Displacing your Principal. Two Historical Case Studies of Some Interest for the Constitutional Future of Europe

The framework of public decisions, and particularly the provision of law, is seen here as an agency contract. What distinguishes this contract is the nature of the right delegated to the agent: The capacity to make law gives the opportunity to take advantage of the incompleteness of the constitutional contract. The agency relationship may be loosened or even reversed. This article tries to draw some lessons from the English and American history in that matter and applies them to the making of the future European State.     

Inspections Services and Inter-Rater Reliability: Differentiating Professional Role Identities of Dutch Veterinary Inspectors

Inter-rater reliability is a prominent topic within inspection services. We address inter-rater reliability as a problem beyond the technical concern for improving regulatory instruments. We combine theories on professionalism and identity theory to deal with an issue overlooked in much of the literature on regulation and inter-rater reliability: the potentially diverging ways inspectors perceive their professional role. Studying veterinary inspectors in the Dutch food safety services, our focus is on how we can empirically differentiate between different role identities and how these identities diverge from ideal-typical expectations the organization holds of its inspectors.     

In the Public Eye: Sustainability and the UK's Leading Retailers

This paper aims to provide an exploratory case study of the sustainability agendas being publicly reported by the UK's leading retailers and to offer some wider reflections on the ways these retailers are currently addressing and pursuing sustainability agendas. The paper begins with a short discussion of the characteristics of sustainability. The paper draws its empirical material from the most recent information on sustainability posted on the UK's top 10 retailers' corporate web sites. The findings reveal that all the UK's top 10 retailers provide information on a wide range of environmental, social and economic sustainability agendas and that the majority of them essentially argue that by integrating sustainability into their businesses, they are better placed to provide long term growth. More critically, the authors argue that the UK's leading retailers are, at best, adopting a ‘weak’ model of sustainability and that in pursuing continuing growth, they are ignoring the basic fact that present patterns of consumption are unsustainable in the long term. The paper provides an accessible review of, and some reflections on, the sustainability agendas being pursued by the UK's leading retailers and as such it will interest academics and those working in management positions within the retail and the retail supply industries. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Keine Präklusivfrist für die Geltendmachung des Anhebungsrechts wegen Unternehmensverpachtung

Die Anhebung des Hauptmietzinses im Fall der Unternehmensverpachtung nach § 12a Abs 5 MRG ist – im Gegensatz zur Unternehmensver?u?erung – nicht befristet.     

Betting shops in the public eye: A commentary

Betting shops are a familiar feature in towns and cities throughout the UK. However, in recent years, increasing social and political concerns have been expressed about the presence of betting shops in high streets and about the role of betting shops in encouraging gambling. Such concerns include the concentration of betting shops in areas of social deprivation, the impact of such shops on the vitality of and viability of town centres, the perceived links between betting shops and both anti‐social behaviour and criminal activity and the presence of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in betting shops. This commentary paper outlines the origin and characteristics of betting shops, explores some of the recent concerns betting shops have attracted and offers some brief concluding reflections on the impact of policy responses to these concerns.     

A commentary on strategic land promotion in the UK

The supply of land for new housing within the UK is an important and a contested issue. Strategic land promotion, namely, the identification, acquisition, and promotion of land through the planning system, has become a major element in contributing to government targets for new housebuilding in the UK. This brief commentary paper outlines the characteristics of strategic land promotion, provides illustrations of the range of schemes land promotion companies have pursued within the UK, and concludes with some wider reflections on the process.     

The Making of the French Civil Code: An Economic Interpretation

The code Napoleon has been one of the first (on such a scale), the most important and the most pervasive processes of codification that ever took place. The purpose of our paper is to provide an economic analysis of the making of this codification. We compare customary codification and contractual codification: while the former amounts to the crystallisation of socially accepted practices, the latter consists in a creation of rules through a writing process. These theoretical differences are less clear-cut when history mixes practices and reasoned arguments. We then show that the making of the code Napoleon reflects it since it borrows from the social contract and the spontaneous order traditions.     

Trade unions for EMU: Sectoral preferences and political opportunities

Surveys conducted on the political economy of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union have seldom considered the response of domestic interest groups, notably trade unions. This article contrasts and explains the positions on EMU adopted by major British, French and German trade unions, in the process reassessing the so‐called interest group approach to preference formulation. It is argued that while the impact of sectoral orientation appears significant, it is mitigated by the intervention of ideological and institutional factors. On a substantive level, unions turned out to be broadly supportive of what many had labelled a ‘monetarist’ project. If as is often argued, social and political cohesion is needed for monetary union to endure, this represents an important development.