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Does enhanced regulatory transparency facilitate alignment of private and public enforcement? Utilizing the SEC's 2004 decision to publicly disclose its comment letters, we explore the actions of the SEC and shareholder litigants. We find the two parties converge more on enforcement targets after the public disclosure. The increased alignment is attributable to public scrutiny of SEC oversight enhancing regulator incentives and reducing regulatory capture, and to shareholder plaintiffs gaining information previously accessible only by regulators, enabling litigants to identify cases with “merit.” These findings suggest regulatory transparency enhances the complementarity of public and private enforcement, potentially improving enforcement outcomes.

The top online marketplaces in the world, such as Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and others, sold $2.7 trillion in 2020, or 62% of global web sales that year. Despite the promise of unfettered access to customers, the reality is that most sellers struggle with unprecedented unauthorized “rogue resellers.” These often anonymous, third party individuals and firms may not provide the quality experiences aligned with customers’ expectations of a brand and often market their goods in competition with trusted partners. This requires a systematic battle plan in order to effectively protect the seller’s brand equity, service promise and authorized distribution network. We describe the channel war that is at work and the forces fueling its development. We explain how rogue reseller activities drive down pricing, increase channel competition and conflict, impact customer experience, and harm brand equity. We recommend revising product policies, procedures and agreements to begin to differentiate products from those sold by unauthorized parties. We also recommend a legal strategy to complement these efforts. Critical steps include regular and active enforcement, as well as implementing services, benefits and quality controls for the brand’s products that cannot be replicated by unauthorized sellers and requiring authorized distributors and retailers to maintain those benefits and controls.

This paper presents exact and approximate methods for constructing daily walking tours for parking enforcement officers the Parking Enforcement Routing Problem (PERP), a problem faced by EMEL, a municipal company that manages parking in Lisbon. Parking Enforcement Officers (PEO) must ensure that the users of the street parking lots pay the corresponding fee, and that they also comply with the parking rules imposed by the legislation in force. The duration of the tours must be compatible with the PEO daily work schedules. A street cannot be supervised more than once in consecutive hours, nor supervised simultaneously by two PEOs. The PERP is a new generalisation of an Arc Routing Problem with profits aiming to maximise the total criticality, a concept defined to represent the need for enforcement of the street segments, related to the number of vehicles parked in transgression. Moreover, parking rules lead to some specificities regarding the underlying network, which needs to be built with additional unusual characteristics. A flow-based mixed integer linear programming model and heuristics which return two daily trips for each PEO are proposed. Computational results carried out on 50 instances based on real data show that it was appropriate to propose both types of methods, exact and heuristic. Furthermore, PEOs working for EMEL reacted positively to the trips corresponding to the generated solutions. A Decision Support System built on the heuristics was also developed to be easily used by practitioners in EMEL info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

One of the main pillars for improving road safety in any country is a good understanding of traffic safety culture and the driving behavior of local drivers. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether Egyptian drivers differ in traffic safety attitudes and level of acceptance of risky driving behavior. A questionnaire survey was conducted on the driving cognition of the participants. An exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the number of factors that differentiated the three types of drivers. Then a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to group the drivers with similar patterns of scores on the factors into clusters. Three driver clusters emerged: The drivers in cluster 1 were “drivers who rigidly followed regulations” (51.7%). The drivers in cluster 2 were “drivers who violated safety precautions” (23.3%). The drivers in cluster 3 were “drivers who had a tendency to violate regulations” (25.0%). A similarity between the social norms and personal attitudes of drivers was found. This can be explained by the high social norm of violating traffic laws, which can lead to more drivers accepting violations. The majority of the older drivers and drivers with no violations or traffic accident on their record in the past 2 years were in cluster 1. Cluster 2 had the highest proportion of young drivers who wore their seat belts and used hands-free phones while driving. Cluster 3 drivers accepted very dangerous violations, such as texting while driving, driving while intoxicated, and driving at very high speeds. They reported significantly more traffic accidents, but no more violations than the other two clusters. The results of this study can be used to improve road safety programs for education and enforcement in Egypt. The authors would like to thank the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences for its support through Projects 1601A/1701B/1801C and the Global Research Alliance on Traffic and Safety.

Road traffic crashes (RTCs) are influenced by a driver's awareness and attitude toward road safety, as well as the socio-economic status, infrastructure development level, traffic status, social system, and traffic safety culture of the area to which the driver belongs. In this study, based on the results of a questionnaire survey conducted in seven countries, the characteristics of each country concerning tolerance for traffic violations, dangerous driving, and acceptance for road safety measures were studied. It was suggested that a high tolerance for traffic violations and dangerous driving might affect traffic violations and RTCs in each country. Additionally, to reduce the tolerance for traffic violations and dangerous driving, the promotion of road safety education, especially among young and male drivers, and stricter regulations and enforcement were suggested.

Piracy is commonly believed to be detrimental to legal suppliers, so strong enforcement against piracy is expected. However, in practice, some companies do not deter piracy actively which seems counterintuitive. To explore the rationale behind the uncommon phenomenon, this paper explores the piracy issue from the entry deterrence perspective. In particular, we study an incumbent’s entry deterrence strategy using piracy when facing a potential entrant who offers similar products in the market. The incumbent decides whether to deter the piracy, and the entrant chooses whether to enter the market by anticipating the competition in the potential market and the entry cost. By analyzing the strategies of both the incumbent and the entrant, we find that deterring piracy is not always a good strategy since piracy could be used as a deterring strategy on the entrant, which explains the practices in many companies. Specifically, we find that when the entry cost is moderate, the incumbent accommodates piracy when the entrant is more of a threat, and piracy serves as a partner of the incumbent to prevent the entry of a powerful entrant. This conclusion also holds when considering the entry deterrence cost, network effect and the entrant is a high end substitute.

Enforcement of laws that prevent corrupt international business dealings has intensified recently. Firms have paid record-setting fines of hundreds of millions of dollars, and individuals have been tried and convicted. This escalating situation demands effective action from business leaders. Compliance has become increasingly complicated as more countries enact anti-bribery laws. To address this situation, four root causes of corruption are identified, and innovative real-world examples of solutions are presented. Combinations of these solutions can be crafted to create a high compliance work system (HCWS) to avoid corruption. Firms can formulate their own unique, innovative, and dynamic models to achieve high levels of firm success while also avoiding corruption. These models go beyond trade-off thinking, which suggests that compliance must be exchanged for performance. Pivoting away from such trade-off thinking enables innovative solutions to manage corruption risks and offers firms a sustained competitive advantage over their peers.

We estimate the effect of increased access to bank credit on the employment and wages of high- and low-skilled workers. To do so, we consider a bankruptcy reform that led to an expansion of bank credit to Brazilian firms. We use administrative data and exploit cross-sectional variation in the enforcement of the new legislation arising from differences in the congestion of civil courts. We find that the credit expansion led to an increase in the skill intensity of firms and in within-firm returns to skill and to a reallocation of skilled labor from financially unconstrained firms to constrained firms. To rationalize these findings, we design a model in which heterogeneous producers face constraints in their ability to borrow and have production functions featuring capital-skill complementarity. We use this framework to generate an industry-level measure of capital-skill complementarity, which we use to provide direct evidence that the effect of access to credit on skill utilization and the skill premium is driven by a relative complementarity between capital and skilled labor.

This paper aims to investigate whether Chinese internal control regulation improves reporting quality. After the enactment of US Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), China introduced a quasi-SOX practice (C-SOX). C-SOX stipulates that firms should disclose both management and audit reports on internal control and aims to help firms ensure reporting reliability. Previous studies provide solid evidence of the effectiveness of SOX, but the conclusion cannot simply be generalized to emerging markets. We employ a modified difference-in-difference approach regarding the special batched implementation schedule of C-SOX and observe earnings management during the reform, finding that accrual-based earnings quality is enhanced significantly after compliance with C-SOX without causing more real activity manipulation. Our results thus show that C-SOX has a positive effect on reporting quality and triggers no side-effects harming firms’ long-term value. Our findings suggest that the mandatory disclosure regime of C-SOX contributes to better corporate disclosure even with weak enforcement.

Orbital congestion, contestation and competition are on the rise, and space activities are expected to align with treaties, arrangements, and guidelines elaborated at a time when the space ecosystem was simpler - and it is becoming more complex. To cope efficiently with this changing situation, at a time when space systems have become an indispensable enabler for an ever-increasing range of socio-economic activities, new rules of the road are necessary. Indeed, these should ensure the sustained stability and security of the space environment, providing norms and standards beyond transparency and confidence building measures, laying the ground for the founding elements of a space traffic coordination (management?). Hence, for us to be dependent on a reliable space-enabled information flow will require a significant decrease of their vulnerability; protection as well as “fail safe” are becoming the chief concerns. This paper will first review the current legal and regulatory provisions under which space activities take place, pointing out some limitations of the international dialogue, which is quite complex, anarchic, and with no clear global leadership, complicated by the dual use (civil and military) of space. Moreover, enforcement appears to be ineffective. It will then consider new public, as well as private, initiatives that are underway, evaluating the robustness of their foundations. Possible avenues are proposed in support of the most recent prominent initiatives, including the possibility for an international agreement on standards and behaviours, or an international civil space organisation inspired by the International Civil Aviation Organisation - ICAO. Emphasis will be placed on the urgency of bringing together these initiatives and processes under a common umbrella, or at least to achieve the convergence of a set of rules noting that international hard law provisions are far reaching. A step-by-step approach is suggested, addressing immediate, mid-term, and long-term actions to provide a stable space environment favourable to LEO large constellations, in-orbit refuelling/repairing, active debris removal, human commercial space-flight, cis-lunar/interplanetary traffic, space resources exploitation, and security/defence operations.

Background aims Cell and gene therapy products (CGTPs) are anticipated to bring many benefits for the treatment of conditions with limited or no satisfactory treatment options. However, they are associated with concerns of potential safety risks because of their high complexity. The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) of Malaysia took the first step toward the regulation of CGTPs by publishing the Malaysian Guidance Document and Guidelines for CGTPs in 2016. As mandatory registration and enforcement of CGTPs were scheduled to begin January 1, 2021, the aim of this study was to ascertain the industry's readiness for the regulation of CGTPs in terms of awareness of the guidelines, challenges and acceptance of the regulatory requirements. Methods The authors invited 48 CGTP companies to participate in the survey between October 2019 and June 2020, and 30 companies responded. Results The majority of respondents were aware of the mandatory CGTP regulatory control and the availability of the guidelines. Many CGTPs were in the early development phase, and the most difficult registration barriers were dossier preparation and compliance with the pre-clinical and clinical requirements. Conclusions These findings represent the current CGTP landscape in Malaysia from the industry's viewpoint, enabling the NPRA to implement initiatives to facilitate registration and enforcement.

We analyze factors behind 23,213 distressed acquisitions in European emerging markets from 2007 to 2019. Besides the impact of financial ratios, legal form, ownership structure, firm size, and age, we emphasize the role of institutions and channels of their propagation. We show that the quality and enforcement of insolvency laws are linked with the lower probability of distressed acquisitions, followed by corruption control and progress in banking reforms. The impact of institutions is larger in less-advanced countries as compared to economically stronger ones. The effect of institutions increased after the financial crisis but declined as the economic situation improved.

This study examines the impact of SEC enforcement actions on the turnovers of culpable CEOs and CFOs named in the enforcement actions, following their violations of the SOX provisions. We compare the impact on CEO turnover with that on CFO turnover. The impact in the pre-SOX period and that in the post-SOX period are also compared. Findings of this study provide evidence that the SEC enforcement actions are associated with the probabilities of turnovers of CEOs and CFOs named in the SEC enforcement actions for violations of SOX 303 and SOX 305. Specifically, CEOs sanctioned by the SEC are likely to lose their positions when they violate SOX 305. In contrast, CFOs sanctioned by the SEC for violating SOX 303 are likely to be forced to resign. When CFOs are named as mastermind by the SEC, they are likely to lose jobs. However, when both CEO and CFO are named as masterminds in fraudulent financial reporting, CFOs are less likely to be removed. In addition, CEOs and CFOs are likely to lose their jobs when firms face bankruptcy and restate earnings and when they face criminal charges, especially in the post-SOX period.

Conservation organizations often adopt the normative value of “whole community” participation, predicated on the idea that broad community involvement across categories of identity and social stratification will lead to more successful project outcomes. Analysis of intra-community social stratifications in relation to participation in conservation is important to the pursuit of environmental justice as well as improved efficacy of a given conservation intervention. While a large body of literature broadly examines intra and inter-community dynamics in relation to community-based conservation, few have specifically quantified how wealth influences one’s participation in community-based conservation initiatives, especially in the marine realm. To address these questions, we interviewed people living near marine conservation initiatives in Madagascar. Using a principle component analysis, we created an asset-based wealth index and showed that both knowledge of and participation in marine conservation was positively correlated with wealth. Specifically, three of the four participation categories were statistically correlated with wealth, including involvement in any element of the conservation project, involvement in decision-making, and in enforcement. However, wealth was not significantly correlated with participation in monitoring. Ultimately our research highlights the importance of understanding underlying drivers of participation in community-based conservation. If the poorest in a community are underrepresented in local participation, the conservation initiative will not only be unjust, but will also likely be less effective.

Periodic inspections, in which firms are punished for detected violations, are a popular means of enforcing environmental, health, and safety regulations. The effectiveness of these programs typically hinges on the timing of inspections being unannounced and difficult to anticipate, lest firms comply only when they believe inspections are likely. In Las Vegas, Nevada, many facilities—e.g., casinos, hotels, and shopping malls—house multiple food-service establishments, several of which are often inspected during the same inspector visit. Within such visits, all but the first establishment inspected likely anticipate their next inspection to a meaningful extent. Using data which record inspection starting times and span more than six years, I find that establishments in such facilities perform significantly and substantially worse when they receive the first inspection of a visit. Relative to their own performances on days when inspected later than first, establishments are assessed 21% more demerits and cited for 31% more critical violations in these surprise inspections.

We study the emergence of norms and their enforcement in a public goods game with private information about endowments. Subjects were randomly assigned a Low or High endowment and, across treatments, endowments were either Observed or Unobserved. In both treatments subjects could enforce contributions with peer punishment. We use punishment decisions to estimate contribution norms and then estimate the expected costs of noncompliance. In Observed, both Low and High types enforce a “contribute-your-endowment” norm, adjusting the costs of noncompliance to account for each type’s endowment. In Unobserved we find that groups adapt to incomplete information by adopting a “contribute-the-Low-endowment” norm, and our expected cost calculations suggest that the enforcement of this norm balances the benefits of cooperation with the risk of misguided punishment. When at least one High type pools with Low types (by contributing less than or equal to the Low endowment), contributions of zero are punished as if they come from a High type, while contributions equal to the Low endowment are not punished in expectation (in case they come from a cooperative Low type). This enforcement strategy prevents cooperation from unraveling, but it also enables High types to hide behind the Low endowment. Our results dovetail with results from bargaining games and suggest that in settings with incomplete information, norms can attenuate but not eliminate non-cooperative behavior.

To deter auto insurance fraud, insurance companies and law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute suspicious claims. We describe this sanctioning system and perceptions of this system by integrating unique datasets: insurance company records, interviews with insurance fraud investigators, state law enforcement data (CA, NY), and surveys of automotive insurance customers. We identify organizational constraints, such as public relations concerns, that limit the effectiveness of the formal sanctioning system (fewer than 1% of claims that are flagged as suspicious are ever prosecuted for fraud). We also identify psychological factors that deter consumers from committing fraud; consumers over-estimate the probability of detection, over-estimate the consequences of prosecution, are sensitive to social sanctions (e.g., negative publicity), and anticipate high emotional costs, such as shame and embarrassment, that make the prospect of committing fraud highly aversive. That is, psychological factors substantially deter fraud even though the economic sanctions are weak. Our findings integrate scholarship on sanctioning systems (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1991) and highlight the role of organizational constraints and psychological factors in deterring fraud.

We investigate the deterrence effect of experience with regulatory enforcement on fraud in a unique natural setting. Using ride-level data on New York City taxicab drivers, we identify drivers who fraudulently overcharge customers and pair them with the outcomes of drivers’ experience with regulatory enforcement (taxi court). We examine whether drivers’ experience with the taxi court, specifically whether the taxi court found them guilty or not guilty of fraud, affects their subsequent fraud. Interestingly, we find that the effect of experience with the regulatory enforcement on the likelihood of future fraud depends on the verdict received. Consistent with an impact bias in drivers’ affective forecasting, drivers who are found guilty (not guilty) are more (less) likely to commit fraud than similar drivers without recent taxi court experience. Our results have implications for academics and policymakers by showing that sometimes the threat of enforcement can be more effective at deterring future fraud than the actual enforcement itself.

The impact of watching eyes cues and descriptive social norm messages on fare evasion was studied in two experiments that were conducted in two railway stations in France. In Study 1, a natural field experiment, passengers were exposed for a two-week period to either a control eye-cues poster or to an experimental eye-cues with a social norm messaging campaign. In Study 2, an artefactual experiment in the field, participants in the experimental train station were asked to participate in a lying task before and after they were exposed to the messaging campaign. The results from both studies suggest that although watching eye cues alone are not effective in a crowded train station, exposing passengers to watching eye cues together with a descriptive social norm messaging campaign reduced the fare evasion rates observed by standard inspection operations, and eliminated lying behavior measured by the die-under-cup paradigm. These results strengthen the external validity of laboratory experiments that have documented small scale cheating behavior and highlight the potential benefits of internal enforcement techniques to fight dishonesty in the field. In addition, they stress the advantage of combining visibility cues and social norms when orienting people toward more moral behavior.

This study investigates the hitherto largely neglected effects of contract enforcement in interfirm relationship. Based on contract functions, we conceptualize contract enforcement as a two-dimensional construct comprising contractual control enforcement and contractual coordination enforcement. We examine how the effects of these two enforcements differ as the level of interfirm guanxi varies. The findings from a survey of 190 buyers in China suggest that both contractual control enforcement and contractual coordination enforcement mitigate sellers' opportunism. Moreover, contractual coordination enforcement is more effective in reducing opportunism when the interfirm guanxi is strong, whereas contractual control enforcement is more effective in reducing opportunism when the interfirm guanxi is weak. Our research contributes to both theory and practice by revealing the complex and paradoxical moderating role of interfirm guanxi.

Objectives The aim is to review the status of diagnostic imaging training in the English-speaking Caribbean region and to identify gaps, and opportunities for growth. Key findings Currently, there are only three training programmes within the English-speaking Caribbean that offer a Bachelor of Science degree in Diagnostic Imaging (DI) (Radiography). Despite the demand for DI services related to the growing prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases and an ageing Caribbean population, access to such services is very limited. While there is a gap to be closed in terms of training numbers it is clear that there is also a need to develop a wider range of competencies in other modalities beyond conventional X-ray. Conclusion The English-speaking Caribbean is relatively underserved in terms of access to diagnostic imaging services. Current training programmes are limited in scope and enrolment. There is a need to address the training gaps within the region, as this is a significant opportunity for growth in this area of health professions education. Implications for practice While there is a clear rationale to support expanding and diversifying training, there is still relatively low investment in DI training. The way ahead for the Caribbean must be through enforcement of legislation, strong leadership and advocacy for training initiatives and partnership between educators and service providers.

Persecution has continued to negatively impact the density and range of many Bird of Prey (raptor) species, both nationally and internationally, despite existing legal protection. Departing from the relatively small body of statistical analyses indicating elevated raptor mortality in proximity to shooting estates, this qualitative study draws on in-depth interviews with retired (hence, free from employment pressure) gamekeepers. New insights and findings are unfolded into the nature and extent of employment-related pressures (from employers) to commit raptor persecution. The findings offer a new narrative in the discourse on the problem, revealing that economic, community and lifestyle pressures co-exist within the gamekeeping industry. It is argued that regulatory design and enforcement strategy and tactics should be mindful of these pressures in order to reduce raptor persecution in both individual criminal liability and vicarious liability settings.

Climate change and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are simultaneously reshaping environmental conservation. This article reviews the intersection of these two trends. First, we review how AI has become integrated into existing climate knowledge infrastructures and decision-making systems. Second, we review how AI is reshaping decision-making processes in the face of climate change, focusing on the governance of changing biological systems. AI is transforming data collection and classification, conservation decision-making, and rule enforcement. A crucial theme is the changing temporality of environmental governance. We emphasize automated data collection and classification, dynamic optimization and predictive enforcement. Third, we turn to emergent problems in the ethics and politics of algorithmic conservation. AI’s increasingly prevalent role in conservation has the potential to introduce ethical dilemmas, redistribute power among stakeholders, and enable the emergence of new objects of knowledge and political struggles.

Summary Reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions needs global cooperation and will have a positive and profound impact on sustainable development. Climate agreements, in line with the UNFCCC, encourage developed countries to provide funds to help developing countries adapt and mitigate. However, up to now, no financial incentive (FI) has been implemented, and it remains unclear to what extent FIs can increase net emissions reductions (ER). Here we investigate a restrictive form of FI, employing both behavioral experiments and game theoretical analysis. We show that FIs significantly increase both ER and social welfare in the absence of any binding enforcement. We also find that the more developed countries invest in FIs, the more developing countries mitigate. This induces developed countries to incentivize developing countries to adapt and mitigate via FIs, resulting in a net global increase in ER. Our results are robust to different monitoring periods, loss probabilities, and mitigation cost ratios.

The information-blocking provision of the Cures Act is designed to promote interoperability of health IT systems and mandates immediate access and portability of personal electronic health information for patients, providers and payers. In essence, this legislation requires no delay in access to clinical information including radiology reports once entered into the electronic health record. This is at odds with the current settings of many electronic health record systems, which employ time-delayed releases (embargo) of radiology reports. In such systems, there is a predetermined delay, such as days to weeks, between when a radiology report is signed off by the radiologist and when the report becomes available for patient access via the online patient portal. The idea behind this practice is that the delay allows time for the referring provider to read the report and coordinate care for the patient before the patient becomes aware of potentially abnormal and anxiety-provoking imaging findings. At the time of this writing, it is unclear whether such embargo programs will meet information-blocking definitions and thereby be subject to financial disincentives. Many provider groups are preparing for enforcement of the information-blocking by removing their report embargo programs. This article describes the challenges and opportunities created by the immediate release of radiology reports to patients via online patient portals and suggests strategies that groups may consider to ease their transition to this model of care delivery.

We examine the diversification of administrative and procedural costs on patent stock using a large dataset from the European Patent Office with 15,000 firms for the period between 1995 and 2015. The results reveal that administrative and procedural costs are significant for firm-level patenting activity. However, not all administrative and procedural costs have equal effects. Higher administrative costs often encourage patent application and validation by solving the adverse selection problem and short-run opportunism, as well as other sources of asymmetric information. The effective administration of intellectual property law and low-cost enforcement are found to considerably foster patenting activity. The effects are robust for various mis-specification checks and do not disappear once country-level research and development infrastructure proxies are controlled for. The extreme bounds of administrative and procedural costs are computed across more than 5 billion regressions, and the sizeable impact of administration on patent application and validation outcomes is confirmed.

The management by administrative authorities of law violations represents one of the instruments for enforcing laws in China, the other way is lawsuit. The law allows administrative discretion to achieve efficiency but may lead to unfair law enforcement. Governments’ establishing patent administrative discretion criteria can deter unfair law enforcement by guiding administrators to determine administrative penalties. As such, a quasi-experimental approach testing the discretion criteria established by provincial patent administrative authorities was used in the current study to evaluate the impact of discretion criteria on law enforcement and innovation among firms. The empirical evidence shows that patent administrative discretion criteria increase the number of patent administrative law enforcement cases and encourage firms to apply for more patents, and this impact is larger for firms in industries where the new product market is broader, patent license fees are higher, patent rights easier to be infringed upon, and R&D duration is lengthier.

This paper investigates the role of outside options in the executive labor market on earnings management decisions. To proxy for executives’ outside options, we use the number of times other firms cite the executive’s firm as a compensation peer. We find that executives with more citations conduct less earnings management. Exploiting the 2006 SEC requirement for compensation peer disclosure as a quasi-natural shock to executives’ awareness of outside options, we show that the executives who should be more responsive to outside options significantly reduce earnings management. Cross-sectional tests support a labor market discipline channel of outside options. Finally, we exploit state-level recognition of Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine and enforcement of non-compete agreements as cross-sectional restrictions on labor mobility and show that the impact of peer citations on reducing earnings management is stronger when there are fewer restrictions on mobility.

Introduction: The market share of e-scooters in the United States has proliferated in cities: 86 million trips were made on shared e-scooters in 2019, a more than 100% increase compared to 2018. However, the interaction of e-scooters with other road users and infrastructure remains uncertain. Method: This study scrutinized 52 e-scooter and 79 bicycle police-reported crashes in Nashville, Tennessee, from April 2018 to April 2020 from the Tennessee Integrated Traffic Analysis Network (TITAN) database. We used descriptive analysis and a recent prototype version of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) to classify crashes based on the locations of the crashes relative to roadway segments or intersections, as well as the maneuver of the motor vehicle and e-scooter/bicycle relative to the motor vehicle. Results: Two crash typologies can explain the majority of e-scooter crashes, while bicycle crashes are distributed over several crash typologies. Additionally, 1 in 10 e-scooter- and bicycle-motor vehicle crashes leads to the injury or fatality of the e-scooter rider or bicyclist. Furthermore, we noted statistically significant differences in spatial and temporal distribution, demographics, lighting conditions, and crash distance from home for e-scooter and bicycle crashes. Conclusions: The police crash report provides a comprehensive picture of e-scooter safety complementing existing literature. We found that e-scooter crash characteristics do not fully overlap with features of bicycle crashes. Practical Implications: A generalized engineering, education, and enforcement treatment to reduce and prevent e-scooter and bicycle crashes, injuries, and fatalities might not result in equal outcomes for each mode. More rigorous enforcement could be implemented to deter e-scooters riders under the age of 18 years and e-scooter safety campaigns could target female riders.

This paper documents the emergence of a large bank loan market in the absence of contracting institutions: the trusted assistant loan market in 19th century China. These loans were legally unenforceable, one-shot loans to poor scholars that funded the costs of assuming lucrative administrative appointments offering ample opportunities for corruption. The trusted assistant loan’s distinguishing feature was a legally unenforceable stipulation that the borrower incorporate an agent of the creditor into his administrative cadre. We model the enforcement of these loans through expertise leverage and test the model’s predictions using data from officials’ diaries and a bank loan book. JEL classifications:G21, O16, D86

One of the most important tasks of any state is to provide everyone, including the child, with the opportunity for a healthy and fulfilling life. Processes of immunisation through vaccination are considered most appropriate for the prevention of infectious diseases. The purpose of this study is to understand the legal regulation of immunisation of the population and to give it a legal assessment, to review the legal acts on vaccination in different countries of the world and to identify the legal tendencies of resolving conflicts in the field of vaccination on the basis of court decisions. As a result of the research the prospective directions of work of civil and criminal regulation of vaccination of children, regulation of the right to education for children who have not been vaccinated, the lawsuits, petitions and court decisions regarding the population response to vaccinations were analysed. The authors of the study conclude on the methods of introducing mandatory vaccination of children, the development of new criminal legislation to protect rights and freedoms.

We study how the enforcement of value-added tax (VAT) affects Chinese firms’ evasion of payroll tax, which is collected by weakly empowered agencies. Using the central government’s 2005 repeal of the agricultural tax to measure fiscal squeeze and subsequent enforcement effort of VAT collection, our instrumental variable estimation finds that the VAT enforcement leads to a significant increase in the payroll tax evasion. Examining firm heterogeneity and real responses suggests that increased payroll tax evasion mainly stems from cost optimization by small and cash-constrained private firms. Our paper echoes a growing literature to highlight the importance of understanding compliance spillover across taxes.

Introduction In December 2019, the U.S. raised the minimum legal sales age of tobacco to 21 years, a law commonly known as Tobacco 21. This study examines local Tobacco 21 policies for the inclusion of model policy components: comprehensive tobacco definition, age verification and tobacco access, enforcement measures, tobacco retail license, and violation penalties. Methods A document analysis of Tobacco 21 local policies passed in the U.S. before July 1, 2019 (N=477) was conducted in May 2020 using a Tobacco 21 policy assessment tool. Policies were coded by 2 independent coders for the inclusion of components. Results Many localities included model component: comprehensive tobacco definition (65%), appearance age (70.9%), local tobacco retail license (72%), a graduated monetary penalty structure (93%), and tobacco retail license suspensions or revocations (74%) for repeated violations. However, only 17.4% of policies included an appearance age in compliance with federal law (30 years). Furthermore, few policies included enforcement components, such as a mandatory number of inspections (5.9%) or compliance checks (6.7%) per year, or a minimum age for the underage purchasers used during compliance checks (8.4%). Conclusions Local policies can play an important role in tobacco control by providing an added layer to ensure adequate enforcement of age-restriction policies and allow an avenue to introduce strict measures that may diffuse into higher branches of government for policy adoption. Although many local Tobacco 21 policies fill regulatory gaps within the state and federal laws, often there is a lack of model components to ensure that policies are implemented as intended.

Purpose Immigration enforcement policies and negative rhetoric about immigrants harm the psychological well-being of Latinx youth in immigrant families, particularly those who are most vulnerable because of their own or their loved ones' legal status. According to the Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competencies among Minority Children, discrimination may be one pathway to explain how vulnerability to restrictive immigration policies affects Latinx youth mental health. Methods We collected data from 306 Latinx high school students from immigrant families in Harris County, Texas, and Rhode Island to (1) determine the direct effect of immigration enforcement fear (a proxy for the social position of vulnerable legal status) on adolescents' anxiety; (2) explore the effect of immigration enforcement fear on anxiety through the pathway of perceived discrimination; and (3) test whether the different enforcement climates in the two study sites moderate these pathways. Total anxiety and subscales measuring separation, social, school, generalized, and somatic anxiety subtypes were analyzed. Results Immigration enforcement fear was related to increased somatic and separation anxiety in both first- and second-generation Latinx adolescents. Perceived discrimination partially mediated the association between immigration enforcement fear and separation and somatic anxiety; data collection site did not moderate these effects. Conclusions Immigration policies and rhetoric have psychological consequences. Although the adolescents in our study face multiple stressors, immigration enforcement fear may heighten their perception of discrimination, in turn, likely elevating their physiological and family separation anxiety.

This research analyses new approaches to security enforcement in fifth generation (5G) architecture from end to end perspective. With the aim of finding a suitable and effective unified schema across the different network domains, it shows that policy control framework may become the cornerstone for the definition and enforcement of security policies in new 5G networks. The 5G core network architecture reference model is defined as a Service Based Architecture (SBA). The Policy Control Function (PCF) is a Network Function (NF) that constitutes, within the SBA architecture, a unique framework for defining any type of policies in the network and delivering those to other control plane NFs. In previous generations the policy control approach has been restricted to Quality of Service (QoS) and charging aspects. In contrast, the 5G system is now based on a unified policy control scheme that allows to build consistent policies covering the entire network. By utilizing the unified 5G policy framework we have found an effective security enforcement schema flexible to create new security policies, and agile to react to the constantly changing environment, across the end to end architecture. Within this schema we have defined mechanisms to apply the QoS principles to security use cases. We have also set up the user plane security enforcement within the session management and established security policies. Finally we have made proposals to extend the network analytics to security analytics. Our overall vision is to consider security as a quality element of the network.

There are over 20 000 peer-reviewed research articles linking marijuana use to severe mental health outcomes, ranging from depression to psychosis, and inhibited cognitive development, as well as consequences for physical health, and even negative outcomes for neonates exposed in utero. The connections between marijuana use and consequences to mental and physical health, and brain development, among other risks are often lost in conversations on legalization. Marijuana-legal states have higher rates of marijuana-related driving fatalities, greater emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and exposures, expansive criminal markets, as well as exacerbated racial disparities in industry participation and criminal justice enforcement. We compiled eight years’ worth of publicly available state-level data, reports, investigatory findings, peer-reviewed studies, and government health surveys to assemble this ‘lessons learned’ report to bring these harms to light.

From 1982–2012, an important legislation, known as Seveso Directives I-II-III and amendments, was adopted in the European Union to regulate and prevent major industrial accident hazards. This European legislation was transposed, applied and implemented in each European Member State and after nearly forty years it is worthwhile to look back and also to look forward to key issues relevant to actual Seveso implementation. Authors of this paper are all members (retired or active) of the Loss Prevention Working Party of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering, which started in 1971. This article examines and compares, for the four EU Member States France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the structures and practices for the implementing of the European rules. Difficulties, variations in application and the quality of enforcement of this complex process are critically discussed, including proper analysis of worked examples. Finally, a particular attention is paid to the different ways in which the control and inspection practices of each of the Member States concerned are implemented.

Achieving sustainability often requires fostering changes in norms and behaviours through a combination of restrictions and aware-raising activities. The phasing out of lead in ammunition to reduce lead poisoning in waterfowl provides a case in point. Twenty years after the Parties to the African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) committed to phase out lead shot in wetlands, such bans have been implemented in a third of Europe only. Furthermore, while evidence is scant, compliance varies widely where bans have been introduced. As a result, waterfowl are still suffering from lead poisoning. Here, I survey the use of different types of shot while practicing and when taking game in different habitats in Sweden, one of the Parties to AEWA. Furthermore, I test the hypotheses that mandatory shooter education, or stakeholder communication, influence compliance with existing restrictions in Sweden, as well as the voluntary phasing out of lead shot where its use still is permitted. More than half of the shooters practiced using lead and a third used lead shot over what they considered as wetlands, in both cases in violation of the current legislation. Furthermore, what constitutes a wetland appears to have been unclear to many shooters, especially in alpine areas. Both mandatory education and stakeholder communication were positively related to compliance. Only 12–15 % used lead free alternatives in shooting over habitats where the use of lead shot is permitted. There was a weak positive relationship between stakeholder communication and the voluntary phasing out of lead shot, but no effect from education. I suggest that the planned and ongoing phasing out of lead in ammunition should rest on a combination of legislation, enforcement, education and stakeholder communication in order to be successful. The findings add to our general understanding of how to turn environmental policy into sustainable management actions in practice.

As a basis and guarantee for the effective enforcement of emission control area regulations, penalty policies play an important role in preventing violations. To more clearly understand the effectiveness of penalty policies, this paper proposes two assessment indicators and assesses Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) penalty policy based on the behaviors of governments and ships. By establishing an evolutionary game model that considers the competitive relationships between ships, we obtain evolutionary stable strategies. Furthermore, we quantitatively assess the effectiveness of EPA's penalty policy for different routes and ship types, and discuss the impacts of accurate penalty fine calculations. Finally, recommendations on penalty policy implications are proposed. The results of this paper show that EPA's penalty policy is less effective overall and that its effectiveness differs for different routes and ship types. Fortunately, the effectiveness of EPA's penalty policy can be improved by accurately calculating penalty fines, and using Automatic Identification System data to pre-identify violations and determine penalty fines is a potential way to improve EPA's penalty policy.

This paper examines the nexus between institutional investors’ site visits and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) using legitimacy theory. Drawing on 13,867 observations selected from the stock exchange market of China during the period 2010–2018, this paper provides strong empirical evidence in support of how institutional investors’ site visits are positively associated with CSR. We find that site visits, as an informative and monitoring tool, can help managers to engage in socially-responsible activities for the purpose of protecting the rights and interests of stakeholders. Furthermore, the association between site visits by institutional investors and CSR is stronger in environments where enforcement of legislation is weak and weaker religious atmospheres. The results increase our comprehension of CSR determinants and shed light on institutional investors’ governance role in improving extractive industries’ CSR performance.

Despite the existence of multiple laws that codify regulations defining environmental crimes, illegal practices in extractive activities tend to occur because rules are not enforced. This study therefore aims to advance explanations as to why there is low effectiveness of enforcement of regulations to tackle environmental crimes in extractive activities. We draw on the law enforcement literature to identify explanations for why environmental enforcement fails to deter illegal practices in extractive activities. We then take up the case of illegal mining in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in the region of Madre de Dios (MDD) in the Peruvian Amazon. We evaluate qualitative data from multiple sources including legal documents, reports and interviews. The findings suggest two issues that have shaped low enforcement effectiveness in MDD: conflicts and lack of collaboration among agencies at different levels and sectors of government, and inadequate resource allocation from the national government to other levels. Enforcement is not monolithic in one governmental authority; therefore, it is crucial to recognize and address the existence of multiple levels and sectors of enforcement to improve the effectiveness of enforcement actions. These findings bear implications for theoretical perspectives on enforcement as well as public policies to increase effectiveness of enforcement of environmental regulations.

Currently, the implementation judge often encounter such tough problems the person subject to enforcement usually change residence in secret to avoid execution. This problem has become a major obstacle for the courts in the process of law enforcement. Many research results indicated that the predictors based on the person’s social network for simulate his behavior will be accurate. Consequently, this paper proposes a PLRU (predict Location Based on the Reliability of Social-online Users) model improving the execution efficiency of the court to the dishonest person subject to enforcement. We estimates and filters the trust degree of the relevant in social network, and then this paper presents the DDA (Density based late Differential Allocation) model to estimate the weight of the text in social conversation about the dimension of residence. Finally, the prediction range of the residence is obtained while combining with the person profile though the historical residence of the person subject to enforcement. The experiments reveal that the accuracy of the model is greatly improved compared with other models while it is well recognized by the executive judges of the court.

In public statements and archival documents U.S. officials have repeatedly made explicit their intention that the deployment of tactical infrastructure along the Mexico/United States border will contribute to the “funneling” of unauthorized migration toward increasingly remote and difficult routes of travel. By amplifying the suffering, risk and uncertainty to which migrants are exposed, it is intended that others in the future will be deterred from considering a similar journey. In this paper, we use the phrase “corral apparatus” to name how heterogeneous elements like walls, checkpoints and surveillance towers combine to form a common architecture of deterrence. We then undertake geospatial modeling of the relationship between this apparatus and the spatiotemporal distribution of human mortality across two major unauthorized migration corridors in southern Arizona. Our analysis identifies a meaningful relationship between the location of these infrastructures and patterns of mortality observed over time. Yet it bears emphasis that the United States government’s ultimate objective is not to kill people, but to manipulate their behavior. To reflect on this point, we explore the relationship between deterrence theory and counterinsurgency as a particular framework of governance, one that emphasizes the targeting of coercive action against a population in order to immobilize an adversary. We discuss how an elaboration on this framework provides clear analytic purchase for understanding connections between those infrastructures of deterrence deployed in remote desert areas and a number of more recent carceral practices and enforcement initiatives undertaken by the United States along its border with Mexico.

This paper discusses the rationale for, and use of, local content requirements (LCRs) in the mining sector. In many countries, LCRs are being used to facilitate wealth creation, local participation, domestic linkages and clusters growth, and socio-economic development linked to mineral exploitation. In the case of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), where LCRs have grown in popularity in recent years, the main strategies being pursued include quotas (equity, employment, local sourcing), local beneficiation, local supplier development initiatives, mandatory local R&D expenditure and local skills development. Here and elsewhere, LCRs underpinned by supportive regulatory frameworks and enforcement and monitoring mechanisms are critical in expanding the local role of mining and in minimizing the enclave nature of mineral extraction by creating linkages. This paper builds a case for harmonizing LCRs across the region to benefit from economies of scale and the regional sourcing of capital, skills, supplies and other inputs and sector requirements. The regionalization of LCRs should be part of the broader process of implementing the Africa Mining Vision and the harmonization of policies in the sector in line with the SADC Protocol on Mining, and the long-term objectives of the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap and the Revised Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan through the SADC Regional Mining Vision.

Objectives The catastrophic effects of armed conflict, particularly prolonged armed conflict, on individual and public health are well-established. The ‘right’ to healthcare during armed conflict and its lack of enforcement despite a range of United Nations mandated requirements regarding health and healthcare provisions is likely to be a significant feature in future conflicts, as zoonotic induced pandemics become a more common global public health challenge. The issue of enforcement of health rights assurance and its implications for the public health management of global pandemics such as COVID-19 in and between countries and regions in conflict is the objective of this Review. Study Design Narrative Review. Methods Referenced to the framework of International humanitarian law (IHL) and International human rights law (IHRL) in order to explore and discuss the deficits in health rights assurances in conflict settings and illustrate how gaps in protection and lack of enforcement compounds the disease response. Both international humanitarian law, and international human rights law can be leveraged to ensure human and health rights are assured in conflict settings. There is a distinct lack of international criteria with regard to standards of health care coverage, infrastructure and service preservation to the civilian population during times of armed conflict. This has far reaching consequences when confounded by a pandemic or even localised disease outbreak. Results We illustrate how in a pandemic disease emergency, such as COVID-19, all life is threatened; and how leaving the citizen population exposed to this contagion is a human rights breach and an indirect method of warfare. The consequences of failure to effectively address such pandemic infections, (i.e. COVID-19), in a conflict setting are potentially catastrophic as prevention and containment responses are severely constrained by state insecurity, political instability, terrorism, repression, rights abuses and displacement of citizens. Neglect by State actors potentially constitutes a breach of the universal right to life. States cannot justify their failures to mitigate disease based on claims of lack of resources, even when available resources are minimal. Where discrimination of people with a disease, such as COVID-19, or minority groups at the point of access to health facilities occurs, this further breaches the principle of medical neutrality. Conclusions The example of the COVID-19 response may offer a viable route to leverage greater access and coverage of health care in conflict and humanitarian settings. A radicalised partnership approach during these times of emergency is warranted, based on an ethical “humanitarian intervention” approach to provide care to all affected by contagious disease in conflict settings.., Highlights • The catastrophic effects of armed conflict on individual and public health are well-established. • Zoonotic induced pandemics (COVID-19) are a growing public health challenge in conflict settings. • International humanitarian law and human rights law can be leveraged to ensure health rights are assured in conflict settings. • In a pandemic disease emergency life is threatened; and leaving citizens exposed to contagion is a human rights breach and an indirect method of warfare. • States cannot justify their failures to mitigate disease based on claims of lack of resources. • Breaches of medical neutrality occur where discrimination of people with COVID-19 at the point of access to health facilities occurs. • COVID-19 responses may offer a viable route to leverage greater access and coverage of health care in conflict settings.

Person re-identification (re-id) addresses the problem of whether “a query image corresponds to an identity in the database” and is believed to play a fundamental role in security enforcement in the near future, particularly in crowded urban environments. Due to many possibilities in selecting appropriate model architectures, datasets, and settings, the performance reported by the state-of-the-art re-id methods oscillates significantly among the published surveys. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the mainstream trends and emerging research difficulties in person re-id. This paper proposes a multi-dimensional taxonomy to categorize the most relevant researches according to different perspectives and tries to unify the categorization of re-id methods and fill the gap between the recently published surveys. Furthermore, we discuss the open challenges with a focus on privacy concerns and the issues caused by the exponential increase in the number of re-id publications over the recent years. Finally, we discuss several challenging directions for future studies.

Stringent environmental regulation can impact corporations in both positive and negative ways. However, how external auditors respond to the changes in environmental regulation, and alter their assessment of the audit and client environmental risk accordingly, remains underexplored. This study exploits the promulgation of China’s new Environmental Protection Law (EPL) as an exogenous shock, and adopts a difference-in-differences approach to examine the effect of environmental regulation on audit fees. We find that the new EPL increases environmental and audit risk for heavy-polluting firms, to which auditors charge higher audit fees for compensation. The impact of environmental regulation on audit fees is stronger for firms with low-quality environmental disclosure, those in regions with strong regulation and legal enforcement, and those without political connections. Overall, our findings indicate that stringent environmental regulation can generate extra costs and risks for firms and their external auditors.

Which financial frictions drive firms’ financing constraints? We structurally estimate dynamic firm financing models embedding many financial frictions, on panels of public firms and private firms. We focus on limited enforcement, moral hazard, and trade-off models and assess which models rationalize best observed corporate policies across various samples. Our tests, based on empirical policy function benchmarks, favor trade-off models for larger public firms, limited commitment models for smaller public firms, and moral hazard models for Private firms. Our estimates suggest significant financing constraints due to agency frictions and highlight the importance of identifying their sources for firm valuation.

With the intent to frame policy recommendations for enhancing the state of road safety, this study employed a binary logit regression approach to examine the factors associated with the compliance/defiance of seatbelt use among drivers of different vehicle types in Islamabad. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data on the respondents’ seatbelt use, demographic characteristics, driving behavior, past penalization history, and perceived effectiveness of enforcement of seatbelt laws. The study results revealed that there is a lower likelihood of wearing seatbelt among male drivers, taxi drivers, drivers with a low level of education, drivers with no crash or injury history, drivers that violate speed limits and are never penalized on seatbelt violation, and drivers with no seatbelt reminder installed in their vehicles. Respondents who believed that there is low effectiveness of the enforcement of seatbelt laws had the highest impact on seatbelt use whereas, the presence of seatbelt reminders in the vehicle had the least impact on seatbelt use. The findings of this study suggest the need for awareness campaigns for taxi drivers with the intent to educate them about the potential benefits of using a seatbelt in the case of a crash event; improved awareness and strict vigilance of male drivers; strict enforcement of posted speed limits and seatbelt laws; legislation for the mandatory installation of a seatbelt in all the new vehicles, and organizing mass outreach campaigns to improve the overall safety environment. Most importantly and widely applicable to the developing world, this study necessitates a depiction of strong resolve on the part of government agencies regarding the strict enforcement of seatbelt laws. Given a substantial difference in the social, cultural, and legislative outfit of the developed and developing worlds, factors influencing the compliance/defiance of seatbelt use among drivers differ significantly. It is, therefore, important to explore the local contributory factors as the results are not necessarily transferable across the regions.