Trust Network Sclerosis: The Hazard of Trust in Innovation Investment Communities
"This article considers the role of trust in structuring and sustaining entrepreneurial networks in Anglo-American communities. Interviews with stakeholders involved in innovation investment demonstrate how shared identity and experience serve as proxies for trust in influencing decisions, and subsequently how trust can serve as a proxy for thorough due diligence. Where relationship plays a role vital to the venture capital investment process, close dialogue reveals the ways nascent business development is affected by excessive reliance on trustworthiness, thereby introducing a form of lock-in labeled 'trust network sclerosis.' Qualitative data informs this analysis of how opinion-leaders shape high-risk, information-asymmetric investment decisions with ultimate community accumulation and effect. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for entrepreneurial communities, other high-trust networks, and economic geography broadly."
(Terry Babcock-Lumish)
Babcock-Lumish, T. L., 'Trust Network Sclerosis: The Hazard of Trust in Innovation Investment Communities' (March 13, 2009). Journal of Financial Transformation, Vol. 29, pp.163-172 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1358926
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Balancing the interests of creators with society’s interest in fostering later expression and creation of new works
"several theoretical views support the position that in life one has strong economic and non-economic claims for control over one’s intangible creations. Yet, the paper finds that historical and literary theory in conjunction with recent economic arguments of Professors Brett Frischmann and Mark Lemley regarding positive externalities generated by access to ideas and information, militate in favor of limits on heirs’ control over these creations. Furthermore, insofar as society provides the building blocks from which these creations arise, all the theories show that creations must at some point become part of the commons to enable others to generate new creations. Thus the paper argues against the growth of trademark or trademark-like author’s rights which have no temporal limit and offer heirs extreme control over access to and use of an author’s work and seeks to balance the interests of creators with society’s interest in fostering later expression and creation of new works."
(Deven Desai)
Desai, Deven R., Property, Persona, and Publicity (August 21, 2007). TJSL Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1008541. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1008541
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Music and the Market: Song and Stock Volatility
"I compare the annual average beat variance of the songs in the US Billboard Top 100 since its inception in 1958 through 2007 to the standard deviation of returns of the S&P 500 for the same year and find that they are significantly negatively correlated. With the recent high stock volatility, people should now prefer less volatile music. Furthermore, the beat variance appears able to predict future market volatility, producing 2.5 volatility points of profit per year on average."
(Maymin, Philip,Music and the Market: Song and Stock Volatility(November 4, 2008)
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
Social Networking: Anybody is a Data Controller
"This paper will look at the definition of a 'data controller' within the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and consider whether the phenomenom of social networking (through Facebook (FB), MySpace and Bebo) has produced unintended consequences in the interpretation and application of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC to the online environment. The Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC defines a 'data controller' broadly to refer to the 'natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body which alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of processing are determined by national or Community laws or regulations, the controller or the specific criteria for his nomination may be designated by national or Community law.' If the definition of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (DPD) is applied literally to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, arguably, not only organisations such as FB and MySpace are regarded as 'data controllers' (through Art. 4 of the DPD), but individuals who posted information about others (friends or work colleagues etc.) would also be regarded as 'data controllers' and thus have to adhere to the legal rules laid down under the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (ie. Art. 7 of the DPD fair and lawful processing; not excessive etc) unless it could be shown that the exemptions under Art. 9 that processing was intended for journalistic, artistic and literary purposes or that Art. 13 exceptions apply. As identified in an earlier paper, Art. 3.2 DPD (Wong and Savirimuthu, Art. 3(2) All or Nothing: This is the Question? The Application of Art. 3(2) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC to the Internet) is unlikely to apply whereby processing was carried out for private and domestic purposes. This paper is an attempt to address a definitional difficulty that the legislatures did not anticipate. In attempting to protect the privacy of individuals, it is now possible to argue that it is becoming easier for individuals (and not merely organisations) to be brought within the scope of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC in a social networking environment."
(Rebecca Wong, 2008)
Wong, Rebecca, 'Social Networking: Anybody is a Data Controller' (September 21, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1271668
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
