Empirical assessment of the role of economic analysis in the Russian antitrust: Why is economic analysis used?

Economic analysis is an important tool for the modern antitrust. This article provides an empirical study of its role in the Russian antitrust law enforcement practice in order to answer the following question: Has the understanding of the usefulness and importance of economic analysis in the Russian antitrust been achieved, or has economic analysis been applied formally? The study is based on the sample of official records on published decisions by the Supreme Court of Arbitration of the Russian Federation, created specifically for this research.     

Corruption and economic growth: does the size of the government matter?

Economic Change and Restructuring - Corruption is often a source of contentious debate, covering different areas of knowledge, such as philosophy and sociology. In this paper we assess the effects...     

Transnational constitutionalism – conflicts-law constitutionalism – economic constitutionalism: the exemplary case of the European Union

Transnational constitutionalism is both a sociological given and a legal challenge. We observe the emergence of ever more legally framed transnational arrangements with ever more power and impact. Do such arrangements deserve to be called legitimate rule in Habermasian terms? Is it at all conceivable that the proprium of law can be defended against the rise of its informal competitors? This article opts for a third way that listens to neither the siren songs on law beyond the state nor to the defences of nation-state constitutionalism as the monopolist of legitimate rule. The proposed alternative suggests that transnational legal ordering of the European Union should build on its reconceptualization as a ‘three-dimensional conflicts law’ with a democracy-enhancing potential. This reconceptualization operationalizes the ‘united in diversity’ motto of the Draft Constitutional Treaty of 2004, preserves the essential accomplishments of Europe's constitutional democracies, provides for co-operative problem solving of transnational regulatory tasks, and retains supervisory powers over national and transnational arrangements of private governance.     

Economic freedom and economic growth in India: What is the empirical relationship?

The recent moves of the Indian economy towards further opening up of the economy with less government control has brought about changes in its policy structure. The objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that greater economic freedom leads to higher levels of economic growth in a federal system like India where business regulations, taxation, and government spending differ widely across states. Pooled linear regression model is applied to categorical data containing economic freedom and its three components as independent variables, and growth rates of income per capita and gross state domestic product as dependent variable, for a panel of twenty states for three time periods, 2004/2005, 2006/2007 and 2009/2010. While examining this relationship, the variables like initial income per capita, initial literacy rate, sectoral composition, and inflation rate are taken as control. The results tend to establish the fundamental effects of economic freedom in fostering economic growth. Three individual dimensions of economic freedom namely size of government, strong rule of law, and flexible regulations governing credit, labour, and product markets are likely to exert beneficial impacts on income growth. Initial income per capita exerts a positive impact, thus proving the prevalence of regional divergence on this front. High human capital, greater share of the services and inflation exert direct impact on growth.     

The cliometrics of academic chairs. Scientific knowledge and economic growth: the evidence across the Italian Regions 1900–1959

The paper elaborates and tests two hypotheses. First, that knowledge is not a homogeneous activity, but rather a bundle of highly differentiated disciplines that have different characteristics, both in terms of generation and exploitation, that bear a differentiated impact on economic growth. Advances in scientific knowledge that can be converted into technological knowledge with high levels of fungibility, appropriability, cumulability and complementarity have a higher chance to affect economic growth. Second, that academic chairs are a reliable indicator of the amount and types of knowledge being generated by the academic system. Hence the analysis of the evolution of the academic chairs of an academic system is a promising area of investigation. In this paper the exploration of the evolution of the size and the disciplinary composition of the stock of academic chairs in five Italian macro-regions in the years 1900–1959 provides an opportunity to understand the contribution of scientific knowledge to economic growth in each regional system. The econometric analysis confirms that advances in engineering and chemistry, as proxied by the number of chairs, had much a stronger effect on the regional economic growth than advances in other scientific fields. These results have important implications for research policy, as they highlight the differences in the economic effects of academic disciplines, and for the economics of science, as they support the hypothesis that academic chairs can be used as reliable indicators of on-going research activities in the different types of scientific knowledge.     

The way from Lomé A system of customs preferences in the period of economic crisis

In his contribution the author deals with the topical range of problems with the legacy of the most significant customs and political phenomenon of the 20th century, with the spirit of Lom6 manifesting itself in the General System of Customs Preferences （GSP）. The idea of solidarity incorporated in the form of common bodies and common decision process, in the conditions of the financial crisis changed to a real menace to the European Union financial stability.     

Free trade agreements for the environment? Regional economic integration and environmental cooperation in East Asia

Traditionally, it has been argued that increased economic competition through free trade agreements would bring about environmental degradation. This study, however, argues that recent international free trade agreements have tended to enhance environmental cooperation among participating countries. This study has examined the process by which East Asian countries have developed mechanisms for the extant level of regional environmental cooperation, particularly highlighting the reasons for commonalities and differences in regional environmental cooperation between ASEAN and the dominant economies in the region. It finds that three factors particularly matter for developing regional environmental cooperative mechanisms: networks of intergovernmental organizations, the strong willingness of political leaders which is often embodied in national strategies for regionalism and the establishment, and the institutionalized linkage—particularly through FTAs—between trade and the environment. Tracing the process of policy evolution within three groups of countries sheds light on the political conditions under which the four entities involved (the ASEAN, Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea) have produced and strengthened cooperative environmental mechanisms among them along with free trade agreements. Focusing especially on the environmental policy changes in Japan, China, and the ROK associated with the creation of its FTAs with ASEAN, the study concludes that each of free trade agreements has incrementally developed environmental cooperation, especially when integrated into a vision for regional integration.     

Venture’s economic impact in Australia

We empirically compare the contributions of venture capital (VC) and private equity backed firms, including those backed by government subsidized innovation investment funds (IIFs), in the Australian economy by analyzing employment, R&D, patents, time to IPO, and market capitalization from market inception to August 2012. Overall, the data highlight a central role for VC and IIF investment in facilitating R&D, innovation, and economic growth. Our IIF findings highlight the success of government sponsorship of VC under the Australian program design, which is sharply in contrast with the lack of success of government venture programs in other countries.     

The relationship between parents and adult children in the economic culture of rural Netherlands, 1880–1910

This study examines the complexity of contradictory interests in the relationship between parents and adult children among agricultural wage laborers in rural Netherlands about 1900. One important potential issue of conflict was the marriage of children. In the case of wage laborers, Hajnal's independent livelihood theory is not really helpful in explaining regional differences in age at marriage. Marriage is viewed as a problem of balance and competition between the livelihood problems of parents and children. Two main issues of wage laborers are dealt with: the help adult children give to elderly parents and the control of the earnings of unmarried adolescent and adult children by their parents. Regional variations in children's help and parental control are measured and explained using four independent variables: extent of property ownership by wage laborers, extent of their production for the market (and need for unpaid family labor), wage level, and percentage who belonged to traditional religions in the village. Statistical analysis suggests that the property of agricultural wage laborers was most important in explaining variation in parent–child relationships. Wage level and religion also showed considerable explaining power, particularly for wages earned by unmarried children.     

The economic costs and consequences of mass communications data retention: is the data retention directive a proportionate measure?

This article seeks to determine the economic costs and consequences of implementing the Data Retention Directive (Directive 2006/24/EC), an extraordinary counter terrorism measure that mandates the a priori retention of communications data on every European citizen, by drawing on the insights of economic analysis. It also explores the monetary costs of the Directive on subscribers and communications service providers of Member States within the EU. Furthermore, it examines the implications of the Directive on the economic sector of the European Union, by focusing on the Directive’s impact on EU competitiveness and other EU policies such as the Lisbon Strategy. This analysis is motivated by the following questions: what are the monetary costs of creating and maintaining the proposed database for data retention? What are the effects of these measures on individuals? What obstacles arise for the global competitiveness of EU telecommunications and electronic communications service providers as a result of these measures? Are other policies in the European Union affected by this measure? If so, which ones?     

Procreation,family and ‘progress’: Administrative and economic aspects of Ottoman population policies in the 19th century

The making of the modern Ottoman state in the 19th century was closely interrelated with population issues and policies. ‘Population’ became an important component of Ottoman history throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. As the state identified the ‘population’ as a source of income after the Tanzimat, it tried to protect and procreate it through certain institutional arrangements and regulations. These policies consisted of protecting the existing population, controlling population movements, promoting procreation, and giving subsidies and lending money at interest to peasant families. The procreation policies included enforcement of marriages and encouragement of reproduction within marriages while they discouraged traditional birth control methods and practices. As in any other context, Ottoman families resisted the policies of procreation and pressures coming from the central government. This paper will examine the state's policies toward families and individuals as well as the responses of the people to these policies. I will attempt to construct a model based on the protection and the procreation policies of the modern Ottoman state, which will be an important springboard toward building a basis for conducting comparative analysis with other European states. By doing this, I will try to challenge some of the established assumptions on the nature of the ‘modern state’ in the 19th century.     

Effect of China’s rise on East Asian economic integration

This article discusses the effect of China’s economic rise on East Asian economic integration and concludes that the emergence of China as an increasingly important economic power has made a great contribution to Asian economic integration mainly through four channels: being a main importer and FDI destination country for most Asian countries under the processing export pattern; the renminbi’s more active image in the regional currency cooperation and its potential role as one of the core regional currencies in the future; playing a more important role in the regional political affairs and having an increasing potential to be part of the political core power (together with Japan); the demonstration and stimulative effects made by the motion of the FTA between China and ASEAN.

Does more crime mean fewer jobs and less economic growth?

This paper employs an Autoregressive Distributed Lags approach to investigate how a set of economic variables and a deterrence variable affect criminal activity. Furthermore, it highlights the extent to which crime is detrimental to economic activity. The case study is Italy for the time span 1970 up to 2004. A Granger causality test is implemented to establish temporal interrelationships. The empirical evidence shows that the lack of deterrence positively affects each type of crime and especially thefts. All crime typologies have a negative effect on legal economic activity, reducing the employment rate. Furthermore, homicides, robbery, extortion and kidnapping have a crowding-out effect on economic growth.     

Structural convergence in Russia’s economic transition, 1990–2002

This paper examines structural change in Russia’s transition in 1990–2002 as measured by the changing composition of output, employment, and end use of GDP. Using an international panel data sets as a frame of reference, it calculates a series of indexes to determine the extent to which the Russian economy is converging towards market economies in the course of market transformation. Our methodology lets us analyze the changes in the structural profile of the economy using the entirety of the available data rather than individual performance indicators. We find that Russia has become structurally similar to the benchmark market economies in the upper-middle income group and the lower tier of high-income countries. At the same time, the extent of labor reallocation remains inadequate and Russia’s pattern of consumption remains distorted due to the incomplete price liberalization.

Stealing more is better? An economic analysis of Islamic law of theft

This study is the first attempt (in the field of Law and Economics) to apply economic analysis to shari’a or Islamic criminal law, in particular, that aspect of the law pertaining to theft. Shari’a imposes two main punishments for theft; hadd, a fixed penalty of amputation of the offender’s right hand under certain conditions and ta’zir, a discretionary punishment, less severe than hadd. From the viewpoint of marginal deterrence and multiplier principles, lesser crimes with low social harm are punished more severely with hadd whereas crimes with high social harm are punished with ta’zir. Moreover, as the probability of detection and sanction is less in those crimes of high social harm, criminals would have more incentive to commit them. Consequently, if Islamic criminal law is to be applied in its current form, crimes of high social cost are likely to become more frequent.     

Should I help my neighbor? Self-interest,altruism and economic analyses of rescue laws

This article shows that the economic analyses of rescue laws developed in the ‘70s are the outcome of a long-term process that began at the end of the 1950s with the passing of the first legislations intended to promote and control rescue behaviour (the so-called “good Samaritan” legislations, acts or statutes) and that finally results in the economic models of rescue developed by Landes and Posner (The Journal of Legal Studies, 7(1):83–128, 1978a; The American Economic Review, 68(2):417–421, 1978b). The article investigates the context that made the occurrence of the economic analysis of rescue law possible and the controversies that it fueled in both the legal and economic fields. It also highlights the influence of the economic analysis of altruism on this particular field of law and economics.     

Correction to: The influence of standards and patents on long‑term economic growth

The Journal of Technology Transfer -