Persistence of innovation: stylised facts and panel data evidence

This paper investigates whether firms innovate persistently or discontinuously over time using an innovation panel data set on German manufacturing and service firms for the period 1994–2002. It turns out that innovation behaviour is permanent at the firm level to a very large extent. Using a dynamic random effects discrete choice model and a new estimator recently proposed by Wooldridge (2005), I further shed some light on the driving forces for this phenomenon. The econometric results show that past innovation experience is an important determinant for manufacturing as well as for service sector firms, and hence confirm the hypothesis of true state dependence. In addition, the results highlight the important role of knowledge provided by skilled employees and unobserved individual heterogeneity in explaining the persistence of innovation.

Public infrastructural development and economic performance in Africa: a new evidence from panel data analysis

Economic Change and Restructuring - This study examined the effects of both aggregate and disaggregated infrastructural development indices (such as transport, electricity, ICT, and water and...     

Nexus between defence spending,economic growth and development: evidence from a disaggregated panel data analysis

Economic Change and Restructuring - This study investigates the causal effect relationship between defence spending, economic growth and development in three regions for the period 1990–2018....     

论国际金融衍生交易的法律监管

在目前的国际金融市场上,既能规避风险又能导致风险的金融衍生工具,本身是一把“双刃剑”。尽管没有一种金融业务像衍生工具那样自出生就招致如此多的麻烦,但仍阻挡不了全球金融业对它的向往。因为衍生交易创造了空前繁荣和膨胀的金融市场,并且在很大程度上改变了传统银行体系的经营范畴和交易规则。目前,对一些大型银行来说,衍生交易业务规模大有取代传统存贷业务规模之势,而成为商业银行、投资银行和信托投资公司的主导业务。但是,面对着国际     

What happened to savings during the financial crisis—a dynamic panel analysis of Asian-5 countries

This article examines the determinants of saving rates in five Asian (Asian-5; Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand South Korea and the Philippines) countries over the 1970–2000 period. The focus is on the relationship between savings rates and foreign capital inflows before and in the financial crises. Major findings from the dynamic panel regressions are: (i) foreign savings depresses domestic savings ratio in the short as well as in the long run and the offset appears to be larger in the crisis period; (ii) real interest has a small negative effect on savings in the short and long run; (iii) the demographic factor explains a large portion of the long run trends but not the short-term fluctuations in savings rates; and (iv) high savings ratios in the countries studied is linked to the export sector.     

The legal effect of EU Regulations

The EU institutions are increasingly addressing harmonisation by means of regulation rather than the traditional use of directives. This is particularly impacting areas such as data protection, financial services regulation and European standardisation in Information and Communications Technology. More broadly, using directly applicable regulations which may have horizontal and vertical direct effect rather than directives has important administrative and constitutional implications for their application in national law and impacts on Member States' discretion to implement supplementary legislation which falls within the remit of the regulation in question. This is of particular concern where governments implement policies which might be in contravention of these rules. This may be the case in relation to the UK government's public procurement policy which mandates royalty free standards rather than royalty bearing standards with the option for the licence holder to licence royalty free.     

Re-examining the effect of financial markets and institutions on economic growth: evidence from the OECD countries

Economic Change and Restructuring - This study re-examines the impact of financial structure on economic growth for 24 advanced OECD countries from 1980 to 2017 using dynamic panel estimators....     

The legal construction of privacy and data protection

In this contribution, the authors explore the differences and interplays between the rights to privacy and data protection. They describe the two rights and come to the conclusion that they differ both formally and substantially, though overlaps are not to be excluded. Given these different yet not mutually exclusive scopes they then apply the rights to three case-studies (body-scanners, human enhancement technologies, genome sequencing), highlighting in each case potential legal differences concerning the scope of the rights, the role of consent, and the meaning of the proportionality test. Finally, and on the basis of these cases, the authors propose paths for articulating the two rights using the qualitative and quantitative thresholds of the two rights, which leads them to rethink the relationship between privacy and data protection, and ultimately, the status of data protection as a fundamental right.     

论金融全球化趋势下的中国金融法律问题

进入21世纪后,金融业的发展趋于全球化,其主要特征是金融国际化、金融自由化、金融交易规则统一化、金融政策协调国际化、金融市场一体化、金融资本虚拟化、金融信息全球化等等.金融全球化的同时,发展中国家的金融风险与日俱增,亚洲金融危机的一个重要成因就是金融全球化与不健全的金融监管体制、未成熟的金融自由化相结合所致.随着金融全球化的加强,当代金融危机呈现出隐敝性、突发性、攻击立体化、国际传导性等新特点.因此,中国参与金融全球化必须构筑与之相适应的金融监管法律体系.当前,尤其要加强金融市场准入、金融机构的市场退出、债转股与外债管理、信息披露及金融决策透明度、打击金融网络犯罪方面的法律完善.     

Any-Willing-Provider laws: their financial effect on HMOs

Any-Willing-Provider (AWP) legislation requires that health plans accept any health care provider who agrees to conform to the plan's conditions, terms, and reimbursement rates. Many states have adopted such legislation, raising questions about its effect on the managed care market. Those favoring this legislation argue that it will reduce restrictions on choice of provider, while opponents argue that it will reduce competition by increasing administrative and medical costs for managed care plans. Using cross-sectional time-series data for the period 1992-1995 (the period during which many of these laws were enacted), this study investigates the effect that these laws have on HMO financial performance. Our results show that "all-provider" AWP laws have a very limited effect on the financial performance measures we examine. "Pharmacy" AWP laws have a more significant effect, but neither type of law appears to affect the overall profitability of HMOs.     

Training of legal professionals in DNA evidence

The South African Criminal Legal System is based on Roman Dutch law. Court proceedings are led by a single presiding officer of the court. Prosecutors and defence advocates present the court with evidence in an adversarial manner. This system has inherent advantages and disadvantages and therefore the training of legal professionals in handling DNA evidence in court is important. The prosecutors resort under the National Prosecuting Authority and the defence advocates act independently or e.g. under the auspices of Legal Aid South Africa.Education curricula of legal professional do not include forensic science evidence. Principles such as evidential value in the forensic context are not addressed. Training of legal professionals with our Essential DNA Evidence™ Course has been a multiplier of forensic science knowledge in the legal profession in South Africa. We present prosecution and defence perspectives in an unbiased manner, compensating for the possible subjective interpretations of evidence that may be presented in court. Forensic evidence is subsequently carefully evaluated prior to being court presentation thus improving court efficiency, and allowing for a more focussed approach to the presentation of evidence. Approaches to the customisation of course content that adds value has been identified via evaluation of training programmes.Experience has shown that legal professionals have the ability to incorporate relatively complex scientific concepts into their legal arguments if provided with the appropriate training opportunity. Appropriate training in DNA evidence has made the court process more effective, both in terms of time and costs, and ultimately serves justice.     

我国可持续发展法律制度之构建

可持续发展是人类未来的共同发展战略 ,它将人类社会发展与资源开发和环境保护结合起来 ,是当前最新的一种发展理念 ,并正在成为我国立法的一项指导原则。然而 ,能否在这一原则之下制定我国专门的可持续发展法律制度 ,以及可持续发展法律制度在现有法律体系和法律部门中如何定位和构建等 ,是法学界颇有争议的问题。本文认为 ,我国应当建立符合可持续发展内在要求的可持续发展法律制度 ,并应将其纳入我国社会主义市场经济法律体系之中予以规范。     

Sociological interpretations of legal development

This paper seeks to outline some ways in which sociological inquiry has helped to interpret general processes of legal development. It comments on a few aspects of a vast subject. Furthermore, it was commissioned in a specific context of debate: as part of an agenda of discussion of the relative merits and potential of sociological and economic analyses of law. Hence, to provide a setting for what I try to argue about the character and value of sociological interpretations of legal change, it seems appropriate to preface those arguments with some general ideas about the nature of sociological inquiries in legal contexts and about perceived contrasts between the orientation of these inquiries and what I take to be certain orientations in economic analysis of law. Accordingly this paper is in two parts. The first offers a few prefatory remarks on the character of theoretically guided sociological inquiries about law (sociology of law). The second discusses various kinds of interpretation of legal development, which have been offered from the perspectives of sociology of law.     

试论法律监督与行政权力的和谐发展

有了权力,就同时产生了对权力的监督问题,世界各国都十分重视法律监督模式和效果的探讨。法律监督必须适应新形势发展的要求,既要对行政权力有所制约,又要保障行政权力的高效运转,依法行政就是要求法律监督和行政权力的和谐统一。而法律监督体制构建的关键,在于确保法律监督的权威和效力。