Litigation,Judicial Path-Dependence,and Legal Change

In this paper we consider the role that litigation and case selection play in the process of legal change. After identifying two necessary conditions for litigation, we examine the effect of judicial path dependence on the consolidation of liability rules and legal remedies, paying special attention to litigation with different win–loss ratios. We study the consequence of private litigation decisions on the contraction or consolidation of legal rules under various litigation and judicial environments. We also consider the relevance of the win–loss ratios, the existence and nature of positive litigation costs, and the weight of past precedents on the ongoing process of legal evolution.JEL K0, K40, K13, K41     

Micro-finance evangelism, 'destitute women', and the hard selling of a new anti-poverty formula

This article challenges the recent uncritical enthusiasm for the potential of micro-finance institutions to reduce poverty. It is argued that, although understanding about how to design anti-poverty financial intermediation has improved, the current campaign to increase resource allocation in this sector may undermine the very sustainability that is being sought. Further, studies of the impact of micro-enterprise credit suggest that it is not necessarily beneficial to very poor people. Interventions in the provision of financial services should not be made without locally specific analysis of the functions of existing savings and credit facilities. An emphasis on scale acts as a disincentive to such analysis, and increases the risk of the reemergence of a 'blueprint' approach to anti-poverty action.     

Tunisian population data on 15 PCR-based loci

Genotype and allele frequencies distribution for 15 PCR-based loci included in the Promega PowerPlex 16 kit were determined for a Tunisian population sample of 196 unrelated individuals.     

‘I came naïve from the village’: on Palestinian urbanism and ruralism in Haifa under the British Mandate

ABSTRACT

During the Mandate period (1920–1948), Haifa attracted thousands of Palestinian rural migrants, who constituted a significant portion of its Arab population. The article examines the experience of rural migrants in urban life and the influence of this social group on urban society. I argue that rural migrants contributed to Haifa’s economic development, participated in political and cultural activity and formed a connecting link between the city and their villages of origin. Rural migrants played a significant role as agents of change in Palestinian society, owing to the conjunction of rural and urban characteristics in their daily life. To demonstrate this, I focus on three arenas of their agency: the labour market, civil society and militias during the Arab Revolt. Their involvement in civil associations and in the Arab Revolt was central to their construction of modernity, and they disseminated it in widening circles in their villages of origin and among their acquaintances in the city.     

French Corporate Governance in the New Global Economy: Mechanisms of Change and Hybridisation within Models of Capitalism

This article analyses the implications of the internationalisation of capital markets, and the influx of Anglo-Saxon institutional investors, for the French model of capitalism. Its central contention is that the global convergence thesis misrepresents contemporary evolutions because it pays insufficient attention to mechanisms of change within models of capitalism. Secondly, framing analysis in terms of hybridisation and fragmentation of national models, rather than convergence, offers greater explanatory purchase over the French model, constitutes a more accurate characterisation, and helps avoid the 'convergence or persistence' impasse within models of capitalism analysis. In exploring French corporate governance, it emphasises the importance of specifying the role of institutional mechanisms as transmission belts of change as a precursor to an assessment of how far shifts in international political economic context bring about changes within French capitalism. Focusing on financial market regulation regime, new legislation in corporate governance and company law, and the market for corporate control as three key potential mechanisms of change, it finds that pre-existing norms and structures endure, mediating the nature of a national political economy's articulation with the international context. Hybridisation and recombination of capitalist institutions drawn from different models provide a far more persuasive account than convergence.     

The social security earnings test and work incentives

The labor supply and benefit claiming incentives provided by the early retirement rules of the Social Security Old Age benefits program are of growing importance as the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) increases to 67, the labor force participation of Older Americans rises, and a variety of reforms to the Social Security system are considered. Any reform needs to take into account the effects and rationale of the Social Security Earnings Test and the Actuarial Adjustment Factor, which are likely to be widely misunderstood due to the relatively little attention paid by policymakers and researchers to the fact that Americans are willing to work while receiving benefits. We describe these incentives and emphasize that individuals who claim benefits before the NRA but continue to work, or return to the labor force, can reduce the early retirement penalty by suspending the collection of monthly benefits if they earn above the Earnings Test limit. We then argue that the Earnings Test can be distortionary and is costly to administer, and that these characteristics are inflated by the lack of information given to Older Americans regarding the consequences of working while receiving retirement benefits. We present results from statistical models of labor force exit behavior using data from the Health and Retirement Study showing the relevance of these incentives, and investigate the importance of informational asymmetries among beneficiaries regarding benefit withholding using a dynamic life‐cycle model of labor supply and benefit claiming. We then use the latter framework to compare the behavioral and welfare implications of a removal of the Earnings Test to the policy of providing more information regarding the Earnings Test and the adjustment of the rate of benefit pay to Older Americans. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Police Legitimacy and the Norm to Cooperate: Using a Mixed Effects Location-Scale Model to Estimate the Strength of Social Norms at a Small Spatial Scale

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Test whether cooperation with the police can be modelled as a place-based norm that varies in strength from one neighborhood to the next. Estimate whether...     

Spatio-temporal evolution of technology flows in China: patent licensing networks 2000–2017

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Technology transfer has become a vital pipeline for acquiring external knowledge. In this study, we propose new evidence on Chinese knowledge flows at a...