W study the question of whether a software vendor should allow users of unlicensed (pirated) copies of a software product to apply security patches. We present a joint model of network software security and software piracy and contrast two policies that a software vendor can enforce: (i) restriction of security patches only to legitimate users or (ii) provision of access to security patches to ...

We study the effect of user incentives on software security in a network of individual users under costly patching and negative network security externalities. For proprietary software or freeware, we compare four alternative policies to manage network security: (i) Consumer self patching (where no external incentives are provided for patching or purchasing); (ii) Mandatory patching; (iii) Patc...

Many housing and welfare researchers in the last few decades have dealt with the so-called trade-off debate concerning the trade-off between welfare and home ownership. Countries with a high home ownership rate have lower welfare arrangements. The debate is about the causality of this statistical relationship; is welfare low because the home ownership rate is high or is it the other way around....

With the rapidly changing economic environments and numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmers’ innovations may be essential in the livelihoods of rural farm households and need to be promoted. Yet a rigorous assessment of the impacts of farmer innovation is lacking. Consequently, we analyse the effect of farmer inn...

The Great Depression affected millions of families throughout the United States in the 1930s. The federal government finally stepped up in 1935 to create a comprehensive program to address the staggering need of the impoverished in the country. That year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt formally signed into law the Social Security Act, a landmark bill that not only created the Social Security P...

The present paper outlines and analyzes Australia’s welfare reform policies as they have been implemented over the past decade. While there have been numerous social policy initiatives over this period, welfare reform provides an interesting site for analysis and review. This suite of policies and programs is of particular importance from several standpoints. First, its target groups – those ne...