A Bonfire of the Regulations,or Business as Usual? The UK Labour Market and the Political Economy of Brexit

Employment and labour market regulation initially appeared as one of the solid red lines in the UK's renegotiation of the country's place in the EU. The basic argument is that the UK's more deregulated labour market would sit uneasily in the more organised models, based on statutory instruments or collective bargaining, found on the continent. While there is a legitimate problem here, EU employment regulations appear manageable from the point of view of business, while unions see them as important tools for socially responsible economic restructuring. Most of UK employment case law is now deeply entangled with EU law; labour market regulations have, on the whole, become part of the way of doing business in the Single Market; and a simple cost–benefit analysis appears impossible because some costs are not quantifiable and the costs of others are reduced when taken as a bundle. Labour unions agree that transposition of European law needs to be done taking into account local sensitivities, while internationally oriented companies do not see EU regulations on the whole as detrimental to business. Importantly, though, the costs and benefits of EU employment regulations are not symmetrically distributed across different companies: large companies are better able to reap the rewards and accommodate the costs of operating in the Single Market than smaller companies.     

Squaring the speed of light? Regulating market access in algorithmic finance

Abstract

We examine the sociomaterial regulation of algorithmic trading against the background of the European Union’s directives on Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFID/MiFIR). Tracing the purification and translation of regulatory practices within a French brokerage firm, we examine the impact of electronic trading on the nature of market access. Central to our analysis is the ‘Blackbox’, a tool designed to manage market access efficiently by collating trade flows and automatically pairing them with trading algorithms. Our findings show that, through a process of ‘abstracting’, purification and translation are kept strictly separate, allowing the broker to meet the regulatory requirements de jure whilst retaining de facto the unregulated advantages of high-speed materiality. We discuss the implications for both the policy and practice of high-speed financial trading.     

Where do electronic markets come from? Regulation and the transformation of financial exchanges

Abstract

The practices of high-frequency trading (HFT) are dependent on automated financial markets, especially those produced by securities exchanges electronically interconnected with competing exchanges. How did this infrastructural and organizational state of affairs come to be? Employing the conceptual distinction between fixed-role and switch-role markets, we analyse the discourse surrounding the design and eventual approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation of Exchanges and Alternative Trading Systems (Reg ATS). We find that the disruption of the exchange industry at the hands of automated markets was produced through an interweaving of both technological and political change. This processual redefinition of the ‘exchange’, in addition, may provide a suggestive precedent for understanding contemporary regulatory crises generated by other digital marketplace platforms.     

Desecuritization,Domestic Struggles,and Egypt’s Conflict with Ethiopia over the Nile River

Egypt maintained a policy of antagonism at arm’s length toward Ethiopia throughout Husni Mubarak’s presidency. This pattern changed immediately following Mubarak’s ouster. The burst of rapprochement and diplomatic activism that took shape in the spring of 2011 signaled a fundamental shift in the content and form of Egyptian policy vis-à-vis Ethiopia, which was reflected in President Muhammad Mursi’s reluctance to respond belligerently to Ethiopian initiatives 2 years later that threatened to diminish the northward flow of the Nile. Cairo’s evident restraint during the Mursi era cannot be explained by a change in the strategic circumstances that confronted Egyptian policy-makers. A more promising explanation can be found in a reformulation of desecuritization theory, which highlights the internal dynamics whereby potentially dangerous aspects of a country’s external environment get transformed into matters of routine political contestation.     

牛新孢子虫病和弓形虫病的流行病学调查

为了调查我国牛新孢子虫和弓形虫的感染情况,应用新孢子虫酶联免疫吸附试验(ELISA)和弓形虫间接血凝试验(IAT)分别检测了来自国内10个省(市、自治区)的262份乳牛、10份肉牛和40份水牛血清。结果显示,乳牛新孢子虫的抗体阳性率为17.2%,弓形虫的抗体阳性率为2.3%,没有检测到既有新孢子虫抗体又有弓形虫抗体的乳牛血清。各牛场所检乳牛血清的新孢子虫抗体阳性率在0~34.4%之间。在水牛和肉牛血清中未检测到新孢子虫抗体和弓形虫抗体。流产乳牛血清的新孢子虫抗体阳性率为20.2%,未流产乳牛为16.1%,其中血清抗体阳性乳牛主要在妊娠中晚期流产。各个年龄段乳牛血清的抗体阳性率差异不显著(P>0.05)。不同妊娠胎次的乳牛血清抗体阳性率差异不显著(P>0.05)。确认新孢子虫病在国内大部分牛场存在。     

论我国水资源的所有权客体属性及其实践功能简

水资源的日益重要性使其在法律上逐渐与土地资源分离,成为独立的所有权客体,且不悖于所有权客体特定性原则。在比较罗马法中的共用物、法国的公产、德国的公物及日本的公用物、公共用物等公共物品类型的基础上,应将我国的水资源界定为公共用物并为其选择所适用的法律规则。水资源公共用物的定性不仅有利于彰显水资源负载利益的全民性,将其与满足行政目的的公用物相区分,而且为理顺水资源由全民所有、宪法上国家所有至民法上国家所有等所有权类型的转化路径,直到为人人平等享有用水机会创设的水权制度提供了深层理论基础。     

A review of telecom markets in the EU: What did the European Commission learn or not from the past?

The EU telecom regulation relies on a market-by-market sunset approach. In order to facilitate the market review of national regulatory authorities, the European Commission has offered two successive sets of recommended markets susceptible to ex ante regulation. The inclusion or exclusion of a recommended telecom market is analyzed on its competition conditions across the EU. Beginning in 2014 the European Commission published the draft third Market Recommendation. This article aims to give a critical evaluation of those recommended markets by surveying the competition situations on every telecom market in the EU Member States. It observes that while the drafted Third Recommendation makes a reasonable assessment for most telecom markets, it may not have appropriately addressed markets such as retail fixed access, wholesale call origination, wholesale fixed and mobile call termination, wholesale high-quality access, and wholesale broadcasting transmission.     

Information Transmission Among World Major Gold Futures Markets： Evidence From High Frequency Synchronous Trading Data

This study examines the international information transmission among three major gold futures markets namely New York Mercantile Exchange in division of Commodity Exchange （COMEX）, Multi Commodity Exchange （MCX）, and Tokyo Commodity Exchange （TOCOM）. The main concept of this research is no matter where gold futures traded, they share the same underlying asset. Two well-documented approaches, which are vector error correction model and information share, are utilized to measure the process of price discovery under this trivariate system. The uniqueness of this study is that it employs synchronous intraday time series which can mitigate the stale price problem from daily observations. The evidences indicate that the three gold futures prices are cointegrated and driven by the same fundamental factors. New arrival information disseminates efficiently among the three markets and the pricing information transmission among exchanges is very rapid. However, the lead-lag relationship among markets still exists with the dominance of COMEX gold futures as the centre of price discovery The US gold futures market is the most efficient in processing information. Its role on price discovery and information can be attributed to COMEX＇s massive trading volume.     

Reconstructing ‘conflict of interest’ in financial markets: Private management, public challenges, future prospects

Following widespread criticism of financial market (self-)regulation, there is a shift in regulatory mood, explored here with reference to evolving conceptions of conflict of interest. The pre-crisis distinction between conflict of interest (normal, manageable) and its exploitation (unacceptable, legally actionable) has become somewhat eroded, as exemplified by the SEC’s 2010 civil fraud action against investment bank Goldman Sachs. However the settlement of that case on the basis of ‘mistake’ left many questions unanswered: about the meaning(s) of conflict of interest, about managerial mistake versus exploitative intent in administrative/civil cases and equally about the potential for action under criminal law. Looking forward, a judgement of the European Court of Justice on insider trading – concerning a rebuttable assumption of intent – could be taken as a template for ‘drawing the line’ on conflict of interest. Acting on the basis of informational asymmetry could be taken as an indicator of intent and serious wrongdoing unless financial market actors can demonstrate otherwise.     

The Fallout to the Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan

The political fallout from the release of the Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan in the Murray‐Darling is illustrative of the difficulties associated with reallocating water resources in this context. The response of Minister Burke has been somewhat predictable, with a resurgent interest in public subsidy of irrigation infrastructure evident. This article is used to examine the policy background to the Guide and critically consider further subsidy of irrigation infrastructure. The article concludes that infrastructure investment at the expense of the public purse will fail to deal with the problems at hand and generate a plethora of additional future problems.