Negotiated Third Party Access—An Industrial Organisation Perspective

In the course of the liberalization of European energy markets, the German government opted—diverging from all other European countries—for Negotiated Third-Party Access. In this article we analyze if, theoretically, this institutional regime can be superior to regulation. We review empirically whether certain aspects of the actual implementation, in particular publication of the network access charges for each network supplier, facilitated or inhibited competition. In the first place we reconsider previous research, showing that NTPA can—under certain conditions—be economically effective. Our empirical analysis shows that the duty of publishing access charges supported market transparency and imposed a regulatory threat, particularly to suppliers with significantly above-average charges. On the other hand observable price adjustments over time serve as an indicator of tacit collusion. Although the expensive suppliers cut their prices, the cheaper ones raised theirs.We thank Maik Heinemann, Joachim Wagner and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and the Lower Saxonian Ministry of Science and Culture for financial support.JEL Classification: D42, L43, L94     

法官的审判理念与实践

法官在审判活动中既需要把握体现在法律规则和司法制度中的理念,又需要通过自己的理念进行事实判断和法律解释。法官之所以有智慧,并不是因为他有理性,可以掌握一些法律的原理并根据这些原理处置他们的纠纷案件,而是因为法官能依据情景的可能性并能根据这种案件的实际状况来采取措施。一名称职的职业法官不应再限于法律知识学习,他要的是用智慧去追求法律整体的逻辑一贯性和条文之间的关联性,注重对规范合理性涵义的推敲与综合操作,留心于确认法条背后的共同原则和指导原理。     

违法性认识的体系定位与司法认定——基于588份刑事判决书的分析

在我国,案件审理中普遍采用\"违法性认识不必要说\",确定了\"不知法不免责\"的刑法原则.然而,违法性认识的司法实践表明,现有案例的裁判机理与判决结果极其不统一,不仅关于违法性认识的体系定位不统一,而且关于违法性认识的司法认定也不统一.在当今世界对违法性认识的考量正在慢慢发生变化的背景下,应将违法性认识确认为犯罪的成立要件,...     

A Review of: “With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right”∗

Recent evidence supports the important political role that political network size and distribution plays at both the individual and system levels. However, we argue that the evidence is likely stronger than the current literature suggests due to network size measurement limitations in the extant literature. The most common approach to measuring political network size in sample surveys—the “name generator” approach—normally constrains network size measurement to three to six individuals. Because of this constraint, research often undercounts individual network size and also leads to a misrepresentation of the distribution of the underlying variable. Using multiple data sets and alternative measurement approaches, we reveal that political network hubs—individuals with inordinately large network sizes not captured by name generators—exist and can be identified with a simple summary network measure. We also demonstrate that the summary network size measure reveals the expected differences in communicative, personality, and political variables across network size better than name generator measures. This suggests that not only has prior research failed to identify network hubs, but it has likely underestimated the influence of political network size at the individual level.