Seckendorff as an Economist in Comparison with Contemporary Writers

Seckendorff’s economic writings are compared with contemporary writers, most importantly with Johann Joachim Becher. There are considerable differences between Seckendorff and Becher with respect to character of personality and also with respect to the political environments within which they acted. Differences in the substance of their writings can often be attributed to these two factors. Seckendorff puts significantly more emphasis on general conditions of production, such as reliability of legal framework, a stable monetary system, etc., while he devotes less attention to interventionist measures of promotion of trades. Therefore, Seckendorff implicitly relies more on the spontaneous forces of economic activity. In comparison, Becher, with his activist eand even impatient attitude, advocates the launching of spectacular projects to accelerate economic development, supporting his proposals with theoretical arguments. There are also important aspects on which their views converge.     

A Different Reason for “De-Coasing” Environmental Law and Economics

The so-called Coase Theorem is one of the cornerstones of the Law and Economics approach. This paper investigates whether it is appropriate to apply the Coasean framework in the context of Environmental Law and Economics. Even when transaction costs are zero, it is argued that in the specific case of environmental policy the initial assignment of rights will seriously affect the final allocation of resources. To support this thesis empirical evidence backed up by theoretical explanations are presented. The methodological distinction between negligible, domain and heuristic assumptions and the elaboration of a ‘logical time’ of the Coase Theorem are crucial to understand why eventually the Coase Theorem should not be applied to the realm of environmental law and policy.JEL Classification: D23, K0, K32, Q2     

To What Extent are Cost Savings Passed on to Consumers? An Oligopoly Approach

Competition policy often asks whether a “fair share” of the benefits from cost savings obtained through mergers or agreements is passed on to the consumers. We assess the factorsthat determine cost pass-on in some partial-equilibrium oligopoly models, and show that, although the strength of the pass-on varies from one situation to another, there are some rules of thumb that give a first approximation of the pass-on rate. We also show that, contrary to common belief and to what is written about the subject in the European Commission's guidelines on the application of Article 81(3), in most circumstances cost pass-on does not depend on the price elasticity of demand nor on the market share of the cost saver, and that with competition the pass-on of firm-specific cost savings is weaker than without. JEL Classification: C72 (non-cooperative games), D43 (oligopoly), L40 (antitrust policy)     

Can Labelling Policies Do More Harm Than Good? An Analysis Applied to Environmental Labelling Schemes

In certain plausible circumstances, the introduction of labelling schemes can lead to adverse effects. In the case of ecolabelling, the adverse effects are an environmental degradation rather than an environmental improvement. To take into account the environmental sensitiveness or responsiveness of consumers, we introduce the concept of environmental elasticity which enables us to classify goods. In a basic analytical model, we describe the conditions under which different outcomes—overall impacts of change in environmental quality due to environmental labelling—arise after the introduction of an ecolabelling scheme. We show that an ecolabelling scheme can lead to an increase in purchases of environmentally sustainable products. The net effect on the environment can be worse than the initial situation without ecolabelling, because the environmental unit improvement is compensated by an over-consumption. We suggest several tests to detect this potential perverse effect, some policy implications to avoid it and stress the need for further research.JEL Classification: D11, L15, Q28     

Problems with Publishing: Existing State and Solutions

Survival in academia depends on publications in refereed journals. Authors only get their papers accepted if they intellectually prostitute themselves by slavishly following the demands made by anonymous referees without property rights to the journals they advise.Intellectual prostitution is neither beneficial to suppliers nor consumers. But it is avoidable. The editor (with property rights to the journal) should make the basic decision of whether a paper is worth publishing or not. The referees should only offer suggestions on how to improve the paper. The author may disregard this advice. This reduces intellectual prostitution and produces more original publications.JEL Classification: A11, Z00     

False and Reluctant Friends? National Money Laundering Regulation,International Compliance and Non-Cooperative Countries

In the aftermath of September 11th, growing attention has been paid to the role of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) in money laundering and terrorist financing. The paper, applying the new political economy approach in the law and economics field, provides a model to describe, through the policymaker payoff maximization, the relationships between specific country features and endowments, on the one hand, and lax financial regulations, on the other hand. Given that in the real world relatively lax regulation means a non-cooperative attitude in the international fight against money laundering and terrorist financing we empirically test the above theoretical relationship in the case of the NCCT jurisdictions. The policy consequences on the pros and cons of international blacklisting procedures are discussed.JEL K42, G28     

European Editors of Economics Journals—A General Discussion

In a final inquiry at the end of the Conference on Editorial Policies the three editors, Bruno S. Frey (Kyklos), Manfred J. Holler (Homo oeconomicus), and Jürgen G. Backhaus (European Journal of Law and Economics), were asked to comment on their editorial policies. They answered by explaining the challenges they were or still are confronted with, which strategies they have already developed to go on and of course what they have learnt from the deliberations at this conference. In their statements they referred to their preceding paper presentations, and the contributions by Wolfgang Bergsdorf, who is the chief editor of Die Politische Meinung, and Peter Senn.     

Benevolent Governance and Fiscal Federalism in Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Teutscher Fürsten Stat</Emphasis> (1656): Comment on Erik S. Reinert

The author comments on Erik S. Reinert’s presentation held at the 17{th} Heilbronn Symposion in Economics and the Social Sciences in June 2004.     

Optimal Pricing of Court Services

Litigants are generally charged for using court services. The charges involved are usually set to achieve a combination of efficiency, equity and funding goals. This paper presents a simple model, based on regulated monopoly pricing, to address the question of how these charges should be set. We find that fixed fees generally form part of the optimal charging package, despite concerns about their regressive nature. Per-unit fees will also be used though they may be set below cost; in this case, a trade-off emerges and the fixed fee is used to achieve funding goals. Our model is a useful one for developing extensions from the nonlinear pricing literature.JEL K40, L50