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In this paper we look at patents as alternative to trade secrets. We disentangle the disclosure motive for patent protection from the traditional reward motive by adjusting the level of patent protection so as to make the innovator just indifferent between patenting and keeping the innovation secret. Thus, we keep the reward (expected profits) to the innovator fixed and focus on ex post efficiency. When duplication is not feasible and secrecy only entails the risk of public disclosure (a leakage), patents and secrets are perfect substitutes. Yet, a distinctive features of trade secret protection is that it allows for independent creation. The duplicative efforts to reproduce a concealed innovation make patents and secrets imperfect substitutes. If such duplicative efforts are actually exerted under secrecy, patents provide the pre-specified incentive to innovate at least social cost. If, however, the threat of duplication induces the innovator to preemptively license her trade secret, and such licensing agreements allow the innovator to appropriate all the saved duplication costs, then secrets can reward innovative activity more efficiently than patents. Thus, the issue of whether patents are socially preferable to secrets boils down to an assessment of the prevalence and the efficiency of trade secret licensing. The available empirical evidence suggests that licensing of trade secret information is limited and so hints at the superiority of patents.

The widespread introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops may change the effect of agriculture on the environment. The magnitude and direction of expected effects are still being hotly debated, and the interests served in this discussion arena are often far from those of science and social welfare maximization. This chapter proposes that GM crops have net positive environmental effects, while regulatory responses focus mainly on environmental concerns, giving an unbalanced picture of the regulatory context. This unbalance supports the hypothesis that environmental concerns about GM crops have been politically instrumentalized and that more attention should be paid to regulatory responses considering the environmental benefits of this technology. It is also argued that a number of environmental effects have not yet been quantified and more research is needed in this direction.

Existing reviews of research on voluntary childlessness generally take the form of narrative summaries, focusing on main topics investigated over time. In this chapter, the authors extend previous literature reviews to conduct a systematic review and content analysis of socio-historical and geopolitical aspects of knowledge production about voluntary childlessness. The dataset comprised 195 peer-reviewed articles that were coded and analysed to explore, inter alia: the main topic under investigation; country location of authors; sample characteristics; theoretical framework and methodology. The findings are discussed in relation to the socio-historical contexts of knowledge production, drawing on theoretical insights concerned with the politics of location, representation and research practice. The shifts in the topics of research from the 1970s, when substantial research first emerged, uphold the view of voluntary childlessness as non-normative. With some regional variation, knowledge is dominated by quantitative, hard science methodologies and mostly generated about privileged, married women living in the global North. The implications of this for future research concerned with reproductive freedom are outlined.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This chapter outlines a general framework for studying the entrepreneurial method. Simply put, what the scientific method has afforded us in terms of understanding the actual world we live in, the entrepreneurial method enables us in terms of making new ones. At least one key ingredient of the entrepreneurial method for worldmaking consists in the logic of effectuation identified through a decade long research program into the elements of entrepreneurial expertise. More specifically, given a world imbued with true uncertainty, the framework outlined here urges us to develop research streams focused on choosing between Type I and Type II errors in addition to ways of avoiding them altogether or finding the perfect Goldilocks balance between them.

Purpose: We critically examine the idea of neurodiversity, or the uniqueness of all brains, as the foundation for the neurodiversity movement, which began as an autism rights movement. We explore the neurodiversity movement's potential to support cross-disability alliances that can transform cultures.

Methods/Approach: A neurodiverse team reviewed literature about the history of the neurodiversity movement and associated participatory research methodologies and drew from our experiences guiding programs led, to varying degrees, by neurodivergent people. We highlight two programs for autistic university students, one started by and for autistics and one developed in collaboration with autistic and nonautistic students. These programs are contrasted with a national self-help group started by and for stutterers that is inclusive of “neurotypicals.”

Findings: Neurodiversity-aligned practices have emerged in diverse communities. Similar benefits and challenges of alliance building within versus across neurotypes were apparent in communities that had not been in close contact. Neurodiversity provides a framework that people with diverse conditions can use to identify and work together to challenge shared forms of oppression. However, people interpret the neurodiversity movement in diverse ways. By honing in on core aspects of the neurodiversity paradigm, we can foster alliances across diverse perspectives.

Implications/ Values: Becoming aware of power imbalances and working to rectify them is essential for building effective alliances across neurotypes. Sufficient space and time are needed to create healthy alliances. Participatory approaches, and approaches solely led by neurodivergent people, can begin to address concerns about power and representation within the neurodiversity movement while shifting public understanding.

Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give their best each day. The result is that the staff is committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. Although employee engagement as a practice is evidenced as bringing improved productivity to small businesses, and while 87% of the UK small enterprises claim that they are taking active steps to improve employee engagement, only 12% of such businesses list it as a business priority.

In a smaller organisation, it is easier for leaders to be involved in driving forward and measuring planned actions to improve employee engagement. According to the consulting firm Aon Hewitt (2015), there are six major categories for drivers of employee engagement: (1) The work people do; (2) The people they work with; (3) Opportunities; (4) Total rewards; (5) Company practices; and (6) Quality of life.

The focus of this chapter is to recommend how small businesses can drive employee engagement using the six drivers of engagement recommended by Aon Hewitt, and improve levels of productivity in the firm.

Efficiency wage theory predicts that firms can induce worker effort by the carrot of high wages and/or the stick of monitoring worker performance. Another option available to firms is to tilt the remuneration package over time such that the lure of high future earnings acts as a deterrent to current shirking. On the assumption that firms strive for the optimal trade-off between these various instruments, we develop a two-period model of efficiency wages in which increased monitoring attenuates the gradient of the wage-tenure profile. Our empirical analysis, using two cross sections of matched employer-employee British data, provides robust support for this prediction.