Artículos GCG, Georgetown-Universia

Regulation mechanisms in the Spanish pharmaceutical industry: an evaluation of the Government-Pharmaceutical Industry Stability Pact 2001-2004

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:00:00 GMT

The purpose of this work is to analyse two things: firstly, the basis of the Government-Pharmaceutical Industry Stability Pact 2001-2004, which aimed to limit annual growth in public pharmaceutical expenditure, creating a favourable environment for research; secondly, assessing whether the proposed objective of creating stability for the Spanish pharmaceutical industry was achieved. It carries out a thorough statistical analysis of a sample of 45 pharmaceutical laboratories, complemented with a cluster analysis of the main variable strategic principles of the industry, revealing that company behaviour has indeed remained stable during the period in question.

The Effectiveness Imperative in Business Formalization

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:00:00 GMT

Many countries and development agencies are spending heavily on "simplifying" the procedures necessary for formalizing business firms. In some cases, these reforms may reduce the costs of initially formalizing the firm but they achieve little else. The main cause of their failure is that they disregard the fact that business formalization should reduce the future transaction costs of businesses. This requires business registers to be reliable enough to be trusted by judges when resolving disputes, by public agencies when using register information and, especially, by other firms when they contract future business transactions. It is therefore more important to raise the reliability of business registers where insufficient or maintain it in those countries where it is sufficient than to reduce the costs of initial formalization. In consequence, we should recast policy priorities in this area-speeding up formalization makes little sense when it hardly provides any useful service.

Two Paths to Prosperity when Property Rights Enforcement is Weak

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:00:00 GMT

Governments are not always the most effective mechanism for guaranteeing private investment. In many countries governments are unable to enforce property rights, whatever the degree of protection promised by the law. In this context, I argue that there are at least two alternative private paths to prosperity. Firstly, businesses can adopt production technologies that are less sensitive to institutional voids. These are cheaper, mobile versions of existing technologies, so they can reduce exposure to the hold-up problem. Secondly, entrepreneurs can implement employee ownership, together with other motivational strategies, in order to preserve the ownership itself. Employees are thus encouraged to support the current allocation of property rights instead of challenging it.

The Appropriation of the World Bank Policies? Political Commitment and Sustainability of State Reform Programs in Argentina and Chile

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:00:00 GMT

In this paper the author compares the factors that influence state reform ownership of World Bank intervention. World Bank intervention is defined as the loans destined to public administration reforms since the beginning of the 90’s and the different country strategies formulated by the World Bank during this period. The comparison contrasts two divergent cases, Argentina and Chile, with regards to the relation of each country with the Bank, and also concerning their financial and fiscal evolutions and the characteristics of their state apparatus. The paper demonstrates that the idea of ownership is limited in order to understand the performance of each country in relation to the technical and financial assistance given by the Bank. More relevant are the State structures and political trajectories in the ownership of the reform programs.