On The Odiousness of Greek Debt

Unlike the popular narrative, which suggests that the Greek debt crisis was the result of lavish spending, this article demonstrates that the ‘crisis’ was generated by a transformation of purely private debt into public debt. This finding is supported by the preliminary report of the Greek Parliamentary Committee on the Truth of the Greek Debt, which clearly showed that the exponential increase of private debt in Greece risked the collapse of the private financial institutions exposed to it, namely Greek, French and German banks. This resulted in pressure on the Greek government to recapitalise and nationalise Greek banks through Eurozone and IMF funding. This funding, which came to be known as ‘bailout for Greece’ was nothing more than the rescue of private banks through EU taxpayers' money, only 5% of which went into the Greek economy. The article shows that the process by which the debt was transformed, as well as the post‐crisis bailout were odious, illegal and illegitimate and the ensuing debt itself was unsustainable and wholly against fundamental human rights.     

古希腊私法文化萌生与法治理念形成

作为西方思想文化摇篮的古希腊是西方法治思想的发源地,亦是私法文化的萌生地。古希腊比较健全的私有制和奠基于其上的比较发达的商业贸易经济,为私法的产生、存在和发展提供了一个较为坚实的社会经济条件。古希腊的城邦民主制度为私法的形成提供了良好的法治环境。私有制度、财产观念、商业精神和民主制度促进了希腊私法文化的萌芽。希腊人把法律作为建立一种理性、正义的秩序的重要依据;同时,也把法律看成安全、自由、权利的保障。希腊城邦的法治精神也因此而奠定。这种法治思想体现了人性的要求,是私法精神的理论基础。     

The efficacy of the Egyptian bank reform plan in mitigating the impact of the global financial crisis

This study tests the ability of the Egyptian Bank Reform Plan (2004–2009) to enhance bank efficiency and attain the prime national macroeconomic objectives of generating youth employment, stabilizing consumer prices and managing national debt, which were significantly impacted by the global financial crisis (GFC). The Pedroni Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) method is employed and the period covered extends from 2003:01 till 2010:03. The results of the study reveal that the bank reform program has helped the economy weather the impact of the global economic meltdown. On the whole, the reformed banking sector showed evident success in helping the Central Bank of Egypt achieve its nominal anchor of price stability, with the highest outcome delivered by foreign banks. State banks are the most efficient in creating jobs and financing national debt. Private domestic banks are fairly functional in job creation and financing foreign debt. While these results attest to the general success of the reform in mitigating the impact of the blow of the GFC, further enhancement of the role of foreign banks is needed to attain the other two macroeconomic goals.     

Public–Private Partnerships in International Agricultural Research: An Analysis of Constraints

Public–private partnerships are a potentially important means of conducting pro-poor agricultural research in many developing countries. Yet within the international agricultural research sector, there are few examples of successful collaboration that have contributed to food security, poverty reduction or agricultural development. This study hypothesizes that partnerships between public research agencies and private, multinational firms are constrained by fundamentally different incentive structures; prohibitive costs, both direct and indirect; mutually negative perceptions between the sectors; and high levels of competition and risk associated with valuable assets and resources. Based on a survey of key stakeholders and a review of the literature, findings suggest that the primary impediments to partnership are perceptions, competition and risk, while issues of costs and conflicting incentives are secondary. These findings suggest that investment in innovative organizational mechanisms and supportive public policies could facilitate more, and more successful, public–private partnerships in pro-poor agricultural research.     

Venturing into uncharted financial waters: an essay on climate-friendly finance

This paper explores links between global financial imbalances and tensions around reserve currency along with climate change. Currently, risky levels of private and public debts coexist with vast amounts of savings that “do not know where to go.” Long-term climate-oriented financial products could enhance investors’ confidence in low-carbon projects (LCP) and channel to them large amounts of private savings. The paper outlines a financial architecture, the cornerstone of which is an agreement on the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) integrated into a project’s appraisal and acting as a surrogate for a carbon price. This SCC would be the value of carbon certificates issued by the government and delivered to banks to issue credit facilities reducing the risk-adjusted costs of LCPs. These carbon certificates could be gradually transformed into legal reserve assets of the banks after verification of the reality of the projects. Finally, the paper considers whether such certificates would be recognized as genuine international reserve assets, backed by the rising value of carbon over time. It shows how emerging countries could then diversify their foreign exchange reserves through an asset based on the international recognition of climate as a global public good.     

Umbilical cord blood banking: beyond the public-private divide

Umbilical cord blood is a source of haematopoietic progenitor cells, which are used to treat a range of malignant, genetic, metabolic and immune disorders. Until recently, cord blood was either collected through donations to publicly funded cord blood banks for use in allogeneic transplantation, or stored in commercial cord blood banks for use in autologous transplantation. The line between public and private cord blood banking is being blurred by the emergence of "hybrid" models that combine aspects of both the public and private systems. The authors describe these hybrid models and argue that their emergence is explained by both market forces and public sector policy They propose that the future of the sector will depend heavily on several key developments that will differentially affect public, private and hybrid banking models.     

Review of employee privacy issues: Implications for law enforcement and other public and private sector agencies

It has been predicted that the number of lawsuits filed for workplace privacy violations will increase over the next few years primarily because of advances in technological innovations and a change in how workplace privacy is defined. This could have implications for law enforcement agencies as well as other public and private sector agencies. This article examines current interpretations of workplace privacy both in the public and private sectors and how courts have traditionally ruled on various types of privacy issues.     

Inflation and the transition to a mixed economy: Can it work?

This paper reviews a number of possible scenarios for introducing a market element into a centrally planned economy, and analyses the financial relationships between the planned and the market sectors of the resulting mixed economy. It is argued that repressed inflation with some degree of excess demand and administrative price-control, is not neutral, but has distribution effects which greatly ameliorate the financial position of the state in a mixed economy in which the banking sector is still part of the state-controlled sector.     

公用事业公私合作合同的法律属性与规制路径——基于经济法视野的考察

公用事业公私合作合同是国家规范公用事业公私合作活动的重要法律工具,具有经济法的属性,应接受公法与私法的双重规制。就公法规制来说,政府应保留一定的公权力,并承担相应的义务,同时,私人部门也应承担一定的公法义务,其部分私权利要接受公法的限制。就私法规制来看,主要体现在基于契约精神对政府公权力进行限制,并要求政府承担相应的合作风险,以及在违反合同义务的时候,承担相应的民事法律责任。     

Law and the Financial Crisis: Searching for Europe's New Gold Standard

The role of law in the governance of the Eurozone confronts divergent economic and political perspectives which are reminiscent of the gold standard era. The Maastricht model sought to use to law to create a sound currency. In practice, fixed exchange rates caused large trade imbalances and risky cross‐border investments resulting in a Eurozone‐wide crisis of first private, and then later, public insolvency. In the face of continued political unwillingness to either pool fiscal resources or impose massive austerity and structural reform, the European Central Bank ECB has been forced to become lender of last resort to sovereigns to maintain the single currency. Ordo‐liberal critics argue that the ECB has created a transfer union in breach of the Maastricht agreement. Keynesians, by contrast, argue that, just as under the gold standard, using ‘constitutionalised’ austerity to rebalance trade is neither just nor credible. The Eurozone's reliance on law and markets above developed political institutions has failed, but no democratically legitimate process has replaced it.     

Reflections on the legal features of the socialist market economy in China

China’s socialist market economy is a market economy co-existing with a large public sector of the economy, affected by the State as a policymaker, a regulator and an important actor along with private ones; general interests in principle prevail over individual ones. A major role of the law is of providing the tools for administrative leadership and efficient macro-control. Legal and policy documents concur in indicating a model for the developing Chinese legal system: not as Western-style “rule of law” (r.o.l.); more and better socialist laws; effective supervision at all levels; intense macro-control over private economy; more efficient, law-abiding administration and legal institutions. The governing authorities are at different levels, according to the size/impact of each specific business, and each of them has or may have a say beyond the law, so implementing full macro- and micro-control on the market at various levels, through a substantial number of “policy checks” at appropriate junctions or in blank areas of the law. Differentiated “modes” of the law could be the results of a coordinated absorption within the socialist frame of values, mechanisms, norms, formants hailing from different sources.     

The challenge and imperative of private sector cybersecurity: An international comparison

Attacks on computers and information networks, both public and private, are disclosed in the news daily. Most recently, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter acknowledged that they were attacked and were now taking additional measures to secure their networks. In January of 2013, Kaspersky Labs reported discovering malware that not only targeted government information in Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics, and Central Asia, but also had been actively doing so since 2007. The scope of global cyber attacks is staggering and the solutions to securing property and protecting national security are illusive, in large part because infrastructure is owned and operated by private, rather than public, entities. Nations struggle with choosing the most effective strategy and potential regulation of the private sector in order to reduce overall cybersecurity risk. This paper reviews the nature of cyber threats, and compares the United States and European approach to promoting cybersecurity in the private sector. Furthermore, the paper discusses how different approaches can affect cybersecurity risk, and suggests a framework for visualizing the impact of law and strategy on security.     

Staff‐Prisoner Relationships,Staff Professionalism,and the Use of Authority in Public‐ and Private‐Sector Prisons

Prison privatization has generally been associated with developments in neoliberal punishment. However, relatively little is known about the specific impact of privatization on the daily life of prisoners, including areas that are particularly salient not just to debates about neoliberal penality, but the wider reconfiguration of public service provision and frontline work. Drawing on a study of values, practices, and quality of life in five private‐sector and two public‐sector prisons in England and Wales, this article seeks to compare and explain three key domains of prison culture and quality: relationships between frontline staff and prisoners, levels of staff professionalism (or jailcraft), and prisoners' experience of state authority. The study identifies some of the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of the public and private prison sectors, particularly in relation to staff professionalism and its impact on the prisoner experience. These findings have relevance beyond the sphere of prisons and punishment.     

The politics of managed competition: public abuse of the private interest

The doctrine of managed competition in health care sought to achieve the social goals of access and efficiency using market incentives and consumer choice rather than governmental regulation and public administration. In retrospect, it demanded too much from both the public and the private sectors. Rather than develop choice-supporting rules and institutions, the public sector has promoted process regulation and benefit mandates. The private health insurance sector has pursued short-term profitability rather than cooperate in the development of fair competition and informed consumer choice. Purchasers have subsidized inefficient insurance designs in order to exploit tax and regulatory loopholes and to retain an image of corporate paternalism. America's health care system suffers from the public abuse of private interests and the private abuse of the public interest.     

The sex industry,human trafficking and the global prohibition regime: a cautionary tale from Greece

Using the concept of global prohibition regimes as an analytical point of departure, this article interrogates the development and results of the agitation campaign that relayed the new global prohibition regime against trafficking for sexual exploitation in Greece after 1995. In line with the international trend towards the issue of trafficking in the 1990s, the Greek campaign has been successful in shaping perceptions of the change in the Greek sex industry on the basis of an equation of prostitution, trafficking and transnational organized crime, and it also successfully capitalized on transnational supports to induce changes in legislation and public policy. However, a critical examination of the Greek situation suggests that there is a considerable discrepancy between the above conceptualisation and the knowledge of the issue emerging from the activities of criminal justice agencies. The examination of the general conditions of economic exploitation and social marginalization of migrants in Greece in the 1990s and after reveals significant homologies between the social organization of the sex industry and other sectors of the economy that have depended on migrant labour. This result underscores the nature of the idea of organized crime as an ideological construct acting as a diversion from more substantive paths of inquiry into the structures of national economy that bear upon the exploitation of sexual labour.

环境保护中利益补偿法律机制的研究——权利救济公法化的经济学分析

权利的配置不仅左右收益或成本的转移 ,而且决定收益或成本的高低。因此 ,通过权利配置实现环境资源的价值最大化应是环境保护追求的目标。然而环境资源的公共物品属性 ,决定了其权利的初始配置应是一种社会化的权利。这种社会化的权利极易诱发私人权利采取“搭便车”行为对其进行侵蚀 ,因此 ,要实现环境资源价值最大化 ,就必须对遭受侵蚀的社会环境权利进行救济。但在此救济过程中 ,由于侵权人和社会环境权利的代理人 (国家 )之间存在着“信息不对称” ,如遵循传统私法救济方式 ,容易导致私法救济的“虚位” ,因此 ,需要突破传统权利救济的私法化局限 ,实现权利救济的公法化。     

The private sector and competition in health care markets

This paper reviews the historical trends in the regulatory and competitive approaches to containment of health care costs, covering efforts in both public and private sectors. The current interest in the potential of private-sector initiatives to stimulate competition in health care insurance and provider markets is highlighted. Since neither the workings of competition in health care nor the role and impact of the private sector in stimulating such competition are well understood, the concluding section discusses important research issues surrounding these topics.     

Friends,Enemies, or Strangers? On Relationships between Public and Private Sector Service Providers in Hybrid Forms of Governance

Hybrid forms of governance receive special attention in literature on regulatory reforms. It is often assumed that a combination of public and private sector involvement in a regulatory regime is superior to “pure public” or “pure private” regimes. By paying close attention to such hybrids, this article finds that hybrids have two key dimensions: first, the “amount” of public and private sector involvement in a hybrid, and second, the relationship between these sectors. Contrary to the former dimension, the latter hardly receives any attention in scholarship. This article addresses that knowledge gap. It introduces a typology of hybrids based on these two dimensions. A brief case study is introduced to discuss the value of the focus on relationships between public and private sector service providers.