An alternative industrial extension model: The experience of the food manufacturing industry

The ability to reach small manufacturers with productivity enhancing technology requires implementation of alternative industrial extension strategies. We describe one such strategy being pursued in the food manufacturing industry. Given the large numbers of small manufacturers and of potential technology suppliers, the challenge is to create an effective approach that takes advantage of the market aggregation capacity of food industry trade associations. Through a food manufacturing coalition, this extension effort will identify common industry needs for technology; assess and adapt existing technology;stimulate vendors to capitalize on the technology; and rely upon market forces to encourage innovative problem solving.     

The political feasibility of potent enforcement in a post-Kyoto climate agreement

To be effective, a post-Kyoto climate agreement must secure significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions by all (key) emitters. Potent participation and compliance enforcement will be required to make it in every key emitter’s best interest to participate in, and comply with, an agreement which specifies deep emissions reductions for all its signatories. This article considers the conditions under which potent enforcement would likely be politically feasible. Based on assessments of the current political landscape, and on the sets of constraints that characterize negotiations over enforcement systems, the article firstly finds that neither type of enforcement would be politically feasible if agreement is sought among all key emitters. Secondly, because participation enforcement is perceived as less legitimate than compliance enforcement, the coalition of countries prepared to accept the former is likely smaller than the coalition prepared to accept the latter. Thirdly, participation enforcement likely places stricter requirements on the coalition’s membership and size. Thus, while compliance enforcement should in principle always be politically feasible among some coalition, reaching agreement on participation enforcement is less likely. To the extent that participation enforcement is politically feasible, however, an agreement which enforces the cooperation of all key emitters may be attainable.     

“It Takes a Coalition”: Coalition Potential and Legislative Decision Making

This article empirically illustrates the value of coalition formation in legislative bargaining. I argue that legislators’ potential to form powerful coalitions, their coalition potential, is essential to their ability to obtain preferred policy outcomes. Using data on the European Union's legislative process, I show that coalition potential significantly increases legislators’ success. Moreover, the value of coalition potential depends on the voting rules used to pass legislation. For example, under the unanimity voting rule, the importance of coalition potential is insignificant because of the veto power held by each legislator.     

Coalition Prospects and Policy Change: An Application to the Environment

In most developed democracies, parties adjust their positions to polls and public opinion. Yet, in a coalition government, the policy that emerges is often the outcome of negotiations between governing parties. We argue that the credibility of exit threats by current coalition members and the importance of outside parties for the formation of potential alternative coalitions both matter for policy adoption. Building on a new data set measuring the expected coalition‐inclusion probabilities of parties in parliamentary democracies, we estimate the effect of coalition prospects on an important policy outcome—environmental policy stringency—in nine European countries between 1990 and 2012. Our findings demonstrate that only polling shifts that alter coalition probabilities affect outcomes. Changes in the coalition‐inclusion probability of green parties—regardless of whether they are in government—predict changes in the environmental policy stringency of sitting governments. Political polls, in contrast, do not.     

Taking crime out of crime business

It is one thing to assert that conventional market analysis is critically useful in understanding criminal enterprise. It is more challenging to suggest that corrupt and compromised legal regulation interacts with other critical market variables to maximise market advantage for crime business in a similar manner to legitimate regulatory forces in their protection and enhancement of legitimate business enterprise. The central argument of this paper is that crime business mirrors other business forms when considered in terms of critical market variables, and that in particular regulatory forces when inverted from their original purposes can influence market conditions in the same ways desired from the legitimate regulatory form. The main research direction deriving from the analysis of regulatory influences over specific criminal enterprises is how do certain critical market forces essentially facilitate criminal enterprise as a market phenomenon. This paper suggests how through comparatively analysing nominated critical market forces in the context of lucrative and recurrent criminal enterprises, common business decision-making may be predicted and thereby controlled beyond a law enforcement paradigm. In fact, the paper argues that when perverted law enforcement regulation operates as an inter-connecting market characteristic then it can have a similar influence over illegitimate enterprise that law enforcement may provide legitimate business.By establishing a richer and more enterprise-oriented understanding of crucial market variables, it becomes possible to refine control strategies at critical entry and exit points in the operation of clandestine crime businesses. The paper will challenge a comparative theorising of what makes crime business a good business, and how normative distinctions between illegitimate markets are made less convincing when positioned against an analysis of the interaction of critical market variables.     

Fighting Windmills: The Coalition of Industrialists and Environmentalists in the Climate Change Issue

This paper extends the political economy idea developed by Ackerman and Hassler [Clean Coal/Dirty Air, or How the Clean Air Act became a Multibillion-Dollar Bail-out for High Sulfur Coal Producers and What Should Be Done About It. New Haven: Yale University Press], which suggested that a coalition of environmentalists and industrialists successfully lobbied the US Congress. More strict technology-based standards for new emitting sources than for existing sources was the resulting policy outcome serving the common interest of the coalition because it offered both a barrier to entry for new firms and improved environmental quality. We focus on the case of international climate negotiations and the promotion of wind-based energy. Along the lines of the Ackerman and Hassler approach, we suggest that one reason for EU eagerness to push forward ambitious reduction target levels (and thereby promote new green industries) could be a similar coalition between industrialists and environmentalists. Such a strategy can be seen in the context of the Bootleggers and Baptist theory developed by Yandle [Bootleggers and Baptists: the Education of a Regulatory Economist, Regulation, 7, 12–16], where the Baptists (in our case the environmentalists) demand changes in behaviour on moral grounds. In contrast, the Bootleggers (the producers of renewable energy), who profit from the very regulation, keep a low profile. The actual heavy subsidisation of renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, can be viewed as a successful policy outcome for the coalition of industrialists and environmentalists offering both market protection and improved environmental quality. Solving the current dead-lock in international climate negotiations may well imply fighting the strong coalition of industrialists and environmentalists. Such a political battle may turn out to be just as tough as fighting windmills and needs to be addressed in future and more rigorous empirical research. At the end of the day, transparent incentives of relevant stakeholders in the climate change issue are necessary preconditions for progress in the climate change negotiations.JEL Classification: Q28,H2, H4     

Policy Monitoring and Ministerial Survival: Evidence from Multiparty Presidentialism

Studies on policy monitoring and ministerial survival within coalition governments are usually conducted separately. In this study, we bring these topics together and argue that the strategy of coalition partners to oversee the implementation of one another's policies has surprising consequences on the duration of office-holding ministers. Our main theoretical insight suggests that the degree to which ministers behave as faithful agents of the government depends on their expectations about their partners' monitoring behavior, such that when they expect to be under high scrutiny, they moderate their drifting behavior. Using evidence from legislative information requests on the activities of individual ministers over all multiparty cabinets formed in Brazil between 1995 and 2014, we demonstrate that: (1) greater policy monitoring by coalition partners is observed under more ideologically heterogeneous cabinets, and (2) more frequent policy-monitoring efforts by coalition partners lead to a lower ministerial replacement within the government term.     

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder’s Traumatic Stressor Criterion: History, Controversy, and Clinical and Legal Implications

This paper discusses posttraumatic stress disorder’s (PTSD) traumatic stressor criterion (Criterion A) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). The history of the stressor criterion is detailed, including how it has changed over time in successive versions of the DSM. We discuss controversy over the stressor criterion, regarding arguments about whether it is too conservative or too liberal. Studies comparing Criterion A and non-Criterion A events in their association with PTSD are discussed, including the finding across studies that non-Criterion A events are just as (or more) likely to result in PTSD. Potential explanations to account for this finding are discussed, including presentation of solutions to Criterion A’s limitations. Finally, legal implications for Criterion A in evaluating individuals presenting with PTSD in civil and criminal cases are discussed.     

The formation of an international environmental agreement as a two-stage exclusive cartel formation game with transferable utilities

We construct a two-stage exclusive cartel formation game with utility transfers to model the formation process of an international environmental agreement. Our results show that in the first stage of low degree of consensus, engaging in utility transfers by asymmetric countries will accomplish little. In contrast, in the second stage of higher degree of consensus, it is more likely for asymmetric countries to engage in monetary transfers to form the grand coalition, particularly if a small stable coalition has already been formed in the first stage. This article therefore provides a theoretical perspective to explain why it is more likely for some developed countries to initiate an IEA formation process by forming a small stable coalition first before engaging in monetary transfers to form the grand coalition with all the other countries. Such a perspective is consistent with the historical development of the Montreal Protocol and may also explain the difficulty for asymmetric countries to form the grand coalition at the beginning of the IEA formation process of the Kyoto Protocol.

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.     

Explaining Oversized Coalitions: Empirical Evidence from Local Governments

Government coalitions should be minimal winning. However, it is an empirical fact that oversized coalitions exist. Several theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon, but they are seldom put to a systematic empirical test. When empirical tests are performed, they are typically based on data on national government formations in post-war Europe. Since these are the data that gave rise to the theories in the first place, there is a risk of post hoc hypothesis reformulation. The purpose of this paper is to test explanations of oversized coalitions systematically in a new empirical setting and thus avoid this circularity problem. We focus on local governments in Denmark and have collected data by a survey sent to almost 3,000 local councillors. We draw hypotheses from three broad theoretical perspectives on oversized coalitions and test them in a logit regression analysis. The analysis shows that oversized coalitions cannot be explained by traditional coalition theories. Our results question the minimalist behavioural logic inherent in most coalition theories and suggest that parties may be motivated by norms.     

Solidarity as boomerang

In the Netherlands, the prostitutes' rights movement emerged with the formation of an influential coalition of feminists and policy-makers who devoted themselves to an improvement in the juridical and social position of prostitutes. By seeking to connect into the priorities of the government's emancipation policy, this coalition succeeded in placing the issue of prostitutes' rights onto the political agenda. This paper addresses the question why this policy has failed to strengthen the position of prostitutes. By analyzing both the factors which enabled the initial prosperous development of the prostitutes' rights campaign as well as the conditions under which the turning-point arose, it is concluded that everything went smoothly as long as professional prostitutes monopolized image-formation. The process failed at the moment that policy-makers incorporated multi-problematic categories of prostitutes. In place of the intended social integration of all categories, the prostitutes' rights campaign led to a strengthening of the stigma that is attached to prostitution.     

Consolidation and Competition in Emerging Market: An Empirical Test for Malaysian Banking Industry

This paper investigates the effect of bank consolidation on market structure and competition in Malaysian banking industry during the years of 1998–2005. The study evaluates the degree of competition using H-statistic proposed by Panzar and Rosse (1987 Testing for monopoly equilibrium. J Ind Econ 35:443–456). The estimated H-statistics are positive ranging from 0.53 to 0.81 and the Wald test for the market structure for monopoly or perfect competition is rejected. The results imply that the financial institutions in Malaysia earned their revenue in the condition of monopolistic competition with the traditional interest-based market is significantly less competitive than the overall market. The evidence is however insufficient to show that there is an increase in competition due to a change in the market structure. Thus, the findings suggest that additional competition policy is needed to ensure competition in the Malaysian banking market in view of further consolidation in the banking sector.     

从代理理论看对高管报酬的规范

从效益角度看,对企业高管报酬的数额讨论是没有意义的,要想制定一个理想的企业高管报酬数额的立法、行政和司法标准,将会产生适得其反的效果。对企业高管报酬方法规范的重点,应该是提高报酬与企业业绩的正相关关系。相比而言,企业高管报酬的披露制度更符合市场经济的规律,也更有利于资本市场的完善。     

Delegation Dilemmas: Coalition Size,Electoral Risk,and Regulatory Governance in New Democracies

This article addresses the determinants of regulatory agency design in multiparty‐coalition governments. Previous research has mainly focused on U.S. institutions, producing context‐specific findings. We found electoral uncertainty, government turnover, and coalition size to be key factors explaining the bureaucratic autonomy of 31 state regulatory agencies recently created at the subnational level in Brazil. The legislative support that chief executives enjoy only acquires explanatory power when it is interacted with government turnover. Because Brazilian governors have great ability to build oversized majority coalitions, coalition strength influences the governor's strategy when the governor faces credible threats from rival elite groups.     

反垄断法中核心设施的界定标准——相关市场的视角

反垄断法核心设施理论中争议最大的是对核心设施的界定。以往的界定方法尽管都在一定程度上揭示了核心设施的一些特性,但仍然存在明显的不足。其中,美国"MCI"案中法院提出的标准存在逻辑上的同语反复;公共利益标准将有待澄清的问题转化为了另一个不确定的问题;竞争者标准忽略了市场的整体效果;消费者偏好标准只是对于特定情况的处理,不能成为一个基本的判断标准。核心设施界定的关键是对"不可复制性"的理解,通过借鉴相关市场界定的方法,可以确定替代发生的范围,以及替代实现的程度,从而对正确地适用核心设施理论提供新的思路。     

Dimensions of Legislative Conflict: Coalitions,Obstructionism, and Lawmaking in Multiparty Presidential Regimes

This article addresses central issues in multiparty presidential systems: the functioning of legislative coalitions and the dynamics of legislative conflict. Since electoral competition has elements of both positive‐sum (increase in common support) and zero‐sum (exact division of the support) qualities, lawmaking in coalitional systems presents unique challenges. Using legislative data from Brazil, we examine how coalition management and unity affect legislative delay and obstructionism. We find, among others, that: (1) coalition management is pivotal for both faster legislative approval and less obstructionism, but its effect depends on coalition size; and (2) cohesive opposition impedes the legislative process.     

Data integration in IoT ecosystem: Information linkage as a privacy threat

Internet of things (IoT) is changing the way data is collected and processed. The scale and variety of devices, communication networks, and protocols involved in data collection present critical challenges for data processing and analyses. Newer and more sophisticated methods for data integration and aggregation are required to enhance the value of real-time and historical IoT data. Moreover, the pervasive nature of IoT data presents a number of privacy threats because of intermediate data processing steps, including data acquisition, data aggregation, fusion and integration. User profiling and record linkage are well studied topics in online social networks (OSNs); however, these have become more critical in IoT applications where different systems share and integrate data and information. The proposed study aims to discuss the privacy threat of information linkage, technical and legal approaches to address it in a heterogeneous IoT ecosystem. The paper illustrates and explains information linkage during the process of data integration in a smart neighbourhood scenario. Through this work, the authors aim to enable a technical and legal framework to ensure stakeholders awareness and protection of subjects about privacy breaches due to information linkage.