Bill Passage Speed in the US House: A Test of a Vote Buying Model of the Legislative Process

This article constitutes a test of central tenets of vote buying theories using data on the number of days it takes to pass important bills in the US House. Survival analyses of a model of bill passage length provide confirmatory evidence of vote buying by presidents and the congressional leadership. Bills that attract buyers of votes to maintain the status quo are shown to pass more quickly than those that do not. Bills on the president's agenda and those that are relatively close to members' ideal points also pass quickly. The analyses furnish some interesting insights into possible efforts to make the legislative process quicker.     

Government Redistribution in the Shadow of Legislative Elections: A Study of the Illinois Member Initiative Grants Program

We study an Illinois state government program called “member initiative spending” and examine the extent to which three competing theories can explain the program's allocations among Illinois's 118 House districts. We show that member initiative monies distributed before the 2000 general election were disproportionately allocated to districts that were politically competitive, represented by legislative leaders, or represented by moderate legislators. Our analysis supports theories that claim budgetary decisions made by elected officials are tactical, and it shows that the Illinois decision makers who allocated member initiative funds sought to distribute them in a way that would be most beneficial in the sense of vote buying.     

公司收购中目标公司控股股东的诚信义务探析

目标公司的控股股东既可以通过股东大会的表决机制作出有利于自身,但对其他股东不利的决定;也可以利用直接或间接任免高级经营者的人事权,支配经营者在面对收购时是否采取行动上,优先考虑其利益,漠视公司和其他股东利益,将目标公司置于被掠夺、蚕食的境地,少数股东则沦为被压榨、排挤的对象。为了公平地维护和实现公司、少数股东的利益,就必须使前者对后者承担诚信义务。虽然控股股东与董事的诚信义务在内容上均由忠实义务和谨慎注意义务构成,但二者并不完全相同。在不同的收购类型和各种具体的反收购行动中,控股股东诚信义务的内容也各有所侧重。     

公司章程修改案两种裁判思路评析

目前法院处理公司章程修改案中出现两种完全不同的裁判思路:一种是主张尊重修改章程法定程序的效力,仅对程序的结果即股东会决议内容进行合法性审查;另一种则主张直接从程序入手,要求特定事项的章程修改必须经全体股东同意才有效。哪一种主张更合理,存在争议。通过梳理裁判思路背后的学理基础,发觉前一思路自由裁量依据不足,而后一裁判思路直接与公司法上的程序规则相冲突,具有合理性而又不具合法性。因此,需要从立法上根本解决公司章程修改案的司法裁判难题。具体而言,立法可以考虑借鉴西方发达国家超级多数决和类别表决制度来完善现行《公司法》上的多数决规则,从而增强其对中小股东的保护能力。     

房屋承租人优先购买权的几个问题

我国《合同法》规定,出租人出卖租赁房屋时,承租人基于租赁合同,享有对租赁房屋同等条件下的优先购买权.但在转租以及强制拍卖方式下,承租人对租赁房屋是否享有优先购买权,则是需要理论和立法进一步解决的问题,避免因审判人员的理解不同而导致同类案件审判结果不同.另外,《中华人民共和国物权法》在涉及按份共有物处分时由共有人"全体同意之原则"改采"多数决原则".在按份共有人根据"多数决原则"出售共有物而少数共有人主张优先购买的情况下,为避免共有人的优先购买权与承租人优先购买权的竞合,应对多数共有人的处分权进行必要的限制:当多数共有人要求出售共有物时,应首先满足少数共有人优先购买多数共有人的共有份额的权利.     

Override propensity in the US congress: veto challenge and override vote by the two chambers

In contrast to the study of the US presidential veto, the study of the congressional override of vetoes has been scarce. This study examines the influences of partisanship in Congress, presidential popularity, presidential legislative assertiveness and the chamber in which a bill originated. By using the logit model, the article examines the models of House veto challenge, Senate veto challenge, House vote for override and Senate vote for override. The study shows substantial influences of the presidential party's margin, the cameral origin of a bill and the president's legislative assertiveness on the veto challenges by the two chambers. However, none of the variables are significant in the models of override vote. This may suggest fragmented decision-making in Congress after it decides to challenge a veto.     

美国“一股一权”制度的兴衰及其启示

股东控制是美国公司法的基础,而"一股一权"则是该基础的核心。纽约证券交易所在20世纪初迫于政治压力,在上市公司标准中确立了一股一权原则。但在1980年代,纽约证券交易所因美国证券交易所和纳斯达克交易所的竞争压力,放弃了这一上市标准,引起了美国学者对该原则的广泛争议。一股一权原则的合理性尽管经过了学者的多次论证,但大部分国家公司法并没有将这一原则贯彻到底。实证研究表明,股权结构与公司业绩并不存在确定的关系。允许公司按实际情况设计股权结构,可能更有利于公司长远发展,但其前提是健全公司治理制度和投资者保护制度。     

Institutions and Vote Unity in Parliaments: Evidence from 33 National Chambers

The paper looks at the relationship between institutions and vote unity in national parliaments with the help of a large data set of votes from 33 national parliaments. The tests run are the first to confirm empirically the relationship between vote of confidence procedure and vote unity. The paper also provides a theoretical explanation for why the existence of the confidence procedure influences vote unity despite being used only rarely. The vote of confidence influences votes through the development of control mechanisms as well as the selection of party members who are more ideologically united. This study also challenges the view that electoral rules which make candidates individually accountable to voters necessarily lead to more vote defections. The findings suggest that higher personal accountability decreases vote unity only if party leaders do not control candidate nomination. Parties that rely on government finance for campaigns are also more united.     

多维度的选举权——基于霍菲尔德权利理论的一个分析

选举权包含多种法规范上的地位和关系，可看作一个有关选举的权利束。按照霍菲尔德的权利理论，可以从权力、自由、豁免和求四个维度来理解选举权。在权力维度上，选举权意味着对授权和代表关系的法律控制力，选民行使选举权的结果便是授权和代表关系的形成、变动和消灭。在自由维度上，选举权意味着个人有权自由地行使选举权力，不受国家、组织和他人的干涉。在豁免维度上，选举权意味着公民有不受约束的选举自由，国家没有不当干预选举自由的权力。求维度的选举权与其他维度的选举权紧密相连，它以选举权之权力、自由和豁免三素为主张对象，在一定意义上，其他维度的选举权只有与求维度的选举权结合起来，才能变得更有力、更具有可实现性。     

Legislative Voting Behavior,Seen and Unseen: A Theory of Roll‐Call Vote Selection

The empirical study of legislative behavior largely relies on roll‐call vote analysis, but roll‐call votes in many legislatures represent only a sample of legislative votes. We have good reasons to believe this sample is particularly poor for inferring party effects on legislative behavior. The selection of votes for roll call may be endogenous to exactly the characteristics of voting behavior (for instance, party cohesion) that we want to study. We must understand the roll‐call vote institution and account for its selection effects before we can draw inferences about legislative behavior from roll‐call results. This article develops a game‐theoretic model of roll‐call vote requests predicated on party leaders requesting votes to enforce party discipline. The model offers general and testable predictions about the selection process and how it affects observed and unobserved legislative voting behavior, particularly party cohesion.     

Shame on you,John! Laws,stigmatization, and the demand for sex

The present article contributes to the literature on prostitution by shedding light on the effects of the criminalization of buying sex on the amount of prostitution bought, as well as on the proposed theoretical mechanisms underlying this change. We find indications that criminalizing the buying of sex may decrease the quantity of sex bought. While we find that stigma influences the demand for sex, we do not find that stigma increases as a result of the law. Therefore, the possible reduced quantity of sex bought is probably due to the more direct risk of getting caught.     

选举权观念的变迁——以选举权之性质为中心的考察

在人类漫长的民主历史中,对于选举权性质的认识,也有个变迁的过程,其间充斥着广泛而又激烈的争论,深刻地影响了人类社会的历史。关于选举权的性质,主要出现过以下六种观念和理论：公民属性论、特权论、个人权利论、公务论、权利兼公务论和阶级论。这些观念和理论流行于不同的时代,与当时社会背景有着紧密的关系,并对当前实践产生了不同程度的影响。     

Candidates,Votes, Outcomes: A Method for Evaluating Nomination Strategies in MMD/SNTV Electoral Systems

While characterized by disagreement, all scholarly work on multimember district electoral systems in which each voter casts a single, nontransferable vote (MMD/SNTV) is alike in one way: it evaluates party nominations under the assumption that votes are invariant under alternative strategies. But party votes may, in fact, vary with different nomination strategies. Moreover, depending on how much party votes vary under alternative nomination strategies, a method that considers such changes may evaluate nominations differently than previous studies in the literature have. In this article, I address party‐vote variance, proposing a method that estimates how much a party's obtained votes change under alternative nomination strategies and using this method to reevaluate the nominating behavior of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party.     

The law and economics of international sex slavery: prostitution laws and trafficking for sexual exploitation

International trafficking in humans for sexual exploitation is an economic activity driven by profit motives. Laws regarding commercial sex influence the profitability of trafficking and may thus affect the inflow of trafficking to a country. Using two recent sources of European cross country data we show that trafficking of persons for commercial sexual exploitation (as proxied by the data sets we are using) is least prevalent in countries where prostitution is illegal, most prevalent in countries where prostitution is legalized, and in between in those countries where prostitution is legal but procuring illegal. Case studies of two countries (Norway and Sweden) that have criminalized buying sex support the possibility of a causal link from harsher prostitution laws to reduced trafficking. Although the data do not allow us to infer robust causal inference, the results suggest that criminalizing procuring, or going further and criminalizing buying and/or selling sex, may reduce the amount of trafficking to a country.     

公司股东的表决权

股东表决权是公司股东享有的最重要的权利,此种权利的有效行使可以确保公司股东地位的稳固。在现代社会,虽然公司股东表决权适用的范围受到严重威胁,但是,该种权利仍然在各国公司法中得到尊重,仍然在众多重要领域得到适用;公司表决权虽然要遵循集体行使的原则,但是,违反这一原则所做出的决议也并非完全无效。     

Online voting: a legal perspective

Casting a vote for the European Parliament from a cybercafe in India, a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocan, a weekend cottage in the Alps or plainly at home from your laptop computer? This article tackles this question from a legal point of view. It examines the basic principles surrounding online voting. Are the conditions for democratic elections – such as the freedom to vote without undue influence or coercion of any kind, the secrecy of the vote, the integrity, reliability and security of the ballot box, the verifiability and audit ability of the voting process and the principle of one person, one vote – sufficiently met or do we run into legal obstacles? Does the introduction of an electronic or even online voting process jeopardize the principles of non‐discriminatory access to the election process? And what about the anonymity? How can one guarantee that a vote over the Internet is cast by the legitimate voter, all the while guaranteeing his privacy? The last chapter of the article analyses the current state of affairs within the European Union. Is the introduction of online voting merely a science fictional feature or really within reach?     

Is Personal Vote‐Seeking Behavior Effective?

Does representatives' legislative activity have any effect on their electoral performance? A broad theoretical literature suggests so, but real‐world evidence is scarce as empirically, personal and party votes are hard to separate. In this article, we examine whether bill initiation actually helps MPs to attract preference votes under flexible list electoral systems. In these systems, voters can accept the party‐provided rank order or vote for specific candidates, which allows a clear distinction between personal and party votes. The empirical analysis uses data on bill initiation by Belgian MPs in the period 2003–2007 to explain their personal vote in the 2007 elections. We find that particularly single‐authored proposals initiated shortly before the upcoming elections are associated with a larger personal vote.     

Legislative voting in the pork-dominant parliament: evidence from the Philippine House of Representatives

In this paper I investigate how legislators behave in extremely pork-oriented, or pork-dominant, systems where virtually no party-line voting takes place and politicians strive to deliver individual/local benefits instead of national public policies. I argue that, in the pork-dominant context, most legislators vote with the president, who controls access to the pork pipeline, irrespective of their party affiliations. Thus, the president’s party legislators should have little incentive to vote against the president, regardless of voter demands for pork or policy; however, sometimes opposition-party legislators elected particularly from more-developed districts (where voters often desire policy over pork) should have strong incentives to vote against the president. These arguments are supported with quantitative studies of the post-authoritarian Philippine House of Representatives. It is found that, in the highly homogeneous legislature dominated by pork-seeking politicians, (1) most bills are passed with unanimous or near-unanimous consent, (2) governing-party legislators almost always vote with the majority of the members of the parliament, regardless of voters’ socio-economic conditions, and (3) opposition-party legislators, especially in more-developed areas, tend to vote against the parliamentary majority. These findings indicate that voters’ high socio-economic status promotes programmatic accountability, leading their representatives to undermine voting unity within the extremely cohesive pork-dominant legislature.     

Buying stolen goods: the ambiguity in trading consumer-to-consumer

This study investigates the buying of stolen goods in Denmark. The study consists of a self-report survey based on a representative sample of the general Danish population (n = 2311) and six focus group interviews consisting of both informants experienced with buying stolen goods and of those with no experience (n = 37). The survey showed that 4.8% had bought stolen goods, while 15.7% were uncertain whether they had bought stolen goods. Young people, males, and unemployed were more likely to purchase stolen goods. No clear correlation between income and buying stolen goods was found. Focus groups suggest the buyers of stolen goods did not buy stolen goods because they could not afford legitimate products. We recommend targeting consumers not interested in buying stolen goods with information about how to avoid such activity.     

Institutional Change and Legislative Vote Consensus in New Zealand

In this research note, I discuss results from a recent study assessing the impact that New Zealand's electoral and legislative system reforms had on levels of vote consensus achieved in the House of Representatives. Using a new legislative vote data set spanning from 1987 to 2007, I find evidence that the institutional changes fostered an increase in consensual legislative vote outcomes. I also provide a brief theoretical explanation of the developments and address a few issues concerning the measure of consensus used and the interpretation of the data.