Moving the Goalposts: Financial Market Regulation in Hong Kong and the Crash of October 1987

The article examines the operation of the Hong Kong stock and futures exchanges during the crash of October 1987 and in particular the controversial decision to close the exchanges. It argues that the closure decision exposes a serious conflict of interest and abuse of power on the part of the major decision makers and fundamental flaws in Hong Kong's self-regulatory system. Moreover, these events raise broader questions about the strengths and weaknesses of different regulatory regimes and about the value of different theoretical explanations of regulatory behavior. In particular, it is argued that the most influential theory concerning the regulation of financial markets—that of certain Chicago School economists—raises as many questions as it answers, and that an alternative view which locates cultural and organizational factors at its core provides a more satisfactory explanation of the events of October 1987.     

Researching Restorative Justice: Politics,Policy and Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore some questions around the process of engaging in research in restorative justice in the contemporary political and economic climate of the UK. Its key concern is to endeavour to create a framework in which it is possible to develop an understanding of the process whereby restorative justice was transformed from the ‘dead duck’ of the late 1980s to its current popularity. It takes as its example for understanding this transformation the problems and possibilities of engaging in research in restorative justice and how such research needs to be contextualised within a wider understanding of the policy and political process. This paper does not set out to offer any answers to the questions it raises, but is primarily concerned to bring to the fore some of the absences that can be detected within the contemporary embrace of restorative justice in the UK.     

Policy, Politics, and the Criminal Courts

This case study of criminal process in a middle-sized western city in the United States employs quantitative data, interviews, and library research to explore the politics of criminal process and its impact on the operative policies of the criminal courts from I964 through 1980. The research reveals significant policy change but a very elusive relationship between politics and policy. Judges and prosecutors preserve a significant measure of autonomy for dealing with the bulk of their caseload by giving up much of their independence in those cases that are inescapably politicized. Both judges and prosecutors use this partial political insulation to advance their own versions of criminological wisdom. On the other hand, they are constrained by the prevailing ethos and by institutional limitations to operate well within conventional definitions of crime and criminality—even when those conventional views run counter to their own practical experience.     

证券市场零和博弈与监管有效性的法经济学分析

为避免股市赌场论,我国主流学界一直否认证券市场的零和博弈特点,只是强调证券市场对优化资源配置的良好属性。然而在现实生活中,在证券市场优化配置的理论框架下我们却无法回避为什么证券市场会存在内幕交易、虚假陈述、操纵市场等私利性行为,我们在现有理论框架下也无法解释为什么现有的监管制度不足以有效监管市场。基于学界与监管层在观点上并不接受证券市场为彼之所得为我之所失的零和博弈观点,因此我们的监管实践并不是根据零和博弈的特点对症下药,这是导致目前我国证券市场处于监管不足与监管过度两难境地的根本原因。为此,我们试图从证券市场博弈的零和性分析出发,对我国证券市场监管的制度诉求、有效监管的制约因素及制度选择的有效性在法经济学层面作番讨论,以期对我国证券监管的制度重塑提供相应的理论依据。     

影响证券市场的重大政策决策信息提前泄露的实证分析

一国或地区重大政策信息对其股市会产生的影响远远大于上市公司内幕信息所产生的冲击。若未出台的政府重大政策信息提前泄漏并被利用来进行证券市场交易,必然会损害证券市场的公平正义,给证券市场健康发展带来巨大危害。为此,如何规避这一现象,成了当前证券市场监管制度建设中一个不可回避的问题。这一问题的解决对有效实现证券市场固有功能、建立健全证券市场中小投资者保护机制具有十分重要的意义。我国管理当局应加大对重大政策事件的制定、出台或颁布的信息保密的工作力度,做好应有的保密措施,避免信息泄露与利用信息进行交易的行为,进而维持证券市场的公平,最大程度地保护中小投资者利益。     

Polarization and Policy: The Politics of Public‐Sector Pensions

For decades, America's state and local governments have promised their workers increasingly generous pensions but failed to fully fund them, producing a fiscal problem of staggering proportions. In this article, we examine the politics of public pensions. While mainstream theoretical ideas in the American politics literature would suggest the pension issue should be polarized, with Democrats pushing for generous pensions over Republican resistance, we develop an argument—rooted in more traditional theoretical work by Schattschneider, Lowi, Wilson, and others—implying that both parties should be expected to support generous pensions during normal times and that only after the onset of the Great Recession, which expanded the scope of conflict, should the parties begin to diverge. Using a new data set of state legislators' votes on hundreds of pension bills passed between 1999 and 2011, we carry out an empirical analysis that supports these expectations.     

The Politics and the Demographics of Veganism: Notes for a Critical Analysis

The present essay aims to offer some reflections concerning the cultural and political aspects of veganism, on the basis of the available surveys and statistics, plus some more gathered by the authors—with the tools of different methodologies, including the semiotic one. After an introduction to veganism as phenomenon and movement, with general reflections and also a number of specific data, the essay proceeds to focus on the more political aspects, with an emphasis on some of the most intriguing and multifaceted data, such as the prevalence of female gender, leftist political inclinations and atheism within the vegan community. While the first connection has already been widely discussed (and to our mind, proved) since the times of Adams (The sexual politics of meat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory, Continuum, New York, 1990), much less has been said (particularly at academic level) about the significance leftist ideologies and atheism within veganism. Moreover, within the domain of semiotics, this topic is entirely unexplored.     

车辆碰撞护栏事故车速分析的方法

车辆碰撞护栏是高速公路上常见的一类事故,主要有两种常用的车速分析方法,即法向弹性恢复系数法和切向摩擦系数法。但是由于高速公路上,车速较快,经常有车辆冲出道路,在此情况下,提出一种基于护栏变形能量的车速分析方法,用来计算车辆碰撞护栏时的最低速度,并通过实例进行了验证。     

两种市场观念与两种民法模式——“社会主义市场经济”的民事立法政策内涵之分析

民法学界存在自然主义的市场观念与非自然主义的市场观念,以及与这两种观念相对应的纯粹私法性定位的民法模式和非纯粹私法性定位的民法模式。其中,纯粹私法性定位的民法模式在意识形态、价值观立场和社会政策方面的中立化企图,及其形式主义和技术主义的学理姿态,应当受到批判;作为法律体制有机组成部分之一的民法的立法和理论研究,必须具有更多的政策导向意识。中国民法的立法和理论,需要扬弃对市场体制和民法模式的本质主义和教条化的理解,更加积极主动地对社会主义市场经济的民事立法政策内涵进行持续不断的解读,通过民事立法的理论和实践,参与到有关社会政策的探索和发展之中去。     

论我国中小投资者对证券市场的信心构建——以证券民事赔偿诉讼方式的选择为视角

证券市场上违背诚信的行为愈演愈烈,而人数众多的中小投资者却得不到应有的民事救济,如此,不仅有损受害者的利益,也将摧毁广大中小投资者对证券市场的信心.故在金融市场诚信为王的理念下,必须寻找可行的民事救济之路.梳理美国集团诉讼的优劣并进行本土化借鉴分析后发现,适合中国的证券民事赔偿诉讼方式的路径选择是应当恢复人数不确定的代表人诉讼,同时采用示范性诉讼方式及多元化纠纷解决机制,并糅合进集团诉讼的有利元素.     

专家证人辨析

在现代诉讼中,专家证人在诉讼证明活动中的作用越来越重要,但我国的证据立法对专家证人的规定却相当滞后,限制了专家证人功能的发挥。对专家证人的资格、专家证人的选定程序、专家证言的可采性审查以及专家证人的民事责任等问题进行研究,有利于完善相关的证据立法,规范专家证人的行为,保护当事人的权益。     

Military Service Records: Searching for the Truth

In conducting Compensation and Pension (C&P) examinations, one of the most significant sources of evidence supporting a veteran’s claim for service connection are found in the veteran’s service medical records and service personnel records. Although specific numbers are unknown, a majority of mental health providers who conduct C&P examinations are not veterans and have limited knowledge and understanding of the records they are being asked to review. In cases of an initial posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) examination, the Federal Register requires C&P examiners to determine if the veteran’s claim is consistent with the places, types, and circumstances of the veteran’s service. This article reviews specific data within personnel records to help verify those elements. Additionally, perhaps one of the most difficult types of evaluations faced by any C&P examiner is a PTSD claim for personal assault (e.g., military sexual trauma). This article reviews the types of information within the records to help identify specific “Markers” associated with personal trauma.     

The Causal Relationship between Stock,Credit Market and Economic Development: An Empirical Evidence for Greece

This paper examines empirically the causal relationship among financial development, credit market and economic growth by using a trivariate autoregressive VAR model in Greece for the examined period 1988:1–2002:12. The results of cointegration analysis suggested that there is one cointegrated vector among the functions of stock market, the banking sector development and economic growth. Granger causality tests have shown that there is a bilateral causal relationship between banking sector development and economic growth and a unidirectional causality between economic growth and stock market development whereas there is no causal relationship between the stock market and banking sector development.