Revenue Chokepoints

Author(s):  
Natasha Tusikov

The chapter examines how payment providers (PayPal, Visa and MasterCard) and advertising intermediaries (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) police websites selling or advertising counterfeit goods through non-legally binding agreements. These agreements essentially institute controversial provisions from the failed Stop Online Piracy Act. Payment and advertising intermediaries withdraw their services from websites selling counterfeit goods (termed ‘infringing websites’), thereby throttling the sites’ revenue. Major payment providers are especially powerful regulators as they can starve sites of revenue by terminating their payment services, which can be difficult to replace given the significant market share controlled by Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. Macro-intermediaries’ latitude in designating certain content or behavior as ‘inappropriate’ for their platforms raises serious questions about unfair regulatory behavior that may inadvertently – or, more troublingly, deliberating – target lawfully operating sites. The chapter’s case studies examine a U.S. payment-termination program and programs (one in the U.S. and the other in the U.K.) to terminate digital advertising services to infringing sites.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-113
Author(s):  
Mario Iannella

Abstract The article looks at fiscal constraints adopted by the U.S. States. It questions the ability of those rules to determine sound budgetary policies. To assess this point it analyses, in the general part, the major kind of constraints so far adopted. Of each major category the focus is upon institutional weaknesses that create the room for the adoption of circumventing practices. The following section focuses instead on three case studies, to show examples of the way in which the constraints influenced policy-making without mining the ability of government to adopt unbalanced budgetary policies. The weaknesses are combined with the adoption of a deferential approach by the Courts that generally legitimized the accounting devices adopted by the States. The outcome is a system in which budget policies are influenced by several factors that go beyond the institutional framework. On the other side, legal boundaries create distortions and unwanted effects in policies implemented by the States.


Author(s):  
K.H. Westmacott

Life beyond 1MeV – like life after 40 – is not too different unless one takes advantage of past experience and is receptive to new opportunities. At first glance, the returns on performing electron microscopy at voltages greater than 1MeV diminish rather rapidly as the curves which describe the well-known advantages of HVEM often tend towards saturation. However, in a country with a significant HVEM capability, a good case can be made for investing in instruments with a range of maximum accelerating voltages. In this regard, the 1.5MeV KRATOS HVEM being installed in Berkeley will complement the other 650KeV, 1MeV, and 1.2MeV instruments currently operating in the U.S. One other consideration suggests that 1.5MeV is an optimum voltage machine – Its additional advantages may be purchased for not much more than a 1MeV instrument. On the other hand, the 3MeV HVEM's which seem to be operated at 2MeV maximum, are much more expensive.


1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris E. Hogan ◽  
Debra C. Jeter

Dramatic changes in recent years in the audit market suggest the timeliness of an investigation of trends in auditor concentration and an extension of prior research (e.g., Danos and Eichenseher 1982). In recent press, large audit firms have claimed that specialization is a goal of increasing importance. Peat Marwick, for example, has restructured along industry lines, claiming to be recruiting professionals for national teams of multidisciplinary experts organized to “focus on the same industry to serve clients optimally.” On the other hand, litigation concerns might prompt auditors to diversify their risks by diversifying their clientele. In this study, we examine trends in industry specialization from 1976 to 1993 and the industry factors which may affect specialization; whether market share increases are greater for audit firms classified as specialists; and whether the nation's largest audit firms have increased their market share in the industries which they have identified as their focus industries. We find evidence that concentration levels have increased over this period, consistent with the claims of the large audit firms. We find that auditor concentration levels are higher in regulated industries, in more concentrated industries and in industries experiencing rapid growth, but lower in industries with a high risk of litigation. Levels of concentration have increased over time in nonregulated industries providing evidence that scale economies or superior efficiencies of heavy-involvement auditors are not limited to regulated industries but extend to nonregulated industries as well. We also find that for the audit firms classified as market leaders at the beginning of the year, market share has increased over time, whereas market share has declined for firms with a smaller share at the beginning of the year. This suggests that there are returns to investing in specialization.


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter presents a model of the interaction of media outlets, politicians, and the public with an emphasis on the tension between truth-seeking and narratives that confirm partisan identities. This model is used to describe the emergence and mechanics of an insular media ecosystem and how two fundamentally different media ecosystems can coexist. In one, false narratives that reinforce partisan identity not only flourish, but crowd-out true narratives even when these are presented by leading insiders. In the other, false narratives are tested, confronted, and contained by diverse outlets and actors operating in a truth-oriented norms dynamic. Two case studies are analyzed: the first focuses on false reporting on a selection of television networks; the second looks at parallel but politically divergent false rumors—an allegation that Donald Trump raped a 13-yearold and allegations tying Hillary Clinton to pedophilia—and tracks the amplification and resistance these stories faced.


2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-338
Author(s):  
Victor Lieberman

AbstractInsisting on a radical divide between post-1750 ideologies in Europe and earlier political thought in both Europe and Asia, modernist scholars of nationalism have called attention, quite justifiably, to European nationalisms’ unique focus on popular sovereignty, legal equality, territorial fixity, and the primacy of secular over universal religious loyalties. Yet this essay argues that nationalism also shared basic developmental and expressive features with political thought in pre-1750 Europe as well as in rimland—that is to say outlying—sectors of Asia. Polities in Western Europe and rimland Asia were all protected against Inner Asian occupation, all enjoyed relatively cohesive local geographies, and all experienced economic and social pressures to integration that were not only sustained but surprisingly synchronized throughout the second millennium. In Western Europe and rimland Asia each major state came to identify with a named ethnicity, specific artifacts became badges of inclusion, and central ethnicity expanded and grew more standardized. Using Myanmar and pre-1750 England/Britain as case studies, this essay reconstructs these centuries-long similarities in process and form between “political ethnicity,” on the one hand, and modern nationalism, on the other. Finally, however, this essay explores cultural and material answers to the obvious question: if political ethnicities in Myanmar and pre-1750 England/Britain were indeed comparable, why did the latter realm alone generate recognizable expressions of nationalism? As such, this essay both strengthens and weakens claims for European exceptionalism.


Author(s):  
Martin Lundsteen ◽  
Miquel Fernández González

AbstractRecent studies have argued for more nuanced understandings of zero tolerance (ZT) policing, rendering it essential to analyze the significance and actual workings of the policies in practice, including the context in which they are introduced. This article aims to accomplish this through a comparison of two case studies in Catalonia: one in the neighborhood of Raval in Barcelona and one in Salt—a municipality in the comarca (or county) of Girona. We identify a transformation in the use of ZT policies in Catalonia and a contradiction between their social effects and proclaimed objectives. This article attempts to address how specific sociocultural groups gain power and privilege from these policies. The main argument is that a set of commonsensical ideas have become hegemonic, which allows and naturalizes certain sociocultural practices in urban space, while persecuting others, fundamentally pitting two categories against each other: the desired civil citizen and the undesirable and uncivil stranger.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 8-10

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – The innovator’s dilemma is a relatively new story, although it seems to have been around in decades. The dilemma relates to established firms who cannot decide whether to “stick or twist” in their strategy. If they stay with their current offering, they will gradually lose market share or could quickly be overturned by a fast-paced competitor; if they invest in change, they will lose their profitable existence with no guarantee of success. Practical implications – The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


Author(s):  
E. Solov’ev

Unlike his predecessors, Barak Obama is bound to work amidst global balance of power rapidly changing to the disfavor of American interests. All attempts of the U.S. to build an unipolar world under its domination have failed. Obama is vigorously seeking to restructure U.S.–Russia relations; however, the divergence of interests in many fields is evident, and neither Washington nor Moscow can agree on the partnership as formulated by the other side.


2019 ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Stewart Barr ◽  
John Preston

As travel planning’s theoretical underpinnings have broadened from engineering and economics to embrace psychology and sociology, an emphasis has been placed on social marketing and nudge theory. It is argued that this is consistent with a neo-liberal trend towards governing from a distance. Using two case studies, one a qualitative study of reducing short-haul air travel, the other a quantitative study of attempts to reduce local car travel, it is found that actual behaviour change is limited. This seems to arise because behavioural change has been too narrowly defined and overly identified with personal choice.


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