Antitrust, Marketing Cooperatives, and Market Power

Marketing cooperatives are common in agricultural markets. This article explores their price and welfare effects and relates to antitrust legislation in the United States, the European Union, and some of the EU member states-in particular, Sweden. Welfare is higher with a monopoly cooperative than with a profit-maximizing monopoly, if the scope for price discrimination is small and if the world-market price is low relative to the domestic price. As the world-market price rises (or as price discrimination becomes more important), the welfare effect is reversed. The price-discrimination effect suggests that, as a marketing cooperative integrates vertically, welfare may fall. These results carry over to a duopoly with a cooperative firm and a profit-maximizing firm. In such a duopoly, the cooperative behaves more aggressively and obtains a larger market share. Empirical evidence supports these conclusions.     

Performativity and the project: enacting urban transport security in Europe

In April 2011, a large consortium of European rail and security suppliers, transport operators and research organisations launched the Secured Urban Transportation – European Demonstration (SECUR-ED) project with the objective of providing public transport operators with the means to enhance urban transport security. Drawing on a detailed study of the SECUR-ED project, this article examines the way in which the problem of urban transport security has been addressed in Europe. It analyses the SECUR-ED project as a performative space, in which risks and capabilities are identified, enacted and contested, and relations across public and private actors are forged. Combining the literature on the performativity of security with John Law’s work on “the project”, the article proceeds by assessing how, in the context of SECUR-ED, connections and continuities are performed across European differences and across public–private space. Hence, it argues that the main function of the project was precisely this: to enact a common security culture, outlook or network in the realm of mass transportation in Europe. This is not a stable culture, but one that is subject to multiple possibilities for re-articulation and mis-performing. The article aims to engage with these moments of re-articulation by focusing on the situated practices of mass transport security. It concludes with a critical analysis of the broader European Union project for security research under the Seventh Framework Programme.     

通过环境媒介保护的健康保护——空气和水污染防治

德国环境法的法律渊源主要包括德国联邦法律、各州法律、欧盟法和国际条约。德国环境法有预防、污染者付费、合作、可持续发展和一体化五个核心原则。在对空气和水污染的规制方法上,除了传统的许可和指令方法外,还经常使用规划、环境影响评估和战略环境评估、环境信息和经济方法。环境保护的国家目标被写进了德国《宪法》后,联邦宪法法院判例又赋予了公民针对个人实施环境污染行为启动宪法保护程序的权利。污染防治方面的核心法律是《联邦污染防治法》,其核心要素是在许可等方面的程序规定。德国将欧盟的《水资源框架指令》转化为《水资源法》在国内实施,该法的核心原则是任何水域利用行为都必须申请行政机关的许可或者同意。     

Fiscal rules,fiscal outcomes and financial market behaviour

Since the outbreak of the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis, a range of fiscal policy measures have been adopted at the European Union (EU) and national levels that have given rise to claims of a significant reinforcement of fiscal policy constraint. Given the prominence and reinvigorated political appeal of fiscal rules in the EU and beyond, it is disconcerting how little we actually know about the link between fiscal rules, budgetary outcomes and market behaviour. In this research note, the aim is to take stock of the existing literature and challenge its contribution to the current policy debate on the merits of fiscal rules. Specifically it will focus on problems linked to endogeneity, measurements and contextuality.     

Financial industry mobilisation and securities markets regulation in Europe

The 2007–2009 financial crisis has led to considerable debate about the role of financial industry actors in global regulatory processes. This article seeks to contribute to this debate by assessing when and why financial industry actors mobilise in order to influence securities markets regulations. Do these mobilisation patterns suggest undue influence by a small set of powerful industry actors, or do they reflect the engagement of a more diverse set of actors representing broader public interests? It is argued that variation in mobilisation patterns is a function of: (1) institutional opportunity (the openness and accessibility of regulatory politics); and (2) demonstration effects (how crises increase the salience of regulatory issues). Empirical analyses suggest that the financial crisis diminished the diversity of mobilising actors. This trend, however, is reversed when the news media disseminate information about the costs of weak financial regulation and thereby increase the salience of regulatory issues.     

论水土保持法的执法障碍及对策思考

《中华人民共和国水土保持法》实施以来,水土保持执法工作取得了很大的成绩,但目前我国水土保持执法中还存在一些问题,这在一定程度上影响了水土保持工作的进程,降低了水土保持部门行政执法的能力。强化水土保持执法工作的对策有:修改现行的水土保持法、加大水土保持法制宣传力度,强化水土保持执法责任制、赋予执法主体更多的权利,加强水土保持执法的民主性等等。     

Factors affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya

This paper examines how three sustainability factors (water supply, regulatory policy, local management) are affecting the sustainability of a community water supply project in Kenya. Findings show that after 10 years the project is at a threshold of sustainability – it may yet fail. Changing rainfall patterns and additional withdrawals from new projects are threatening available water supply. The community is resisting compliance with water sector reforms including those intended to benefit community-managed projects. Community management deficiencies and a lack of supportive external relationships are impeding project continuity and sustainable local water management.     

Eleven theses on markets and civil society1

Abstract

Civic engagement, through voluntary associational membership, is touted as the keystone of community. It is within these groups where people get a chance to come together to form the necessary social network connections needed to accomplish collective endeavors. Civic engagement can have a bridging effect, bringing disparate people and communities together. Civic engagement can also have a bonding effect on members, which builds strong in-group ties, putting the membership at odds with outsiders. This article examines the relationship between voluntary associations and social network diversity. Since civic engagement is considered a resource, vis-à-vis social capital (where more is always better), the relationship between social network diversity and multiple group membership is isolated. The type of group is also taken into consideration, because the nature of some organizations, e.g., religious and neighborhood associations, can prove an impediment to diversity. Using the national sample of the ‘Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, 2000,’ I find that membership in voluntary civic organizations has a positive relationship with social network diversity in the United States. Multiple group membership, as well as participation in neighbourhood associations and arts and book clubs, shared a positive relationship with social network diversity.     

证券市场“扩容—转板”制度研究

市场扩容量大小形成扩容值,市场转板量多少构成转板值。证券市场扩容规模符合市场发展要求时,可以适当设计市场转板制度。在证券市场既定的规模基础上,微调市场制度设计的扩容值和转板值。不同的扩容和转板赋值,将会形成不同的发展路径,产生不同的市场发展前景。     

The geopolitics of Brazilian soybeans

Soybean plays a major role in the development of Brazilian agribusiness, and in turn in Brazilian geopolitical power as well. It is a pillar of Brazil's insertion into a ‘new multi-polar world order’ as basis for much Brazilian land ownership in neighboring countries, for the extension of political influence in Africa, and it is especially important for balancing trade with Brazil's new primary commercial partner, China. Yet the US dollar and North Atlantic transnational companies still control global soybean markets and production technologies. In a context marked by booming but volatile commodity prices, food crises, riots and revolutions in food-importing countries, a global rush for farmland, and severe droughts and climate change, the soybean agribusiness in Brazil takes on new and crucial geopolitical significance. I trace the geopolitical role it has served in consolidating the ‘green revolution’ in Brazil, and raise questions about the intersection between agroindustrial markets and currencies: could agricultural commodities serve geopolitical functions (and thus contestation) similar to those ‘petro-dollars’ have served since the 1970s? These considerations show how the political ecology of soybean shapes and is shaped by inter-regional and global-scale processes, and reveals new directions for research on the emerging geopolitical landscape of our century.