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7071. Creating an Environment: Developing Venture Capital in India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last decade, one of the most admired institutions among industrialists and economic policy makers around the world has been the U. S. venture capital industry. A recent OECD (2000) report identified venture capital as a critical component for the success of entrepreneurial high-technology firms and recommended that all nations consider strategies for encouraging the availability of venture capital. With such admiration and encouragement from prestigious international organizations has come various attempts to create an indigenous venture capital industry. This article examines the efforts to create a venture capital industry in India.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and India

7072. On Incentives in Technology Policymaking: What the EU can learn from the U.S. developments

Author:
Wolfgang Gick
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the incentives political and bureaucratic actors face in the institutional setting of EU technology policy. In examining the implications and assumptions of neoclassical and evolutionary theories of technological change, it tries to answer why some approaches are difficult to translate into policy designs. By focusing on positive policymaking the paper examines why policy learning does not occur in certain institutional settings. A special focus is on the informational constraints that limit policy design. Since evaluation and oversight mechanisms have not been sufficiently developed and accepted within EU settings, there is much room for inefficiency, as a basic agency model with hidden information shows. If political planners have incomplete information about the state of the world, programs cannot be designed efficiently. Hence, a better link between evaluation and program design could reduce inefficiencies. Regarding this point, current discussions in U.S. policymaking seem to focus increasingly on program design effects and policy implementation.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

7073. Decentralized Cooperation and the Future of Regulatory Reform

Author:
Pepper D. Culpepper
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Faced with the fact of sweeping regulatory reform, how do companies decide how to respond to a new set of policies? This paper argues that this problem requires a new conception of policymaking: a conception that recognizes the analytical primacy of achieving coordination under uncertainty. I call this challenge the problem of securing decentralized cooperation. Negotiated reforms are a common leitmotif of the current wave of reforms taking place in various European countries, whereas American attempts to reinvent government opt to replace the state with the market. There are general lessons in this approach for both strategies. Unlike the earlier attempts to establish neo-corporatist bargains at the national level in European countries, the success of bargained pacts in Europe will depend increasingly on allowing private actors to design the best solutions to centrally identified problems. The challenges of bringing private information to bear on public policy will increase in the future, and not only in supply-side economic policy reforms. One such area is environmental regulation, which is typically viewed as an area of pure state regulation. This is also an area where market-based solutions are frequently proposed as the most efficient solution to problems of pollution. As I demonstrate through the initiative of the Chesapeake Bay Program in the United States, the challenges identified above for areas of economic policymaking are now relevant to environmental initiatives, even in liberal market economies such as the US and the UK. The extent of government success in such initiatives will be determined by the ability of governments to understand the importance of private information and their capacity to develop private sector institutions that can help procure it. Attempts to replace a malfunctioning state with a market solution, currently very much in vogue in certain quarters in the United States, will fail, as long as they do not recognize the distinctive problems inherent in securing decentralized cooperation.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

7074. The Defense Monitor: Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Request

Author:
Christopher Hellman and Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
The bush administration is requesting $343.2 billion for the Pentagon in Fiscal Year 2002. This is $32.6 billion above current levels, and includes the $14.2 billion increase requested for the military in the March budget release (see below). This total also includes $14.3 billion for the defense functions of the Department of Energy.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

7075. The Defense Monitor: Population Growth and Water Resources in the Middle East

Author:
Rachel Stohl, Christopher Hellman, Tomas Valasek, Leigh Josey, and Nicholas Berry
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Political strife is nothing new in the Middle East. In fact, many of the present-day disputes date back 100 years or more. But the increasing scarcity of renewable water resources and the simultaneous high population growth add new urgency to the necessity to devise a settlement.
Topic:
International Relations, Agriculture, Demographics, and Environment
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

7076. The Defense Monitor: NMD Development is not Hostage to the ABM Treaty

Author:
Philip E. Coyle
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
To prove he is serious about National Missile Defense, President George W. Bush must abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty now, according to the most strident critics of the treaty. The longstanding ABM accord with Russia, it is said, is thwarting the technology needed for missile defense.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States

7077. The Defense Monitor: The Security Environment in Asia

Author:
Nicholas Berry
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
The security environment in Asia has become highly complex since the end of the Cold War. A legacy from that superpower struggle still affects security relations, but what is surprising is the re-emergence of issues associated with World War II and before. Asians have long memories. Their injuries are not forgotten. Past history is just yesterday.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

7078. Potential Sources of Financing for U.S. Ventures in Russia

Author:
Askar Askarov, Katharine Reed, and Linn E. Schulte-Sasse
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University
Abstract:
Following the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies recognized that it was in their vital security interests to promote stable transitions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. For the most part, such transitions would depend on the efforts of the states in transition themselves, including many that had been newly formed. However, one way in which the Western nations could help was by economic assistance -- both financial and technical.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

7079. How Verification Can Be Used to Ensure Irreversible Deep Reductions of Nuclear Weapons

Author:
Wu Jun
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University
Abstract:
Verifying nuclear disarmament is a complex technical process. This paper examines the techniques that could be used to verify future nuclear weapon reductions and analyzes the motivation for the nuclear states to accept deep weapon cuts and the prospect for future nuclear reductions. To allow large nuclear reductions and assure credible verification, several steps are suggested in this paper: all nuclear warheads should be registered and tagged; the total inventories of plutonium and high-enriched uranium as well as the fissile cores dismantled from the warheads should be verified; the nuclear delivery vehicles and launcher numbers and types should be monitored as outlined in the START and INF treaties; and agreed nuclear-capable delivery vehicle production should also be monitored.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States

7080. Verifying the Agreed Framework

Author:
Michael May, Nancy Suski, Robert Schock, William Sailor, Wayne Ruhter, Ronald Lehman, James Hassberger, Zachary Davis, George Bunn, and Chaim Braun
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University
Abstract:
The Agreed Framework (AF) between the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), signed in Geneva on October 21, 1994, has become the centerpiece of recent US efforts to reduce the threat of conflict with North Korea. In particular, it seeks to bring the DPRK into compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to acquire nuclear weapons. The AF document sets goals, outlines programs, initiates a US-led nuclear-power consortium, and notes linkages. The AF refers to a wider range of diplomatic and international security initiatives, such as the NPT and the agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and is meant to reinforce others, including those related to the reconciliation of the two Koreas.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, East Asia, and Korea