Das ABGB und das Sondermietrecht – die Entwicklung der vergangenen 100?Jahre

Aus Anlass des im Vorjahr vielfach gefeierten 200. Geburtstags des ABGB zeichnet der Beitrag die Entwicklung des Mietrechts nach, wobei – diesem Anlass entsprechend – das Bestandrecht des ABGB im Mittelpunkt steht. Die Rückschau konzentriert sich auf die Entwicklungslinien im Gesetzesrecht und beschr?nkt sich daher – mangels eines Legislativgeschehens zum Mietrecht im ersten Geltungsjahrhundert des ABGB – auf die vergangenen 100 Jahre. Die judikative Ausgestaltung der Gesetzeslage wird nur in gro?en Zügen angesprochen; auch hier liegt der Fokus in der Rechtsprechung zum ABGB-Bestandrecht. Der Aufsatz ist die modifizierte Fassung eines Beitrags des Autors zu der vonFischer-Czermak/Hopf/Kathrein/Schauer herausgegebenen Festschrift „200 Jahre ABGB“.     

Policy innovation in local jurisdictions: Testing for neighborhood influence in school choice policies

Before making difficult decisions, individuals tend to collect information on decision makers in reference groups. With respect to policy innovations in a decentralized public sector, this may give rise to positive neighborhood influence on adoption decisions. In this paper, U.S. school district data are used to show that decision makers indeed are heavily affected by decision makers in reference groups. The policy innovation under consideration is inter-district public school choice. The results suggest that if a given district's neighbors' expected benefits from adopting school choice policies increase, this substantially increases the original district's probability of adoption. The paper thus supports the view that the diffusion of policy innovations is stimulated by horizontal interaction among local governments.     

An analysis of the relationship between the additionality of CDM projects and their contribution to sustainable development

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows industrialised countries to use credits from greenhouse gas abatement projects in developing countries in order to fulfil their own emission reduction commitments. There has been mounting evidence that the CDM’s ability to fulfil its goals as stipulated by the Kyoto Protocol—contributing to the sustainable development of the host countries and delivering real, measurable and additional emission reductions—is less than satisfactory. In this article, an evaluation is made of CDM projects’ likelihood of being additional by assessing the impact Certified Emission Reductions have on the Internal Rate of Return of the individual projects. In addition, the projects’ sustainable development benefits are assessed by using a multi-criteria analysis. In a final step, the relationship between the projects’ additionality and sustainability contribution is assessed and a trade-off between these two CDM goals is established, revealing a potential inherent conflict in how the current mechanism works. The analysis is based on a systematic evaluation of 40 registered CDM projects in India.     

Weak Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in China: integrating political,cultural and structural explanations

The discrepancy between de jure and de facto protection of intellectual property rights in China remains a heatedly debated topic. Unfortunately, political motivations have distorted the debate from its very beginning, which has not only resulted in a tendency for the different explanations to be played off against each other, but has also reinforced their specific flaws and biases. This study addresses these problems by advancing and integrating the three main explanatory frameworks for explaining the situation. The resulting integrated framework finds that structural factors such as bureaucratic fragmentation and political decentralization matter most in practical terms, but their durability cannot be understood without putting them into context. The findings also suggest that, contrary to most predictions, the future development of intellectual property protection in China might not follow the path laid down by other countries that have modernized in the past.     

Leaving,Staying or Coming Back? Migration Decisions During the Northern Mali Conflict

This paper uses a unique dataset to analyse the migration dynamics of refugees, returnees and, internally displaced people from the Northern Mali conflict. Individuals were interviewed monthly using mobile phones. Our results cast light on the characteristics of these three groups before and after displacement. In addition, we test how employment and security were related to migration status, as well as the willingness to go back home. Individuals who were employed while displaced were less willing to go back to the North, while those who owned a gun were more likely to plan to go back. Additional indicators of personal safety played a lesser role.