian civil-law) and, regional proximity (South Asia, Europe & Central Asia, East Asia & the Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean and, Sub-Saharan Africa). The results broadly show that a feasible horizon for the harmonization of blanket policies ranges from 4 to 10 years. |
| Keywords: | Software piracy, Intellectual property rights, Panel data, Convergence |
| JEL: | F42 K42 O34 O38 O57 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adv:wpaper:201301&r=law |
| By: | Metin M. Cosgel (University of Connecticut); Bogac A. Ergene (University of Vermont) |
| Abstract: | Court records are used extensively in historical research. Preserved as summaries of daily legal proceedings, they give historians a unique opportunity of access to the information about the names, personal characteristics, and socio-economic status of individuals and about the laws, local customs, and legal institutions that were used in resolving disputes. Although researchers have thoroughly discussed the limitations of these records in accurately reflecting court proceedings, the problem of selection bias has not been systematically studied. Since litigants would likely settle disputes in which one side is likely to be a clear winner, the cases that go to trial would likely be the difficult and uncertain ones for which there is greater disagreement, altogether comprising a non-random and unrepresentative subset of all disputes. We study the selection bias in Ottoman courts in the town of Kastamonu in northern Anatolia, from the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. We separate disputes by type and study the distribution of court participants according to size, gender, and religious and socioeconomic status. We run regression analysis to determine the factors affecting the likelihood of cases being tried in court. Our results indicate that the cases that wound up in court were selected systematically. If the selection bias is ignored, research based on Ottoman court records may be seriously flawed in its ability to yield general conclusions. |
| Keywords: | court record, Islamic law, legal system, selection bias, Ottoman Empire, Kastamonu, litigation, settlement, trial |
| JEL: | D3 D6 E3 E6 I3 J1 N3 N9 O53 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2013-12&r=law |