Estimating damages from price-fixing: the value of transaction data

We use a unique private data set of about 340,000 invoice positions from 36 smaller and larger customers of German cement producers to study the value of such transaction data for an estimation of cartel damages. In particular, we investigate, first, how structural break analysis can be used to identify the exact end of the cartel agreement and, second, how an application of before-and-after approaches to estimate the price overcharge can benefit from such rich data sets. We conclude that transaction data allows such a detailed assessment of the cartel and its impact on direct customers that its regular application in private antitrust cases is desired as long as data collection and preparation procedures are not prohibitively expensive.     

Governing complex societal problems: The impact of private on public regulation through technological change

When addressing complex societal problems, public regulation is increasingly complemented by private regulation. Extant literature has provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of such complex governance structures, with most empirical studies focusing on how public regulation influences private regulation. Conversely, the impact of private on public regulation is less well studied. Here, we investigate this impact with a focus on technological change as possible mechanism. Based on a case study of energy efficiency in buildings in Switzerland, we find evidence of a symbiotic interaction between public and private regulation that leads to ratcheting-up of regulatory stringency. We identify technological change as the mechanism linking private and public regulation. We discuss the relevance of our findings for governance literature and regulators.     

Majority shareholder protection by variable qualified majority rules

In this paper, we analyze judicial review according to the German Stock Corporation Act (Aktiengesetz, §§ 243 et seqq.) and its blocking effect with the help of concepts of cooperative game theory. In particular, we suggest variable qualified majority rules as ingredients of arrangements which balance the interests of a majority shareholder and of the minority shareholders.

Democratic legitimacy in regional economic organizations: the European Union in comparative perspective

Regional organizations have been widely criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, but these criticisms have been rather ad hoc, concerned with single case studies and reliant on unclear standards or metrics. Are all organizations similarly deficient? And how does the European Union (EU), the target par excellence of the criticisms, fare in comparative perspective? In this paper, we take a first step towards answering these questions by leveraging the rich debate on the EU to identify several institutional dimensions of democratic legitimacy and operationalizing them for comparative analysis. We then investigate the most important regional economic organizations (REOs) in the world. Our findings are three-fold: (i) there is systematic variation across REOs, with a group doing rather well, one mixed, and one poorly; (ii) procedural dimensions fare better than those related to representation or local self-determination; (iii) no organization exhibits or lacks legitimacy in all dimensions. These results qualify the perception that democratic legitimacy deficits are indiscriminately pervasive and indicate that the EU belongs to the most democratically legitimate group.     

Innovation effects of universities of applied sciences: an assessment of regional heterogeneity

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The literature on the economics of science and technology shows that academic universities—institutions focusing on basic research—positively affect...     

Social Bots in Election Campaigns: Theoretical,Empirical, and Methodological Implications

Social bots mimic and potentially manipulate humans and their behaviours in social networks. The public sphere might be especially vulnerable to their impacts, which is why we first discuss their potential influence on the public sphere from a theoretical perspective. From an empirical perspective, we analyzed Twitter followers of seven German parties before (N = 638,674) and during (N = 838,026) the 2017 electoral campaigns regarding bot prevalence and activities. The results revealed that the share of social bots increased from 7.1% before to 9.9% during the election campaigns. The percentage of active social bots remained roughly the same. An analysis of the content distributed by both the most popular and the most active bots showed that they disseminate few political hashtags, and that almost none referred to German politics. We discuss the results against the background of normative traditions of public sphere theories and address the methodological challenges bots pose in political communication.     

The General on his Journeys. Augusto Pinochet’s International Trips and Diverging Transnational Justice and Memory Agendas in the Aftermath of the Cold War

Augusto Pinochet, comandante-en-jefe of the Chilean Army, was an avid global traveller in the 1990s. As the former military dictator had developed into a potent symbol of Cold War anti-communism, authoritarianism, and market radicalism, his trips across Latin America, East Asia, Southern Africa, continental Europe, and to the United Kingdom usually made a great stir. This article looks at public reactions, political debates, and legal consequences that were caused by Pinochet’s appearance. It argues that different attitudes towards the Chilean visitor reflected how local groups positioned and envisioned themselves in the transformative period around 1989. Drawing on documents from the Chilean Foreign Ministry, interviews with Chilean generals, and newspaper coverage from four continents, it demonstrates that many anti-communists as well as liberal economists did not see Pinochet as a representative of a criminal past. Rather, his “Chilean model” had become a source of legitimacy of an authoritarian path of modernisation.     

The impact of preferential trade agreements on governmental repression revisited

Previous research suggests that most treaties are ineffective in ensuring countries’ compliance with human rights standards. It has been argued, however, that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) including ‘hard’ human rights standards can withhold economic benefits and, thus, can have a real potential to substantially reduce human rights violations. The following article questions this as existent work on the effects of PTAs on human rights standards neglects a selection process underlying the implementation of these treaties. Countries being aware of the ‘shadow of the future’ already take into account what may happen at the succeeding enforcement stage when establishing a particular PTA. This implies that states agree on ‘hard’ human rights standards in PTAs only if they have a general propensity to abide by human rights in the first place. For testing the empirical implications of their argument, the authors collected new data on PTAs in 1976/77-2009, and employ genetic matching techniques. The results support the theoretical argument that PTAs are unlikely to affect human rights compliance when controlling for the outlined selection problem.