Industry and ownership structure

The paper examines the relationship between main industry and corporate ownership structures using a unique database covering the 100 largest companies in each of 12 European countries. The predictive power of economic ownership theory is tested and generally supported. We find evidence that industry affiliation has a significant effect on ownership structure after controlling for national differences. The industry effect is found to be related to differences in firm size, industry growth, earnings volatility, capital, and research intensity.     

水资源管制立法内涵解读

Water resources have the functions as domestic water, resource water and environmental water, on the basis of which the legislative framework of water resource regulations shall be studied. Firstly, domestic water shall be deemed as property right and the legislation shall protect the realization of the fundamental human rights for use of domestic water. Secondly, with respect to resource water, an independent water resource regulatory agency shall be established; and meanwhile, the legislation shall promote the construction of water right market based on property rights and improve the utility of water resources. Thirdly, since environmental water is one of the public goods, the legislation shall create a path of privatization in implementing mechanism for realizing the use of environmental water and the franchising system provides a practical solution to privatization of environmental water. Xu Jinhai, Ph.D in Law, is a vice director of the Public Utilities Law Institute of Hohai University. Since 2001, he has released nearly twenty articles in Nanjing University Law Review and Jiangsu Social Science Journal and other academic journals.     

Private ordering,collective action,and the self-enforcing range of contracts

Contract enforcement is acknowledged as a major issue in Law and in Economics. Contrasting substitution and complementary perspectives with respect to the role of private vs. public enforcement institutions, this article analyses how contract law can support private institutions, and enhance economic efficiency. With multilateral agreements at stake, self-regulation and reputation mechanisms at the core of private ordering have limitations that collective organizations backed by the Law help to overcome. The analysis is substantiated by empirical data from the cattle industry. Our results suggest the need for a broader approach to contract regulation by legal scholars and antitrust-authorities.     

Emergence of an innovative regulation mode in water utilities in France: between commission regulation and franchise bidding

Academic debate on public utility regulation has considerably evolved over the past 50 years. The conflict between the supporters of franchise regulation and commission regulation has given way to much more balanced in-depth analyses. Regulation is defined on the basis of its structure but also its scope and regulation incentives. A regulation mode must above all be evaluated with regard to the institutional environment. We propose a neo-institutionally-inspired analysis framework and show how the dynamic relationship between regulation and the institutional environment can lead to reforms and ultimately to more efficient regulation. The findings of a French water utility sector analysis underline how a series of national normative reforms and local exploratory reforms can give rise to innovations in the regulation mode. This new hybrid regulation, between commission regulation and franchise bidding, could be more effective than previous regulation mode, i.e. more stable and in line with stakeholders’ expectations.     

The new EMTALA regulations and the on-call physician shortage: in defense of the regulations

This Article examines the new Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations, focusing on the on-call provisions, in light of the practical realities of the on-call physician shortage. It provides an historical account of issues surrounding the delivery of emergency care by on-call physicians and the legal background of EMTALA insofar as it relates to on-call physicians. Ultimately, the author concludes that, although the current shortage of on-call physicians has caused hospitals to anticipate EMTALA liability and advocate for more specific regulations, a closer look reveals that hospitals' fears are overstated. As long as hospitals have proper procedures in place, the new regulations will not put them in violation of EMTALA.     

Patients as consumers: courts, contracts, and the new medical marketplace

The persistent riddle of health-care policy is how to control the costs while improving the quality of care. The riddle's once promising answer--managed care--has been politically ravaged, and consumerist solutions are now winning favor. This Article examines the legal condition of the patient-as-consumer in today's health-care market. It finds that insurers bargain with some success for rates for the people they insure. The uninsured, however, must contract to pay whatever a provider charges and then are regularly charged prices that are several times insurers' prices and providers' actual costs. Perhaps because they do not understand the healthcare market, courts generally enforce these contracts. This Article proposes legal solutions to the plight of the patient-as-consumer and asks what that plight tells us about market solutions to the health-care quandary.     

State ownership and control in the Czech Republic

We analyze the extent of the integrated control of the state over privatized firms during the post-privatization decade (1995?C2005) in the Czech Republic. During this period the integrated control potential of the state resembled a corporate pyramid. While pyramidal control was not fully utilized, the golden share in the hands of the state substantially enhanced its ability to control firms. In terms of corporate performance we show that state control resulted in declining and even negative corporate performance. Integrated state control was shown to be mostly inferior when compared with private types of ownership. State ownership positions are in striking contrast with the lack of capacity to push corporate performance in order to collect larger tax volumes. Lack of focus and inter-agency cooperation as well as the simple inefficiency of the state bureaucracy are the most likely reasons behind our findings.     

Family-owned,limited close corporations and protection of ownership

Protected ownership and freedom of contracts are two basic parts of the institutional framework of successful countries according to Douglass North, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1993. The incentives to make long-term investments are strengthened if ownership rights are protected and freedom of contracts is a basic element in the process of efficient allocation of scarce resources. An important engine in prosperous societies is the family firm. Most companies in these societies can be classified as family firms and a major part of GDP is produced by family businesses. Consequently, how ownership is protected in family firms is an important issue.Three important factors of private ownership of property are the rights to determine use of owned assets, the return generated from them and to transfer the assets at mutually agreeable terms to a new owner(s).The incentives of a founder entrepreneur to put efforts into the establishment of a firm are determined by all the three factors. We will here pay special attention to the third factor, transfer of the ownership of the firm. The founder often places contractual restrictions on such transfers to ensure that the structure of ownership is stable and that the firm stays in the family. The possibility to do so is part of the freedom of contracts and is associated with the extent of ownership held as well as the incentives to invest in new businesses.This paper is primarily about how protection of family ownership can be achieved from a legal point of view and discusses the reasons to enforce these legal relationships in the future for second, third, fourth etc. generations of family owners.     

Covid-19 and contracts in China and Europe

China-EU Law Journal - The purpose of this succinct contribution is to present to the readers the Chinese law of contract on “force majeure” and “hardship,” in a comparative...     

The reformers’ dilemma: media,policy ownership,and reform

Current proposals for strengthening policy ownership in reforming economies are fundamentally flawed. Modeling the reform process as a prisoners’ dilemma demonstrates that political agents must overcome this conflict of interests before present proposals for bolstering ownership will work. A politically autonomous mass media is one important mechanism enabling political agents to do this. Reforming countries without free media face an uphill battle overcoming the problems associated with transition. We test our theory by investigating the relationship between media freedom, foreign aid, and economic development in 26 post-socialist transition countries. The results of this analysis support our theory.      

Foreign ownership and firm scope in India

We examine how foreign ownership influences the extent to which firms engage in outsourcing. We observe a significant and positive relationship between the extent of foreign ownership and the level of internal sourcing for the firms. Second, when foreign owners have at least 51% ownership versus where foreign ownership is less than 51% we observe dramatic differences in outsourcing levels. Also we find that for firms with controlling foreign ownership undertaking in-house activities, the motivation to keep their property rights as inviolate as possible when their capability contributions within the Indian economy are large and significant is intense. For firms considering locating in India a strategy of internalization of activities in India is central towards retaining their competitive advantage.