The Private Interests of Public Officials: Financial Regulation in the US Congress

Legislators' private financial holdings affect policy decisions. Due to financial self‐interest, we theorize that legislators whose personal investment portfolios include equities from firms affected by proposed policies vote for legislation that benefits those firms. We also theorize that legislators with greater personal exposure to equity investments support policies that benefit equities markets generally. We create a novel data set of legislators' personal stock investments and examine major congressional actions since the 1990s on financial deregulation and market intervention. US House members who own stocks in firms who benefit from financial deregulation vote for deregulation. House members with greater exposure to financial and automotive stocks support the financial and auto bailouts, respectively. General exposure to equities markets is also associated with support for key legislation boosting markets. The normative implications are significant, as legislators' private interests influence decisions in the public sphere.     

我国民间借贷利率管制法治进路的检讨与选择

现行以《关于人民法院审理借贷案件的若干意见》第6条为中心的民间借贷利率管制进路源于相关机构及法律50年来对民间金融的负面道德评价和金融抑制。该进路在上世纪90年代初曾制止了"金融三乱",但在当前民营经济与民间金融发展的背景下,其扭曲资金市场配置、导致逆向选择、妨碍竞争的缺陷日渐凸出,已成为民间金融发展的制度障碍。当前民间金融市场需求与管制进路之间产生了明显的声音隔离效应,而管制本身却仍在强化。我国未来的民间借贷利率管制法治进路应当主动摆脱对利息的道德偏见,构建以《放贷人条例》为核心的监管制度,推行分类引导、动态调整的民间利率管制体系,实现行政事前监管与事后司法监督的良性互动,以推动正规金融利率的市场化。     

Convertibility as a step for the RMB internationalization

The paper concentrates on the issue of currency convertibility in the context of Chinese strategy of the RMB internationalization. It argues that the motive for that strategy was ignited by China’s dissatisfaction with the long lasting unstable international monetary system. Recent global financial crisis intensified China’s urge to get rid of “dollar trap” and look for a diversified international reserve currency system where the Chinese yuan could take a place. The paper investigates the step-by-step approach from the trade settlement to more comprehensive policy measures. It also emphasizes the importance of domestic financial reforms for the RMB full convertibility, including flexible exchange rate, market determined interest rate and deepened domestic financial market.     

无直接利益冲突犯罪初探

社会转型时期，由于利益的分化，社会冲突呈现出新的特点，部分地区甚至出现了无直接利益冲突的犯罪行为，需要引起足够的重视。本文介绍了对无直接利益冲突犯罪的合理界定，分析了在中国的现实状况和表现出的特点，阐释了无直接利益冲突犯罪存在可能的原因，最後提出社会合理化的刑事立法、司法和刑事一体化的综合规制对策。     

Conflict of interest in clinical research: direct payment to the investigators for finding human subjects and health information

The recent death of teenager Jesse Gelsinger in a drug therapy trial has drawn attention to how financial conflicts of interest may compromise patient protection. While research institutions throughout the world have instituted a variety of conflict of interest guidelines, the potential conflicts associated with investigators receiving direct payment from private companies for both the recruitment of patients and the running of clinical trials in pharmaceutical research remains a relatively unexplored area. Clinical researchers undoubtedly deserve to be reasonably compensated for their participation. But these incentive mechanisms also have the potential to create conflicts of interest--both real and perceived.     

20世纪90年代以来的合并控制理论探析

为了适应 20世纪 90年代以来并购活动的日益增长,规制者运用“革新市场”和“单方效果”来支持积极的反托拉斯执法活动。“革新市场”理论通过对一个合并对相关市场上的研究和发展的影响来评估技术领先企业之间的合并。“单方效果”理论根据合并企业独自对相关市场上价格产生影响的能力来评估一个合并。     

Dysfunctional aspects of contemporary financial markets: diagnosis and prescription

First, Veblen’s distinction between industrial and pecuniary employments with special regard to speculation and Keynes´ view of financial markets are introduced. Second, a dominant fundamentalist, market efficiency and a heterodox speculation paradigm of financial markets are distinguished. Third, eleven proposals for financial market reform (e.g. narrow banking) are proposed. Finally, it is asked: What are the methodological consequences of the financial crisis for the prevailing scientific and ideological habits of thought? A more hermeneutical and historical approach is necessary to which Reginald Hansen contributed in his important dissertation on the debate on method.     

社会利益格局调整中的工会利益表达

当前利益格局调整过程中的关键问题是建立和完善相应的利益表达机制以化解严重的利益协调危机。强化中国工会利益表达功能,使其能够真正成为工人利益表达和实现的组织,不仅是形成有效的利益协调机制的重要内容,而且是化解社会矛盾与冲突,促进社会和谐的有效方式。但由于工会的定位导致其利益表达角色冲突、工会组织的行政化导致其利益表达缺乏独立性、工会利益表达手段和方式的简单化导致其利益表达效能不足,应从结构体制和功能机制的更新入手推进中国工会改革。     

The Governance of Blockchain Financial Networks

Since the emergence of the virtual currency Bitcoin in 2009, a new, Internet‐based way of recording entitlements and enforcing rights has increasingly captured the interest of businesses and governments. The technology is commonly called ‘blockchain’ and is often associated with a closely related phenomenon, the ‘smart contract’. The market is now exploring ways of using these concepts for financial assets, such as securities, fiat money and derivative contracts. This article develops a conceptual framework for the governance of blockchain‐based networks in financial markets. It constructs a vision of how financial regulation and private law should set the boundaries of this new technology in order to protect market participants and societies at large, while at the same time allowing the necessary room for innovation.     

与碳排放交易有关的犯罪行为及其防范措施

碳市场属于新兴市场,呈现碎片化特征。碳排放交易标的为法律虚拟物,不需要实物交割,交易相对复杂。碳排放交易和其他金融交易一样,由于涉及资金巨大、法律不完善、监管不严密和透明度欠缺等原因,极易滋生犯罪。与碳排放交易有关的犯罪行为主要为诈骗、逃税、洗钱和网络盗窃等。应该加强各碳排放交易市场间的合作与沟通,共同监管和惩治碳排放交易所涉犯罪行为。     

Dodging Dodd‐Frank: Excessive Speculation,Commodities Markets,and the Burden of Proof

Inspired by the wave of regulatory rulemaking, which followed the 2008 financial crisis and the passage of the Dodd‐Frank Act, this article examines the efforts of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to implement one such rule: Rule 76 FR 4752. Born of concerns with the impact of financial speculators on commodities prices, the rule calls for the expanded use of position limits to control “excessive speculation” in US commodities markets. In documenting the political and legal life of this rule from its roots in policy reports through to its suspension by a federal judge, the article explores the place of “evidence” in the rulemaking process. Particular attention is devoted to the growing evidentiary burden placed on financial regulators who are expected to frame market problems in terms of quantitative, price‐based forms of harm. In the case of position limits, this has involved statistical analyses of the causal connections between excessive speculation and commodities prices and the use of a single statistical test: Granger causality. By examining the parameters and limitations of this test, the article offers a valuable window into the unique challenges of financial regulation and their roots in questions of knowledge, evidence, and proof.     

Impact of university intellectual property policy on the performance of university-industry research collaboration

Despite the expectation of various advantages, university-industry research collaboration (UIC), a relationship between two different worlds, often faces serious conflicts. The performance of UIC depends on the research partners’ strategies and institutional designs through which they seek to mitigate these conflicts and increase partner incentives. We pay special attention to the role of the university intellectual property (IP) policy, formally introduced to Japan in 2003, as the basis of UIC contracts and empirically examine its impact on the performance of UIC projects, considering the factors in firms’ participation in UIC. We argue that the university IP policy that is equitable in sharing revenue and royalty from innovative outcomes and applied flexibly according to the partner’s needs may contribute to improving project performance by enhancing the commitment of firms, and we test our hypotheses using a sample of Japanese firms obtained from our original survey. The estimation results support the hypotheses, although the mediation via the firm’s commitment only partially explains the relationship between the university IP policy and UIC performance.     

我国集体土地征收补偿标准之重构

我国在土地征收中采用的补偿标准为统一年产值和区片综合地价的混合标准,该标准将农地转用过程中产生的级差收益收归政府及开发商,严重损害被征收人利益。因此,有必要改革现有补偿标准,将市场价格作为补偿的一般标准,并采用售价比较方式来确定被征收土地的市场价格。在这一标准下,被征收人可获取土地增值通过市场机制转化而成的货币表现,政府则通过征收土地增值税获得其应得的土地增值利益,从而实现私益与公益的平衡。     

Transition, the Evolution of Stock Market Efficiency and Entry into EU: The Case of Romania

In this paper we demonstrate that the measurement of stock market efficiency is an important activity in establishing whether eastern European countries satisfy the Copenhagen Criteria for EU membership. Specifically, we argue that developing an efficient stock market should be an important policy focus for countries with aspirations to join the EU as it helps to demonstrate the existence of a functioning market economy. We illustrate this issue by examining the evolution of stock market efficiency in the Bucharest Stock Exchange from mid-1997 to September 2002. We use a GARCH model on daily price data and model the disturbances using the Student-t distribution to allow for ‘fat-tails’. We find strong evidence of inefficiency in the Bucharest Stock Exchange in that the lagged stock price index is a significant predictor of the current price index. This result is robust to the inclusion of variables controlling for calendar effects of the sort that have been observed in more developed stock markets. The level of inefficiency appears to diminish over time and we find evidence consistent with stock market efficiency in Romania after January 2000.     

A Fresh Look at Stock Market Short‐termism

In this article, we develop a novel understanding of stock market short‐termism as a social phenomenon. Contrary to formerly popular academic belief, short‐termism is a problem that is highly unlikely to be structurally self‐correcting. An important driver of short‐termism typically elided within standard legal‐academic analyses is the informational centricity of modern stock markets, and resulting pressure on corporate managers to generate fresh ‘news’ indicative of perceived business ‘progress’. We highlight the growing enthusiasm of policy‐makers for a discriminatory ‘two‐tiered’ approach to public company investor relations. Accordingly, long‐term and committed investors are expected to be brought into the company's governance ‘inner circle’, while other investors are implicitly relegated to lowertier ‘outsider’ status. We argue that this supports a discriminatory approach to the allocation of voting entitlements in newly listing companies, enabling committed investors to develop cooperative and sustained governance relations with management unencumbered by ‘outside’ stock market pressures for short‐term financial‐performance outcomes.     

Financial Advice,Differentiated Consumers,and the Regulation of Equity‐release Transactions

In an asset‐based welfare context, which encourages the drawdown of housing equity to meet financial needs in later life, it is anticipated that the use of equity‐release products will become increasingly prevalent. In the last decade, and reflecting the strategic significance and high risk associated with this section of the home finance market, targeted equity‐release products (lifetime mortgages and home reversion plans) have come under the regulatory remit of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA's approach to equity release is geared around professional financial and legal advice. Drawing on findings from a new qualitative study, purposively sampled according to socioeconomic circumstances at the time of the transaction, this article explores the role of financial advice within the factors that shape equity‐release decision making, and considers the implications of the FCA's regulatory commitment to the ‘advice paradigm’ in meeting (or not) the needs of a differentiated consumer population.     

Internal dealing regulation and insiders’ trades in the Italian financial market

We analyze insiders’ trades in the Italian financial market. Insiders buy undervalued stocks, but they also act as positive feedback traders. They exploit short term market movements with abnormal returns around trades: they purchase (sell) stocks after a price decline (increase) and trades are followed by a partial reversal. They time the market mainly through purchases immediately communicated to the market and sales (and in part purchases) communicated quarterly to the market. It seems that insiders do not manipulate the market but strategically choose the size of trades, while they are interested to disclose immediately purchases of the assets of the company they prefer not to do it in case of sales. JEL Classification: G14, G15     

Will Listing Rule Reform Deliver Strong Public Markets for the UK?

There is a general consensus that the UK needs strong public equity markets. To help to ensure Britain is well-positioned on this front, the Financial Conduct Authority reformed the London Stock Exchange's listing regime in 2021 to foster initial public offerings (IPOs). This article outlines and evaluates these IPO-related reforms, assessing their potential to resuscitate the UK's public equity markets. The article puts the IPO-related reforms into context by considering whether the fostering of strong equity markets is a sensible policy goal and by assessing what laws governing publicly traded companies can contribute to this endeavour. The article acknowledges that the specific IPO reforms may increase IPO activity but concludes that concerns about strong public markets will continue to exist. This is because the reforms do not address stock market exits or the ‘over’-regulation of public companies which discourages reliance on equity markets.     

The Harmonisation of Rules of Conduct in EU Financial Markets: Economic Analysis, Subsidiarity and Investor Protection

The rules that regulate the market conduct of traders and the conduct of the business of investment intermediaries in the context of financial markets have not been comprehensively harmonised in the EU. As a result, cross-border trading in financial products and provision of other financial services is regulated by largely asymmetrical national rules. Host state regulators have remained responsible for the supervision of the compliance of banks and investment firms with national rules of conduct when they engage in the cross-border provision of banking and investment services. However, the advent of both the EMU and global trends in the financial services industry have transformed the market landscape. The regulatory challenges that recent market developments pose require a more efficient supervisory regime and a harmonised regulatory environment. These points were focal in the Commission's recent Communication, entitled 'Action Plan for Financial Markets'. This article examines the current regulatory framework in the area of market conduct and conduct of business in the EU. It argues, with the aid of economic analysis, for the harmonisation of rules of market conduct and for the further harmonisation of conduct of business rules at retail investor level. The harmonisation of conduct of business rules goes beyond the Commission's plans and might raise issues of Community competence. However, such harmonisation is dictated by the challenges of investor protection that changing market conditions create. Also, the transaction costs associated with indirect fragmentation inhibit the growth of cross-border trade in this area.