Innovative regulations,incomplete contracts and ownership structure in the water utilities

Using an incomplete contract framework, we analyse new forms of regulation and private participation in public services. This paper explains contractual efficiency in the absence of financially guaranteed investments in public private partnerships. The example of a number of African countries underlines how a series of national, normative law reforms can give rise to innovations in approaches to regulation. This new hybrid form of regulation, inspired by a French regulation approach combining commission regulation and franchise bidding, could be more effective than previous approaches to regulation, in the sense of being more stable and more closely aligned with stakeholder expectations. This approach to regulation would appear to be more efficient economically, while integrating the objectives of solidarity tariffs and social water access connections. Based on these analyses, our results show (1) the impact on the robustness of new lease contracts on financing constraints, and (2) the advantages of Asset Owner Companies that reconcile explicit commitments and special purposes. We demonstrate that this achieves optimum efficiency by encouraging parties to determine jointly the optimal level of costs and investment. In addition, the mechanism fosters discussion about the possibility of institutionalizing Asset Owner Companies by predetermining the distribution of risk in lease contracts.     

Procompetitive dual pricing

We analyze the procompetitive effects of dual pricing, that is, input market price discrimination. An upstream firm has an incentive to maintain competition downstream which is realized by selling at an advantageous price to an inefficient downstream firm when discrimination is possible while it would exit under uniform pricing. We augment the exit issue into existing frameworks of Katz (Am Econ Rev 77:154–167, 1987), DeGraba (Am Econ Rev 80:1246–1253, 1990), and Yoshida (Am Econ Rev 90:240–246, 2000) which allows us to show that price discrimination in intermediary goods markets tends to have positive effects on allocative, dynamic and productive efficiency, respectively. In contrast, a discrimination ban tends to facilitate exit of relatively inefficient firms, thereby strengthening downstream market concentration.     

Appayya’s Vedānta and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Vedāntakataka

The seventeenth century author Nīlaka??ha Caturdhara wrote several works criticising the Vedāntic theology of the sixteenth century author, Appayya Dīk?ita. In one of these works, the Vedāntakataka, Nīlaka??ha picks out two doctrines for criticism: that the liberated soul becomes the Lord (ī?varabhāvāpatti), and that souls thus liberated remain the Lord until all other souls are liberated (sarvamukti). These doctrines appear both in Appayya’s Advaitin and in his ?ivādvaitin writings. They appear to be ones to which Appayya was committed. They raise theological and conceptual problems, however, both in themselves as doctrines, and as part of nondual Vedāntic teaching. A study of the Vedāntakataka reveals those features of Appayya’s Vedānta that Advaitins in Banaras in the century after his life considered to be anomalous, and illuminates aspects of the context in which his ideas developed and circulated.     

Is <Emphasis Type="Italic">Viveka</Emphasis> a Unique <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pramāṇa</Emphasis> in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Vivekacūḍāmaṇi</Emphasis>?

This is an enquiry based on the Vivekacū?āma?i (VC), the primary focus of which is to present viveka (discrimination) along with its three catalysts, namely, ?ruti, tarka, and anubhava as the unique pramā?a of Ultimate Knowledge. This paper discusses the significance of the six popular pramā?as of Advaita Vedānta (AV) and reiterates that as far as AV is concerned epistemologically those pramā?as have merely a provisional value (vyāvahārika). In accordance with the purport of VC this paper argues that ?ruti and tarka, culminating in anubhava (trans-empirical insight sans experience) are blind in themselves and are enthusiastically carried forward by viveka (discrimination) for the attainment of the final realisation. This paper concludes that viveka, along with its three catalysts namely, ?ruti, tarka, and anubhava is the sole pramā?a of the trans-empirical experiential knowledge of Brahman.     

Compensation for nuclear damage: a comparison among the international regime,Japan and China

Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, how the compensation system for nuclear damage should be improved has obtained broad attention. The compensation system, including liability rules, insurance and government involvement, does not only concern to what extent the victims can be sufficiently compensated, but is also relevant to create incentives for the nuclear industry to enhance safety. International compensation regimes for nuclear damage started to emerge since 1960s, but still fail to engage some (potentially) big “nuclear power” ones. The Japanese and Chinese systems are such ones which received less attention until recently. This paper will, on the one hand, engage in a positive study by giving a comparison between the international regime, the Japanese and the Chinese system; on the other hand, provide a normative analysis by using economic criteria to examine the efficiency of the systems and formulate suggestions for reform.     

Gender Arguments and Paradigmatic Challenges within Intimate Partner Violence Research: A Call for a more Inclusive Paradigm of Understanding Regarding Physical Partner Violence Perpetration

This paper suggests that the epistemology surrounding intimate partner violence (IPV) is flawed due to two areas in particular: 1) an overreliance on quantitative methodologies that lack the detailed and contextual information required for complex understandings of IPV and 2) the minimization of alternative theoretical perspectives on the meaning of gender. Although an ecological perspective to understanding IPV has been advocated by the World Health Organization as a useful theoretical framework from which to understand IPV (Krug et al. 2002), few empirical studies have tested this complex perspective. We suggest that broader research approaches may prove useful in shedding light on non-conventional IPV experiences, potentially broadening our understanding of this complex phenomenon.     

Current Controversies Concerning Gender Differences in Perpetration of Physical Partner Violence

The article provides a general background for this special issue, describing its starting point and goals, and their implementation guidelines.     

Retrieving administrative data to assess long-term outcomes: a case study of the 23-year follow-up of the Milwaukee domestic violence experiment

Objectives

To describe how social scientists, criminal justice practitioners, and administrative agencies collected administrative data to follow-up a criminological experiment after two decades. To make recommendations that will guide similar long-term follow-ups.

Methods

A case study approach describes the processes of and sociological benefits to collecting administrative data to assess criminal justice and life-course outcomes.

Results

While maintaining experimental integrity, we developed, executed, and verified processes to retrieve arrest, mortality, and residential data for the experimental subjects, which enabled us to complete the longest ever follow-up of a criminal justice experiment.

Conclusions

When experiments have policy implications, administrative data may be preferable to survey data for assessing primary effects. Successful social science research can be conducted in conjunction with multiple administrative agencies.