The purpose of this paper is to understand why a host country (HC) shows ex post opportunistic behaviors in E&P projects and frequently forces international oil companies (IOCs) to renegotiate previously signed contracts. This research employs the concept of asset specificity and hold-up problem in transaction cost economics (TCE). It then examines the unique characteristics of E&P projects, HC’s opportunistic behaviors, and IOCs’ safeguards. For a case study analyzing the implications between the economic theory and HC’s ex post opportunism in oil E&P project, I have selected Kazakhstan. The result is that HC’s ex post opportunism can be explained by a hold-up problem resulting from IOCs’ sunk investments and the unique characteristics of the oil E&P industry. When IOCs’ important capital assets become sunk investments and the price of oil increases rapidly, HC has a strong incentive to appropriate IOCs’ profits through ex post opportunism. Yet at the same time, HC must consider the damage to its reputation when deciding the extent and ways of its ex post opportunistic behaviors in oil E&P projects. / text

Univ., Diss.--Kiel, 2003.

The Canadian canola breeding sector met a transition from publicly funded breeding research to large private investments in research and development (R&D). The increasing use of biotechnology tools in the mid 1990s made the assignment of plant ownership technically possible while the legislative safeguards that were put in place during the same period enabled owners to take juristic actions against potential infringers. Today, canola breeding sector is dominated by large multinational firms. The generation of proprietary knowledge in the canola breeding sector has caused a freedom to operate issue. Private and public firms conducting canola R&D are seriously concerned about their ability to gain and preserve access to key technologies in an IPR world. <p>This thesis uses the tragedy of the anticommons framework to analyze the consequences of increased intellectual property protection in the canola breeding sector. Theory suggests that when a common resource is owned by multiple owners, each of the owners has the incentive to overcharge potential users, leading to the underuse of the resource. In R&D, different owners of complementary technologies may overcharge potential R&D firms that want to assemble different technological pieces to produce a new one. The result is forgoing research and development of new products.<p>The results of personal interviews with thirteen canola researchers and IP officers are presented and analyzed. The results suggest that the increase in the intellectual property protection in the last two decades in the canola breeding sector has led to difficulties with canola R&D. These difficulties take the form of reduced access to current, proprietary and public material. With hampered access to research input material, research output is not maximized and potential research may be forgone. Interviewees described how the increase in the intellectual property protection affects their personal and organizations ability to conduct research as well as some the implications of the new IP regime on the canola breeding sector. There is indication that canola breeding sector is moving towards a super-protectionism. Under these conditions, canola R&D firms, private and public, are in search for ways that will open access to enabling technologies and research areas. The creation of platform technologies and collaborations are the most prominent ones and are observed to increase in occurrence world wide.

The Canadian canola breeding sector met a transition from publicly funded breeding research to large private investments in research and development (R&D). The increasing use of biotechnology tools in the mid 1990s made the assignment of plant ownership technically possible while the legislative safeguards that were put in place during the same period enabled owners to take juristic actions against potential infringers. Today, canola breeding sector is dominated by large multinational firms. The generation of proprietary knowledge in the canola breeding sector has caused a freedom to operate issue. Private and public firms conducting canola R&D are seriously concerned about their ability to gain and preserve access to key technologies in an IPR world. <p>This thesis uses the tragedy of the anticommons framework to analyze the consequences of increased intellectual property protection in the canola breeding sector. Theory suggests that when a common resource is owned by multiple owners, each of the owners has the incentive to overcharge potential users, leading to the underuse of the resource. In R&D, different owners of complementary technologies may overcharge potential R&D firms that want to assemble different technological pieces to produce a new one. The result is forgoing research and development of new products.<p>The results of personal interviews with thirteen canola researchers and IP officers are presented and analyzed. The results suggest that the increase in the intellectual property protection in the last two decades in the canola breeding sector has led to difficulties with canola R&D. These difficulties take the form of reduced access to current, proprietary and public material. With hampered access to research input material, research output is not maximized and potential research may be forgone. Interviewees described how the increase in the intellectual property protection affects their personal and organizations ability to conduct research as well as some the implications of the new IP regime on the canola breeding sector. There is indication that canola breeding sector is moving towards a super-protectionism. Under these conditions, canola R&D firms, private and public, are in search for ways that will open access to enabling technologies and research areas. The creation of platform technologies and collaborations are the most prominent ones and are observed to increase in occurrence world wide.

L’idée que le football professionnel en Europe est en crise fait très largement consensus parmi les économistes. Dans notre thèse, nous montrons que ce diagnostic suppose de négliger un certain nombre d’éléments constitutifs de l’inscription du football dans le monde économique. C’est pourquoi, nous défendons que, loin d’être en crise, le football professionnel européen est, depuis les années 1980, dans une phase de très forte croissance. Pour ce faire, nous adoptons une démarche mésoéconomique régulationniste et procédons à une analyse systémique et multi-niveaux du football professionnel européen. Nous aboutissons ainsi à la caractérisation d’un « régime économique de fonctionnement » que nous qualifions de « financiarisé » compte tenu de l’instrumentalisation du football par des intérêts financiarisés et de leur influence sur les stratégies des acteurs traditionnels du football. Cette financiarisation du football engendre une forte instabilité de son régime puisque l’activité des clubs implique du déficit et du surendettement. En effet, l’incitation à la performance sportive (ligue ouverte), le fort pouvoir de négociation des joueurs (hold-up) et la souplesse de l’environnement réglementaire du football conduisent les clubs à des niveaux de dépenses élevés. Au contraire des « petits » clubs, cette situation n’est pas problématique pour les « grands » clubs, puisqu’ils sont soutenus par des agents à forte capacité de financement et tirent des revenus élevés de leur participation aux compétitions supranationales. Dans ce contexte, le régime est donc durable : sous l’effet de l’instabilité, les acteurs nouent de nouveaux compromis qui modifient les « dispositifs institutionnels » existants et rendent ainsi pérenne la logique de croissance en vigueur. Il y a donc régulation (au sens de la théorie de la régulation) du football. Il reste toutefois que ces modalités de régulation conduisent à accroître les inégalités entre les clubs et que cela pourrait, à terme, amener à une crise économique majeure du football professionnel européen. / Economists argue that the European professional football is in crisis. This thesis discusses this postulate by testing the relationship between the changes in football and the transformations of modern capitalism. Our methodology is based on a meso-level analysis from the French “Régulation theory” which provides a systemic and multilevel analysis. The thesis thus emphasizes how the progressive integration of financialised interests in football has an influence on the strategies of football traditional stakeholders. It actually shows that the financialisation process of the European professional football leads to growth since the 1980s. However, this growth is rather unstable because losses and indebtedness are part of clubs activity. The incentive for sports performance (open league), the players’ strong bargaining power (hold-up) and the flexibility of the regulatory environment are the main determinants of the clubs’ high spendings. Contrary to the “small” clubs, this situation is not a constraint for the “big” clubs thanks to the financial contributions they obtain from their owners, from their funding partners and from their participation to supranational competitions. In this environment and despite instability, the growth regime remains nevertheless sustainable. The stakeholders create new compromises to reduce imbalances: these compromises are the roots for new institutional arrangements that finally support the growth logic which is in place. There is therefore a “régulation” in European professional football, that is to say a process that contributes to the reproduction of the sector. However, this process paradoxically increases inequalities and may encourage the conditions for a major economic crisis.

La théorie bancaire récente a bien mis en évidence l'avantage comparatif des banques dans l'octroi du crédit aux petites et moyennes entreprises. La dépendance des PME vis-à-vis du financement bancaire est caractérisée par une asymétrie d'information due à l'opacité des firmes. Afin d'échapper à la surveillance de la banque prêteuse, les entreprises se dirigent vers une multibancarisation comme étant d'une part un contrat d'assurance implicite contre le risque de rationnement et d'une autre part une stratégie de diversification des sources de financement. Cette stratégie élimine également le risque de capturation (Hold-up problem) provenant de l'avantage informationnel détenu par la banque prêteuse et assure des conditions de crédits plus favorables. Ce travail de recherche teste et analyse les effets de la relation durable et de la multibancarisation sur les conditions de crédits. Après une présentation des fondements théoriques nous testons, sur un échantillon de 150 PME libanaises, l'effet du financement relationnel multibancaire respectivement sur le coût du crédit, le rationnement du crédit et les garanties demandées. Nous testons de même l’effet de la consolidation bancaire sur la propension des PME à diversifier leurs relations bancaires. / The recent banking theory highlights the comparative advantage of banks in financing SME (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. The dependence of the SME from the banking financing is mainly due to their information opacity. To escape the permanent control of the banks, companies go to a multi-banking relationship as an implicit insurance contract against the availability risk but also as an efficient way to diversify sources of funding. This strategy also eliminates the risk of capturation (Holdup Problem) resulting from the informative advantage detained by banks and insures more favorable credit terms. This research tests and analyzes the effects of the long-lasting relation and the multi-banking relationships on credit terms. After a detailed presentation of the literature review when we developed the main theoretical concepts we tested our hypothesis on a sample of 150 Lebanese SME firms. Our empirical works was focused on the effect of the multi-banking financing respectively on the credit cost, on credit availability and on collaterals. We also tested the effect of banking Mergers and acquisitions on SME’s intention to diversify their banking relations.