The development of care technology under liability law

It is well known that strict liability and negligence induce pareto optimal care in a most restrictive model of unilateral accidents. The paper at hand extends this traditional theorem from its static context to an intertemporal setting where tort law induces progress in care technology. This model provides a methodological framework for a general analysis of the dynamic incentives generated by alternative liability rules. One of the many possible extensions of the basic model is to allow for incomplete information. Particularly, we drop the assumption that the authority setting the due care standard under negligence is able to assess technical progress ex ante. It is shown that the dynamic incentives of the negligence rule are distorted compared to strict liability in this modified framework.     

空白刑法规范的特性及其解释

空白罪状由于概括性的委任立法使得规范弹性具有难以避免性和合理性,法律概念的相对性更为明显,部门法规范的易变性也使得其容易出现偏离立法规范目标的情况,对其必须进行刑法的独立规范判断,区分事实问题和法律问题。提倡双向对应的规范解释路径,能够有效地实现概括的类型化转向具体的定型化,获得规范与事实的一致。由于罪刑法定在技术上并无制约作用,因此规范解释空白罪状时,重要的是合理运用解释方法,以得出妥善结论,注重目的解释和体系解释可以有效地实现刑法的规范保护任务。     

不完全契约形态：转型社会的社区治理结构——以上海康健地区业主委员会的发展为例

本文以业主组织的发展为例,考察分析中国城市基层社会治理结构的变化,进而探讨作为转型社会的微观基础——社区治理结构中的契约规范能否进一步扩展的问题。通过对上海康健地区业主委员会的个案研究,本文认为,社会契约形态的形成就是“个别性契约规范”向“关系性契约规范”转换的实现,以业主委员会、物业公司、居委会三方为基本主体的新的社区治理结构呈现不完全契约形态向契约形态发展态势。在社区治理结构中,随着各个独立交往主体都将获得更多或者完全的自主性,契约规范形成并发展着,但这并不会一帆风顺。在此过程中,以制度为杠杆的动态平衡非常重要。随着住房商品化程度的提高,随着开放条件下社会交往关系的发展,社区治理结构还将长期在不完全契约形态中运作,但未来的社区治理将以完全契约关系为生长点和发展指向而得到长足的推进。     

Fragmentation of licensing right, bargaining and the tragedy of the anti-commons

This paper investigates how the fragmentation of licensing right and bargaining affect the occurrence of the “tragedy of anti-commons” in the procedure of enterprise licensing. As found in this paper, if no bargaining is allowed, then greater fragmentation of licensing right can cause greater tragedy of the anti-commons. However, the bargaining between the bureaucracies and enterprise can greatly ease or even eliminate the tragedy of the anti-common under public information, but the relative bargaining power and the extent of fragmentation will affect the distribution of total surplus between the enterprise and the bureaucracies. Yet in the case of private information, bargaining itself may not work efficiently, and interestingly, lower fragmentation of licensing right might enhance the efficiency loss of bargaining, instead of easing the tragedy of the anti-commons.

Relational Contracts, Repeated Interaction and Contract Modification

The paper uses the theory of repeated games to model relational contracts. It demonstrates that there are cases where it is better to leave a long term contract more incomplete than it needs to be in order to secure optimal renegotiation at every point. In this particular class of contract problems, it may be optimal to allow contract modification even in cases where the buyer could have put the modified terms into the original contract.     

不完备法律理论下我国食品安全治理改革——从立法完善主义到合理分配剩余执法权

当前我国食品安全治理改革的总体思路是一种建立在建构理性基础上的立法完善主义,即通过对国家立法的不断完备化努力来渐进式地推动我国食品安全治理的改进.不完备法律理论揭示了法律由于人类理性的不及性而通常是不完备的现实,并指出在法律高度不完备状态下,需要在监管者和法院之间合理分配剩余立法权与执法权.根据这一理论,我国在尝试不断完备食品安全治理法律体系的同时,更应注重合理设计监管者与法庭之间关于食品安全剩余执法权的分配体系.由于食品安全市场不能同时兼备不完备法律理论下关于法院与监管者之间如何分配剩余立法权和执法权时所需要参照的标准化因素和预期负外部性效应强度两个条件,因此我国食品安全治理只能综合利用监管者与法院这两种力量,实现剩余执法权的二元互动分配.     

Flexibility provisions in multilateral environmental treaties

In international politics, intergovernmental treaties provide the rules of the game. In this paper, we investigate the rules under which the contents of treaties may be changed, such as rules for adoption and entry into force and rules for dispute resolution. In the first part of the paper, we describe how frequently these rules are used in practice and how they are typically combined, based on 400 treaties and supplementary agreements from the field of international environmental law. Using correspondence analysis, we show that treaty provisions can be represented by a two-dimensional property space. The detected underlying dimensions express varying degrees of institutionalisation and flexibility, respectively. In the second part of the paper, we place amendment rules into the framework of a formal model in the incomplete contracts tradition. It is shown that there exists a trade-off between the risk of too little flexibility, which leads to frequent inefficient breach of the treaty, and the danger that the binding nature of the treaty and hence, the level of commitment by treaty members, is being undermined if the treaty can be amended too easily.     

Explaining differences in EMAS participation rates across Europe: the importance of institutions,incomplete information and path dependence

What factors shape environmental policies across Europe? In order to answer this question most economists would probably adopt a Public Choice approach. This approach has convincingly explained some aspects of environmental policies that exist in a similar fashion across Europe. But why do many environmental policies differ across European countries? This article argues that in order to understand differences in environmental policies in Europe North’s analysis of institutional change focusing on formal and informal institutions, incomplete information and path dependence is useful. North’s approach is applied to explain differences in a particular field of European environmental policy: The implementation of the EU’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The starting point of the analysis is the observation that participation of companies in EMAS markedly differs between countries. It is shown that these differences can be explained with differences in formal and informal institutions in the three Member States, incomplete information of relevant actors, and path dependence.