Welfare effects of forming a criminal organization

This paper develops a simple model to examine the economic consequences of two different criminal market structures in the private protection and extortion industry: (1) horizontal (decentralized) governance and market structure and (2) hierarchical (centralized) governance and market structure with a criminal organization. Forming a criminal organization produces positive or negative effects on its members and social efficiency. These results depend on the potential competitiveness among criminals and the ability of a criminal organization’s boss to target more valuable extortion victims.     

Contemporary art and unconditionality: ‘the genus of art’ in the art criticism of Chiba Shigeo

This article examines art criticism of the 1980s that sought to address the context and continuity of postwar Japanese avant-garde art. The emphasis is placed on the notion of ‘the genus of art [rui to shite no bijutsu]’, which the art critic Chiba Shigeo discussed in his Gendai bijutsu itsudatsushi (1986). Chiba argued for an autonomous current of postwar Japanese art separate from Western art history but the argument has been largely overshadowed by his ostensible nihonjinron. The term ‘the genus of art’, therefore, has not yet received an adequate critical treatment. The article rephrases this notion as a call for a more inclusive definition of art designed to challenge the conditions that regulate non-Western art. Rather than simply being a nationalist polemic against Western art history from a marginalized place, Japan, ‘the genus of art’ was intended to revitalize and redefine the aims of the avant-garde within the context of ‘contemporary art’. By fleshing out the textual details of ‘the genus of art’ and situating the notion within a larger discourse that interrogated the semiotic role of ‘Japan’ in a global exhibition context, the study repositions Chiba's writing as a potential argument for unconditional acceptance, or unconditionality, as one important ethical contribution of contemporary art.     

Voles don't take taxis

Johnson's paper advances understanding of sequences of burglaries committed by the same offender. Furthermore, it has heuristic value in suggesting new avenues for applicable research. Each of the current data shortcomings represents an opportunity for novel research approaches, and the optimum forager metaphor holds continuing appeal as an organizing principle helpful to operational policing.     

A Regulation of Bids for Dual Class Shares. Implication: Two Shares—One Price

This paper examines the consequences of a specific regulatory restriction on bids for dual class shares. Shares of different classes are often argued to have different prices because a premium will be paid to the superior voting shares in the case of a tender offer. This paper assumes a setup where regulations require that a tender offer pays the same relative premium to both classes of shares. In this setup, it is shown that both classes will sell at the same price as long as there is a strictly positive probability that either the current management is sufficiently strong or that a sufficiently strong rival will show up. Furthermore, under this weak condition the regulation is socially optimal in the sense that the management that provides the highest total firm value will be the management of the firm. Finally, the regulation is shown to favor (or protect) the holders of restricted voting shares and this is not necessarily at the expense of the holders of superior voting shares.The practical interest of this paper derives from the fact that some European countries have adopted different regulatory restrictions on bids for dual class shares. This has more or less occurred due to proposed EU Directives. The regulation examined in this paper applies to tender offers in Denmark. Empirical results on the voting premium in Denmark are shown to be consistent with the theoretical results in this paper.     

BARGAINING OVER FIXED-TO-MOBILE TERMINATION RATES: COUNTERVAILING BUYER POWER AS A CONSTRAINT ON MONOPOLY POWER

The conventional wisdom that mobile operators are able to actas monopolists in pricing call termination on their networkshas recently been challenged by Hutchison 3G's entry into Europeanmobile markets. The European Commission's electronic communicationsregime allows national regulatory authorities to regulate mobiletermination rates if an operator is found to possess ‘significantmarket power’. This requires that the mobile operatornot be constrained by the ‘countervailing buyer power’of incumbents. The claim that incumbent operators possess countervailingbuyer power has been dismissed repeatedly because of their obligationto interconnect with other networks. This conclusion is erroneous.We analyse bargaining over fixed-to-mobile termination ratesand demonstrate that the existence of an interconnectivity obligationis entirely consistent with new entrants such as Hutchison 3Ghaving no market power at all in pricing call termination ontheir own networks.