The purpose of this research is to examine some competing assumptions regarding the hiring behaviour of major league baseball clubs. One hypothesis is that owners and general managers of teams enter the free agent market with a view to attracting the best talent available in order to win games. We might refer to this as the 'win games' strategy. A potentially alternative view is that they compete in this market for marquee players who will attract paying customers to the ball park. We can refer to this as the 'fannies-in-the-seats', or revenue, strategy. While these hypotheses are not necessarily inconsistent, we can imagine that for some teams, at some times, they are alternative approaches to hiring behaviour. A team committed to the 'win games' strategy may attempt to spread its resources in order to hire as many good players as possible without necessarily hiring elite players. A team committed to the revenue strategy may be content to surround a superstar with second rate talent. In order to test these hypotheses we intend to specify estimable models that relate, alternatively, team attendance, winning percentage and division, pennant and world championships to, among other relevant explanatory variables, its salary structure.

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Since the arrival of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 a number of side agreements have also been negotiated that seek further rationalization of the emerging global economy. Prominent among these is the agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS. Enforcement of the TRIPS agreement would involve the multilateral trade sanctions mechanism of the WTO. This paper examines justificatory arguments for the defense of intellectual property rights in the international economy. These arguments are based on the "classic" philosophic writings of Locke, Hegel, and Bentham. It is found that these well-known philosophic defenses for exclusive property rights do not hold up well when applied to intellectual property.Intellectual Property, Trips, Wto, Philosophy, Property Rights,

This paper examines the problems of public and institutional reforms within the context of a so-called predatory state. The predatory state is one that acts in the interest of an elite rather than pursue a coherent strategy for economic development. The argument is that, even after the process of political transition is begun, important reforms are blocked by a lingering institutional overhang that continues to serve the predatory elite. We examine the experience of Paraguay that disposed of its dictator in 1989 and began a democratic transition. The failure to implement needed reforms is shown to have blocked a revival of economic growth and development.Paraguay, reform, corruption, predatory state, privatization,