民事诉讼审前准备程序的完善

审前准备程序是民事审判的重要组成部分,对于提高诉讼效率、确保民事诉讼公正具有十分重要的意义。本文以审前准备程序的程序价值为基础,通过对我国审前准备程序存在弊端的考察,提出了完善我国审前准备程序的建议。     

Programmatic action in Chinese health policy—The making and design of “Healthy China 2030”

The Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) is a powerful analytical perspective to advance our understanding of policy change by stressing the role of programmatic groups and how they promote their preferred policy programs. While the PAF has been applied successfully to European countries and the US, a considerable research gap remains regarding its explanatory power in other regions and political settings. To step into this research gap, we apply the PAF to authoritarian China through a qualitative case study of the making of “Healthy China 2030”, a national health policy program. We explore two research questions: firstly, to what extent can the PAF be operationalized in a nondemocracy to identify programmatic groups and evaluate policy design, and second, what are the limitations and challenges facing the application of the PAF to nondemocracies? Our empirical analysis shows that the design of this policy program involves actors from different policy areas, despite the top-down political structure. With regards to the transfer of PAF hypotheses, we show that the framework is a helpful lens to identify programmatic groups and to evaluate policy programs' potential for success based on coherence, responsiveness, and program fit. Meanwhile, the research process of our study revealed the challenges of applying policy process theories to China, including hard-to-reach political actors for data collection, lack of transparency regarding collaboration processes between actors, and a lack of publicly available program-related information.     

构建智能环路监管机制——基于数字金融监管的新挑战

面对金融科技的创新与发展,传统监管机制显现出监管滞后、监管失效等方面的无力和脱节。数字金融监管在风险控制、监管方式、监管模式上面临新挑战,应以科技化监管为核心,借助大数据、人工智能等新型科技手段,实现风险的综合动态监测,推动监管向科技型、统筹型转变。在金融智能监管系统的基础上,构建由事前准入及测试、事中实时动态监测、事后风险处置反馈系统组成的智能环路监管机制。     

Why change party finance transparency? Political competition and evidence from the ‘deviant’ case of Norway

This article focuses on the development of a key type of regulation ensuring public surveillance of political finance: party finance transparency rules. It makes two contributions to the emerging theory on the evolution of political finance regulation. First, using previous research, it conceptualises the underlying causal mechanisms that explain when and why party finance transparency regulation changes. Second, it presents the first detailed study of party finance transparency reforms in Norway, which is a deviant case for the introduction of such reforms. It is found that, in the absence of major scandals, an intense political discourse on corruption and political competition are sufficient factors to launch transparency reforms. Whether reforms are enacted depends on the interaction of several factors. Parties that predominantly rely on state funding and grassroots support push for and adopt more constraining transparency regulation, while parties that are close to business oppose it. Experience of regulation in similar contexts and intense discourse on corruption – stimulated by domestic or international events – are necessary for the reform to succeed. Norwegian cooperation with the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) further demonstrates that the success of party finance transparency reforms initiated by a foreign actor is a function of the existing tradition of party regulation, the policy position of a governing party and the international reputational costs of non-compliance.     

Anatomy of agency capture: An organizational typology for diagnosing and remedying capture

Recent crises and disasters in regulated industries have renewed scholarly attention to regulatory capture. The present research incorporates and builds on these efforts by creating a typology to help researchers and practitioners organize the capture literature. The typology has two dimensions: the degree of coordination within the regulated industry, the agents of capture; and the scope of capture within the agency and elected officials, the targets of capture. I illustrate the utility of the typology by using a case study of banking regulation before the 2008 global financial crisis. The case study uses process‐tracing methodology to weigh evidence about the role and scope of capture in creating the crisis. The contributions of this research are twofold. First, for capture theory, the typology assists in organizing the disparate, multidisciplinary research on capture mechanisms and remedies. Second, for practice, this organization can lead to more accurate diagnoses about the scope of capture and suggest appropriately tailored remedies.     

Fiscal Crisis and Community Development: The Great Recession,Support Networks,and Community Development Corporation Capacity

Community development corporations (CDC) are a cornerstone of neighborhood improvement in legacy cities. Yet they face challenges that threaten their financial sustainability, challenges that grew exponentially with the Great Recession. This article examines the impact of the Great Recession on the revenue and survival of CDC in Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan. An analysis of financial data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics from 2004 to 2011 highlights issues of industry contraction, revenue concentration and loss, and CDC survival. Interviews and examination of multiple secondary sources of information on CDC activity and support networks in each city further our understanding of the financial results. We find that the CDC industry in all three cities was severely impacted by the Great Recession and that the CDC support networks in each city had a significant intervening effect on the ability of CDC to adapt to the fiscal and service pressures created by the recession. We discuss the implications of the shared trends and the city-specific dynamics for the role of CDC in neighborhood improvement in legacy cities.     

Swiss banking secrecy and the problem of international cooperation in tax matters: A nut too hard to crack?

How was Swiss resistance to international cooperation in tax matters overcome? This article argues that while Swiss banks are structurally dependent on access to the United States (US) financial market, Switzerland is structurally dependent on the economic welfare of its largest banks. Taking advantage of a tax evasion scandal in the midst of the global financial crisis, this indirect dependence gave US law enforcement authorities the opportunity to exercise pressure on Switzerland by threatening to criminally indict Switzerland's largest bank. The tax evasion scandal and subsequent Swiss concessions to the US had two important consequences for international tax cooperation. First, the scandal provided a focal point for collective action that allowed other countries to coordinate their strategies and direct them against the country that had been identified as uncooperative. Second, the scandal undermined Switzerland's ability to impede collective action because the bank's public admission of wrongdoing demonstrated the necessity of international tax cooperation.     

Mortgage Choice in Rural Housing

Rural homeownership is promoted in the United States by mortgage insurance programs administered by the federal government. We analyze the choice between assistance offered by two such agencies: the Federal Housing Administration and the Rural Housing Service (RHS). We find applicants are sensitive to the relative annual mortgage insurance premiums and guarantee fees. However, there are also persistent racial differences as well as institutional effects. We also find the application and origination process is substantially longer in the RHS program, but variation in closing times does not clearly impact mortgage choice.     

Drivers and barriers of inter-municipal cooperation in health services – the Norwegian case

Inter-municipal cooperation in service delivery is widespread, as is the notion that this type of cooperation is primarily driven by economies of scale. However, the empirical results appear to be inconclusive, suggesting that additional explanatory factors are needed to explain why municipalities cooperate. This study aimed to identify the factors and conditions that influence the level of inter-municipal cooperation in health services by exploring a broad set of explanatory factors that go beyond simple economic concerns. In addition to confirming that a small population-size and fiscal stress constitute important drivers of inter-municipal cooperation, the results from this study also demonstrates the need to consider geographical location and heterogeneity relative to neighbouring municipalities as potential barriers to such cooperation.