Search

The State Defense Order 2012 was implemented nearly 80%. Being limited in labor force, Russia’s defense plants are facing problems related to drastically increased the State Defense Order 2013. President Putin’s requirements to create a transparent military economy, establish order in terms of administration in the military-industrial complex and its pricing have encountered serious difficulties.

This paper investigates whether the industrial relations climate in Indian States has affected the pattern of manufacturing growth in the period 1958-92. We show that pro-worker amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act are associated with lowered investment, employment, productivity and output in registered manufacturing. Regulating in a pro-worker direction is also associated with increases in urban poverty. This suggests that attempts to redress the balance of power between capital and labour can end up hurting the poor.

Existing French bankruptcy/insolvency law is composed of extra-judicial treatment of firms’ difficulties and judicial treatment of their failures. In the first part, there is mediation. French mediation procedure falls mainly within the province of bargaining theory. However, during the negotiation between the manager of the failing firm and its chief creditors, the president of the commercial court may suspend all lawsuits by creditors. Through a case-study, we highlight the drawbacks of this situation. To this end, we use a signaling game because the information context is asymmetric, and the manager of the failing firm has the exclusive right to declare financial distress and demand that creditors agree to a workout. Classification JEL : C7, K2

A simple probit model of property rights adoption is estimated for U.S. fisheries managed under the Magnuson Act. The results of the model are consistent with the literature on property rights and transaction costs: Namely, the adoption of private property rights to marine fisheries is shown to hinge on the value of variables which determine, on the one hand, the costs of monitoring and enforcing rights, and on the other hand, the benefits of more clearly defining such rights.

Post-socialist transition raises crucial issues about the institutional setting of a market economy. The priority has been given to property rights, and privatization has been advocated as a means to depoliticize economic activities. The dismissal of external interventions, allied with the attraction to the American model and Hayekian ideas, often led to the introduction of minimal laws and wait for their evolutionary development. The failure of corporate and public governance, notably in Russia, helps to show why, on the contrary, democratically established legal rules are essential. Legislation should not only protect corporate shareholders and stakeholders, but more fundamentally all citizens against predatory collusive behavior of political, economic and criminal elites

The U.S. personal bankruptcy system functions as a bankruptcy system for small businesses as well as for consumers. When firms are non-corporate, debts of the firm are personal liabilities of the entrepreneur/owner. If the firm fails, the entrepreneur has an incentive to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7, since both business debts and the entrepreneur's personal debts will be discharged. The entrepreneur must give up assets above a fixed bankruptcy exemption level for repayment to creditors, but future earnings are entirely exempt. Exemption levels are set by the states and they vary widely. We show that higher bankruptcy exemption levels benefit potential entrepreneurs by providing partial wealth insurance. The predicted relationship between the probability of owning a business and the exemption level is positive at low exemption levels, but may be either positive or negative at high exemption levels, depending on whether higher bankruptcy costs outweigh the gain from additional insurance. We test this prediction and find that the probability of families who are homeowners being self-employed is 35% higher if families live in states with unlimited exemptions rather than low exemptions. We also find evidence that families who are homeowners are more likely to start businesses and to organize their businesses as non-corporate rather than corporate if they live in states with high or unlimited, rather than low, bankruptcy exemptions.

During the Progressive Era at the beginning of the 20 th century, the United States replaced litigation by regulation as the principal mechanism of social control of business. To explain why this happened, we present a model of choice of law enforcement strategy between litigation and regulation based on the idea that justice can be subverted with sufficient expenditure of resources. The model suggests that courts are more vulnerable to subversion than regulators, especially in an environment of significant inequality of wealth and political power. The switch to regulation can then be seen as an efficient response to the subversion of justice by robber barons during the Gilded Age. The model makes sense of the progressive reform agenda, and of the successes and failures of alternative law enforcement strategies in different countries.

This paper aims at describing the choices to be made in selecting and implementing a reform model for the electricity industry and to derive some implications for the situation in Kosovo. The paper argues that the appropriate reform model depends on the circumstances in the considered jurisdiction. Especially in small and less developed electricity systems a dilemma may emerge: the technical circumstances suggest the implementation of a model with few competitive elements, whereas political circumstances urge for a competition-oriented model. Hence, especially in small systems, a delicate trade-off emerges that significantly complicates the decisions to be made. This is obviously relevant for Kosovo. An international opening of KosovoÂ’s electricity market may provide a solution to the dilemma. This international opening encompasses a reduction of state sovereignty for electricity regulation and a wide-reaching market opening for private investors and electricity traders.

We consider a special case of Schmutzler's and Goulder''s (1997) analysis of output taxes vs emission taxes as environmental policy instruments. We identify new necessary conditions for the existence of an optimum. We also show that, in this case, it is always optimal to have a mixed tax with positive enforcement effort.

In November, the following changes were introduced in the legislation: the list of grounds for approval by the Ministry of Justice of a decision on permission to include in the name of a non-profit organization of the official names -- “the Russian Federation “ or “Russia”-- was supplemented; the rules of calculation of the insurance compensation in case of damage caused to the health of a person who was injured in a road accident were approved; the Government of the Russian Federation plans to develop and put into service the federal public information system which ensures the process of extrajudicial appeal of decisions and actions made by officials in provision of public and municipal services; Rosfinmonitoring reports that the procedure for mandatory control over some types of operations related to securing by non-profit organizations of cash funds or other property has become effective.

Cet article discute du role du droit dans les structures de gouvernement d’entreprise et dans le developpement des marches financiers. Il met en evidence les effets des regles de droit sur les performances comparees des systemes financiers dans les pays de common law et dans les pays de droit civil. La relation entre protection des investisseurs et developpement des marches financiers est plus particulierement mise en avant et la these de l’efficience economique de la common law est debattue. L’article passe en revue les travaux recents du Law and Finance qui recherchent l’origine de l’efficacite des formes de gouvernement d’entreprise dans des facteurs juridiques. La nature et les performances des systemes financiers dans les pays de l’OCDE apparaissent en effet correlees aux traditions juridiques de ces pays. Nous soulignons que non seulement le contenu des regles mais aussi leurs conditions d’application influencent l’architecture financiere. Mais les systemes juridiques sont egalement le produit de systemes financiers et de systemes de gouvernance differents qui font peser des demandes specifiques sur les institutions juridiques. Ce papier montre en definitive que les systemes juridiques peuvent contribuer a faconner les structures financieres mais que l’evolution de ces systemes est en partie la consequence de l’action des forces economiques. Ces forces participent a la formation des regles juridiques et vice versa. Cette approche conduit a remettre en cause l’idee d’un systeme optimal de gouvernement d’entreprise tel qu’elle ressort des travaux sur la convergence des systemes.

For over a century, economists and policymakers have debated the relative merits of bank-based versus market-based financial systems. Recent research, however, argues that classifying countries as bank- or market-based is not a very fruitful way to distinguish financial systems. This paper represents the first broad, cross-country examination of which view of financial structure is more consistent with the data. The results indicate that although overall financial development is robustly linked with economic growth, there is no support for either the bank-based or the market-based view. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G0, K2, O4.

Tato studie prezentuje pìt indikátorù používaných pro mìøení kvality podnikatelského prostøedí ve visegrádských zemích a shrnuje jejich výsledky. Jedná se o index vnímání korupce, agregátní indikátory správy, index zajetí (státu), index neprùhlednosti a index rizika správy akciových spoleèností. Autoøi diskutují výhody a nevýhody jednotlivých metodologických pøístupù a s pøihlédnutím k možným omezením vypovídací schopnosti indexù vyvozují spoleèné a rozdílné institucionální charakteristiky Èeské republiky, Slovenska, Maïarska a Polska. Všechny ukazatele prezentované v této studii vycházejí ze subjektivních údajù, které byly shromáždìny formou prùzkumu mínìní vedoucích pøedstavitelù místní podnikatelské sféry, zahranièních expertù èi obèanù dané zemì. Výsledky jsou èasto málo robustní v dùsledku vysokému rozptylu. Pøesto však všech tìchto pìt indexù konzistentnì vykazuje stejné porovnání ètyø sledovaných zemí. Kvalita podnikatelského prostøedí je obecnì vnímána jako nejvyšší v Maïarsku, následuje Èeská republika a Polsko s navzájem porovnatelnými výsledky a pak Slovensko, které ponìkud zaostává za všemi visegrádskými zemìmi. Aèkoliv je možné na základì nìkterých indexù rozlišit slabé a silné stránky institucionálních rámcù v jednotlivých zemích, indexy samy o sobì nedokážou odpovìdìt na otázku, proè jsou nìkteré komponenty lepší èi horší, ani na otázku, zda tyto rozdíly jsou skuteèné, nebo zda jde pouze o rozdíly ve vnímání.

My life’s work has positioned me in two diverse worlds’ one in science and one in law [1]. I publish in both fields, and the traditions are very different. Law journals typically have narrow readerships, principally those in the legal academy. The law review tradition, particularly in North America, is student edited, non-peer reviewed, and characteristically long and detailed. Law libraries often spend large portions of their budgets on journal subscriptions, which they store in scarce space. [...]

Previous research suggests that social environmental and individual-level factors influence adolescent development and behavior over time. However, little attention has been devoted to examining how risk factors (i.e., parental support, peer delinquency, self-control) affect trajectories of criminal behavior among female adolescents. Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 5138 females) and latent class analysis, three offending trajectories among females from late adolescence to early adulthood were identified: late escalators, late de-escalators, and stable low/abstainers. Next, the influence of social environmental and individual-level factors during adolescence (Wave 1) on these trajectories was assessed. Results identified key differences in the risk factors related to group placement. The implications of the findings for prevention and treatment services targeting adolescent females, and directions for future research, are discussed.

Yannis Katsoulacos acknowledges that this research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: ARISTEIA – CoLEG. In this paper we set out the welfare economics based case for imposing cartel penalties on the cartel overcharge rather than on the more conventional bases of revenue or profits (illegal gains). To do this we undertake a systematic comparison of a penalty based on the cartel overcharge with three other penalty regimes: fixed penalties; penalties based on revenue, and penalties based on profits. Our analysis is the first to compare these regimes in terms of their impact on both (i) the prices charged by those cartels that do form; and (ii) the number of stable cartels that form (deterrence). We show that the class of penalties based on profits is identical to the class of fixed penalties in all welfare-relevant respects. For the other three types of penalty we show that, for those cartels that do form, penalties based on the overcharge produce lower prices than those based on profit)while penalties based on revenue produce the highest prices. Further, in conjunction with the above result, our analysis of cartel stability (and thus deterrence), shows that penalties based on the overcharge out-perform those based on profits, which in turn out-perform those based on revenue in terms of their impact on each of the following welfare criteria: (a) average overcharge; (b) average consumer surplus; (c) average total welfare. Postprint

With rapid technological change has come a blurring of boundaries between personal and workplace space. Employers are challenged to develop guidelines and policies to direct the appropriate use of technology to maintain a civil workplace. Because of the lack of shared understanding, or even terminology, around the issue of cyberbullying, employers are seeking a response from lawmakers to assist with this issue. Lawmakers are reluctant to develop legislation prematurely, given the rapid change in the capabilities of technology, the diverse social norms about its use, and the uncertainty of the role and responsibility of employers in minimizing cyberbullying and facilitating a civil workplace environment. This Canadian study seeks insight into these emerging issues through in-depth interviews with human resource professionals representing diverse business and industry sectors.

In federal court and many state courts across the United States, once a defendant is convicted, judges are routinely permitted, and in fact, sometimes required to increase a defendant’s sentence based on relevant conduct, of which he was acquitted at trial, or conduct for which he was never charged. This article highlights the issues that arise from the use of acquitted conduct sentencing under the now advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The use of acquitted conduct under the relevant conduct provisions of the Guidelines has resulted in substantially longer prison sentences with a disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities. Acquitted conduct sentencing treats the offense admitted by a defendant, or proven to a judge or jury’s satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt as only the starting point in calculating a defendant’s sentence; the modified real offense approach, which incorporates relevant conduct and mandates consideration of acquitted conduct, determines the end sentence. This article concludes that use of acquitted conduct should be prohibited both on constitutional and normative grounds. While it is outside the scope of this article to offer a comprehensive solution or alternative to the use of acquitted conduct at sentencing, the key observation is that since the common thread linking the constitutional and normative issues arise from the fragmented nature of U.S. sentencing policy, the solution must start with re-conceptualizing the theories underlying sentencing in the United States.

As well as consolidating on the existing literature on fair value accounting, by way of reference to jurisdictional analyses which include a focus on China, Japan, Brazil, and South Africa, this paper not only highlights why there is need for a re-think of the use of fair values as the primary basis for the implementation of IFRS, but also accentuates the links between systemic risk and information asymmetries – hence the justification for greater focus on information channels as well as disclosure and financial reporting requirements. Audits, which serve as vital signalling mechanisms in capital markets, have limited roles in many emerging economies than is the case with industrial nations. In contributing to the extant literature on the topic, this paper also aims to address the vital and crucial question relating to whether certain emerging economies are justified in their reluctance to fully embrace audits – based on cost- benefit considerations, as well as other inadequacies relating to fair value measurements. Furthermore, it will be highlighted that whilst audits may appear to have more limited roles in certain jurisdictions, there appears to be greater willingness to embrace Basel III requirements – and in particular, the Basel III leverage ratios in jurisdictions such as China. Ultimately the paper also aims to investigate whether there are any justifications or rationales for a jurisdiction's willingness and pace to adopt IFRS, Basel III requirements, in relation to the existing role assumed by audits in such jurisdictions.

The field of research ethics offers a new approach to addressing the issues created by the unchecked development of technology. Research ethics could make a contribution, both substantively and procedurally, to help create a framework for reviewing the social and political consequences of actual or proposed technological developments. This paper puts forth a proposal for a principled expansion of research ethics’ jurisdiction, specifically a move from “Research Involving Humans” to “Research Affecting Humans”, and undertakes a case study of “Web 2.0” to analyze whether a philosophy of technology based on research ethics might work.

This paper examines the main determinants of firms tax evasion and corruption in the formal industrial sector. In our model psychological morale of bureaucratic agents are important to explain corruption.It is shown that the presence of rents linked to favoritism and patronage practices is fundamental in fostering corruption. Therfore, this endemic corruption can explain the lack of productive performance of industrial . Institutional reforms would greatly be desirable to encourage efficiency in the industrial sector which is the main engine of economic growth

We analyze a model where an antitrust authority delegates to an audit inspector the mission of gathering the sufficient information to condemn a cartel. The authority has two instruments at her disposal: rewarding the inspector with a proportion of the collected fine or providing him with information which enhances the probability of the success of the prosecution. More precisely, we explore the efficiency consequences of a contest between the audit inspector and the cartel. Both of them bid to win the contest by expending efforts. We show that the race issue depends positively on the financial incentives proposed to the inspector but the impact of an increase of the level of the fine, to be paid once an illegal agreement is detected, is ambiguous. Moreover, we show that the optimal combination of the two instruments consists in two regimes. When the marginal cost of providing the relevant information is relatively high, the antitrust authority equally shares the collected fine and does not provide the inspector with any information. Conversely, when this marginal cost is relatively small, the authority uses the two instruments. She has to provide him with the maximum level of information consistent with winning the contest with certainty.

We describe Hayek's position on taxation and its subsequent developments. Hayek defends the proportional tax system. If a majority rule corrects deviations from political power must also restrict the conditions of progressive taxation. According to Hayek the progressive tax system (SFP) violates a principle of constitutional law obligations to generate more work for those looking for the growth of the economy. In this sense, the progressive tax system operates counter to principles of democratic justice.

We study the optimal insurance design problem. This is a risk sharing problem between an insured and an insurer. The main novelty in this paper is that we study this optimization problem under a risk-adjusted premium calculation principle for the insurance cover. This risk-adjusted premium calculation principle uses the cost-of-capital approach as it is suggested (and used) by the regulator and the insurance industry., Risks, 2 (2)

The legal rules governing businesses' organizational choices have varied across nations along two main dimensions: the number of different forms that businesses can adopt; and the extent to which businesses have the contractual freedom to modify the available forms to suit their needs. Until the late twentieth century, businesses in the U.S. had a narrower range of forms from which to choose than their counterparts in these other countries and also much less ability to modify the basic forms contractually. This article uses the case of Pennsylvania to argue that the sources of this "American exceptionalism" reside in the interplay between the early achievement of universal (white) manhood suffrage and elite efforts to safeguard property rights.

We study the recursive moments of aggregate discounted claims, where the dependence between the inter-claim time and the subsequent claim size is considered. Using the general expression for the m-th order moment proposed by Léveillé and Garrido (Scand. Actuar. J. 2001 , 2, 98–110), which takes the form of the Volterra integral equation (VIE), we used the method of successive approximation to derive the Neumann series of the recursive moments. We then compute the first two moments of aggregate discounted claims, i.e., its mean and variance, based on the Neumann series expression, where the dependence structure is captured by a Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern (FGM) copula, a Gaussian copula and a Gumbel copula with exponential marginal distributions. Insurance premium calculations with their figures are also illustrated.

This paper provides a new interpretation of the early rise of rating agencies in the United States (initially known as ‘Mercantile Agencies’). We explain this American exceptionality through an inductive approach that revisits the conventional parallel with the UK. In contrast with earlier narratives that have emphasized the role of Common Law and the greater understanding of American judges that would have supported the rise of an ethos of ‘transparency’, we argue that Mercantile Agencies prospered as a remedy to deficient bankruptcy law and weak protection of creditor rights in the US. The result was to raise the value of the nation-wide registry of defaulters which the Mercantile Agencies managed. This ensured the Agencies’ profitability and endowed them with resources to buy their survival in a legal environment that remained stubbornly hostile.

This paper analyzes the use of the corporate form among nineteenth-century manufacturing firms in Massachusetts, from newly collected data from 1875. An analysis of incorporation rates across industries reveals that corporations were formed at higher rates among industries in which firm size was larger. But conditional on firm size, the industries in which production was conducted in factories, rather than artisanal shops, saw more frequent use of the corporate form. On average, the ownership of the corporations was quite concentrated, with the directors holding 45 percent of the shares. However, the corporations whose shares were quoted on the Boston Stock Exchange were 'widely held' at rates comparable to modern American public companies. The production methods utilized in in different industries also influenced firms' ownership structures. In many early factories, steam power was combined with unskilled labor, and managers likely performed a complex supervisory role that was critical to the success of the firm. Consistent with the notion that monitoring management was especially important among such firms, corporations in industries that made greater use of steam power and unskilled labor had more concentrated ownership, higher levels of managerial ownership, and smaller boards of directors.

During the first two centuries of European colonization of what is now the United States, executions for a variety of offenses relatively frequently involved mass executions, that is, the execution for the same criminal incident of four or more persons. By the time of American independence, some of those crimes had largely ceased to exist or to elicit such punishment, like witchcraft and piracy. However, the punishment of slaves and Indians kept the percentage of executed persons involved in mass executions significant, if not large. During the last quarter of the 19th and first six decades of the 20th century, mass legal executions diminished as a percentage and were largely limited to punishing robbery-related homicides, including felony-homicides of conspirators. Throughout that period, the end of mass executions for a particular crime presaged the end of all executions for that offense, and the last mass legal execution occurred in 1960.

This paper proposes a unifying theory of forecasting in the form of a Golden Rule of Forecasting. The Golden Rule is to be conservative. A conservative forecast is consistent with cumulative knowledge about the present and the past. To be conservative, forecasters must seek all knowledge relevant to the problem, and use methods that have been validated for the situation. A checklist of 28 guidelines is provided to implement the Golden Rule. This article’s review of research found 150 experimental comparisons; all supported the guidelines. The average error reduction from following a single guideline (compared to common practice) was 28 percent. The Golden Rule Checklist helps forecasters to forecast more accurately, especially when the situation is uncertain and complex, and when bias is likely. Non-experts who know the Golden Rule can identify dubious forecasts quickly and inexpensively. To date, ignorance of research findings, bias, sophisticated statistical procedures, and the proliferation of big data have led forecasters to violate the Golden Rule. As a result, despite major advances in forecasting methods, evidence that forecasting practice has improved over the past half-century is lacking.

Whilst the benefits and potentials of the dual roles assumed by external auditors are emphasized, as well as the need to ensure that safeguards operating to guard against a compromise of objectivity and independence are in place, this paper also highlights the fact that even though such dual roles are appropriate in certain cases – as illustrated by justifications for limitations imposed by the Sarbanes Oxley Act and other relevant and applicable legislation – instances also persist where section 201 of Sarbanes-Oxley, with regard to internal audit outsourcing, may have been over-reactionary and may continue to hinder both companies and their auditors.

The predecessor paper to this publication, “Volcker/Vickers Hybrid”: The Liikanen Report and Justifications For Ring Fencing and Separate Legal Entities, considered the merits, objectives and cost-benefit attributes of respective models associated with the Vickers Report, Liikanen Report and Volckers Rule – by way of reference to the degree of separation of legal entities or banking activities involved, as well as whether an outright ban or prohibition on proprietary trading is involved. This paper is aimed at highlighting why ring fencing not only presents a more feasible and cost effective option to other models, but also why its degree of flexibility provides the more appropriate balance in a financial environment whose trend is increasingly inclined towards conglomeration.

The field of online dispute resolution (ODR) is developing both as practice and a profession. Evidence of this includes a growing community of scholars and practitioners. A Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) grant permitted 16 practitioners from developing countries to attend the 2008 ODR Forum in Victoria, British Columbia. In the year following the Forum, an evaluation was conducted to identify changes among these practitioners’ behaviors, knowledge, skills, abilities and credibility. Results indicate that ODR practitioners in developing countries are engaged in a wide range of activities, many of which are technologically and logistically complex. These practitioners also face a number of political and infrastructural challenges that are not as commonly experienced by those from developed nations. Taken together, these realities have implications both for the nature of ODR’s proliferation as a legitimate practice, as well as for the provision of education and training concerning its underpinnings.

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court was presented with data indicating that 15% to 20% of death-eligible defendants were actually sentenced to death. Based on such a negligible death sentence rate, some Justices concluded that the imposition of death was random and capricious—a fatal lottery. Later, the Court assumed in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) that guided discretion statutes would eliminate the constitutional infirmities identified in Furman : If state legislatures narrowed the pool of death-eligible defendants to the “worst of the worst” then most would be sentenced to death, eliminating numerical arbitrariness. However, recent research suggests that numerical arbitrariness remains, as the death sentence rate falls below the Furman threshold in California (11%), Connecticut (4%), and Colorado (less than 1%). The current research estimates the death sentence rate in Texas. Interestingly, Texas provides a conservative test. In contrast to most states, the Texas statute does not include broad aggravators that substantially enlarge the pool of death-eligible defendants and therefore depress the death sentence rate. Nonetheless, the death sentence rate in Texas during the period from 2006 to 2010 ranges from 3% to 6% (depending on assumptions made about the data). The same pattern holds true in the key counties that send the largest number of defendants to death row: Harris (Houston), Dallas (Dallas), Tarrant (Fort Worth and Arlington), and Bexar (San Antonio). Thus, the data suggest that Texas can be added to the list of states in which capital punishment is unconstitutional as administered. If the death sentence rate in Texas runs afoul of the Furman principle then the prognosis for other states is not encouraging.

The extant literature on cross-border mergers and acquisitions suggested that firm-specific, deal-specific, and country-specific determinants affect both negotiation process and post-merger integration. In particular, a great extent of strategy, international business and finance scholars argued that legal and regulatory infrastructure, level of investor protection, financial markets development, international taxation provisions, and macroeconomic indicators have been most important factors significantly affecting the cross-border acquisitions completion. In fact, we found significant knowledge gap on why cross-border acquisitions often litigate, delay and unsuccessful, especially when target firm is associated with developing country. With this in mind, we develop and analyze three litigated cross-border acquisitions connected to the host country-India: (i) Vodafone acquisition of Hutchison in 2007, (ii) unsuccessful cross-border merger between Bharti Airtel and MTN Group in 2008-09, and (iii) Vedanta Resources acquisition of Cairn India in 2010-11. To do so, we adopt qualitative case study research both to test existing theory and to build new theory. Hence, we accomplish research goals based on our new multi-case research design that assist qualitative researchers to overcome institutional barriers accountable for data collection as well as to study the emerging markets phenomenon. Regarding theory testing, we test seventeen theories propounded in management-related literature. Based on limitations of the existing theories and multi-case proofs, we develop new theory and offer lawful propositions for future research that would advance the current knowledge on institutional role in cross-border acquisitions. In addition, we also recommend an alternative foreign market entry model for making successful business entry in developing countries. We therefore conclude that a given country’s weak regulatory system benefits acquirer, target, or both; simultaneously, the behavior would adversely affect on economic benefit of that host country.

The Basel III Leverage Ratio, as originally agreed upon in December 2010, has recently undergone revisions and updates – both in relation to those proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision – as well as proposals introduced in the United States. Whilst recent proposals have been introduced by the Basel Committee to improve, particularly, the denominator component of the Leverage Ratio, new requirements have been introduced in the U.S to upgrade and increase these ratios, and it is those updates which relate to the Basel III Supplementary Leverage Ratio that have primarily generated a lot of interests. This is attributed not only to concerns that many subsidiaries of US Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) will find it cumbersome to meet such requirements, but also to potential or possible increases in regulatory capital arbitrage: a phenomenon which plagued the era of the original 1988 Basel Capital Accord and which also partially provided impetus for the introduction of Basel II. This paper is aimed at providing an analysis of the most recent updates which have taken place in respect of the Basel III Leverage Ratio and the Basel III Supplementary Leverage Ratio – both in respect of recent amendments introduced by the Basel Committee and revisions introduced in the United States. Amongst these notable developments, the Final or rather nearly finalised Standard issued by the Basel Committee in January 2014, as well as the 2014 U.S Enhanced Supplementary Leverage Ratios are worth mentioning. Sometimes the competitive disadvantages resulting from over compliance or stringent measures may generate costs which are actually minimal when compared to those costs which could potential arise in a scenario where economic disruptions and crises do occur where such „over compliance“ measures are not implemented. So when do measures become over-compliant? What may be regarded as over-compliance for a particular jurisdiction may not necessarily be the case for another. Conversely what may be required for minimal compliance purposes in certain jurisdictions may prove inadequate for certain major economies.

Whilst economic, political linkages and relationships constitute the theme of this paper, the paper also attempts to address why central bank independence still lacks certain vital attributes which embody adequate governance and accountability mechanisms - which are necessary if better results in relation to longer term economic and political objectives, in particular, are to be achieved. From this perspective, the growing importance of the shift to a focus on distinguishing between micro and macro prudential regulation is illustrated. The need for such distinction is not just evidenced through the creation of agencies responsible for such affairs within particular jurisdictions which are considered in this paper, but also through the increased realisation and need for greater focus on decision making responsibilities which are to be assigned to political and economic entities at supra national levels. Financial stability, it appears, has more to do with a mere focus on longer term objectives. Financial stability is also concerned with the ability to sustain long term policy objectives whilst being flexible enough to respond effectively to short term unpredictabilities.

This paper deals with a review of the tax and civil legislation in Russia.

Credit ratings have assumed an increasingly formidable and important role over the years. An increased role and revisions to its foundations, have been triggered, not only in view of the shortcomings of credit ratings based criteria, as revealed through the recent Financial Crisis, but also the need to update Basel II - which has served as the foundation for credit ratings in several jurisdictions. Credit ratings serve various vital purposes, most notably of which include the determination of capital requirements, the identification and classification of assets, and the provision of reliable estimation and assessment of credit risk. The criteria required to be satisfied by credit rating agencies, namely: objectivity, independence, transparency, disclosure, resources and credibility, are closely linked, since the level of comparability and consistency of information provided by such agencies, could also serve as a useful indicator that such information is reliable and credible. In response to the changing financial environment - the evolution and emergence of new and more complex forms of risks and financial products, credit rating agencies have extended their scope beyond the coverage of their traditional products. As well as assessing whether the scope of products presently covered by rating agencies could be deemed adequately relevant to the criteria required to satisfy information being provided as credible, this paper also addresses the reliability of credit scoring methods and models. Are those measures used in estimating the probability of default, namely, financial statements, market prices of a firm’s debt and equity, and appraisals of the firm’s prospects and risk sufficiently indicative as to provide a reliable estimate of the firm's probability of default? The vital role of audits in verifying the credibility of information in financial statements is therefore evident. The reliability and consistency of credit ratings across different jurisdictions, sectors - financial, non financial sectors, and rating agencies, as well as the reliability of the approach for assessing ratings constitute major areas to be addressed. This in part, being attributed to the difficulties with achieving a balance between risk-sensitivity and comparability. The Basel III leverage ratios also being crucial to achieving an acceptable balance with risk-sensitivity - such that the capital framework is not considered unduly risk-sensitive - as was the case with Basel II. The increased importance attributed to credit ratings is also reflected by the Basel Committee’s recent introduction of the Standardized Approach (SA-CCR) for measuring exposure at default (EAD) for counter-party credit risk (CCR). The SA-CCR is intended to replace both current non-internal models approaches, the Current Exposure Method (CEM) and the Standardised Method (SM). The SA-CCR will apply to OTC derivatives, exchange-traded derivatives and long settlement transactions. Risk models have certainly become increasingly complex and relevant - however, is such level of complexity correspondingly and adequately balanced with the level of objectivity and comparability which is required within the capital framework?

This paper analyzes the effects of two damage rules (Lost Profi t vs Unjust Enrichment) mainly used by Courts in patent litigations. In our model, the Infringer either is a mere imitator of the Patentee or introduces incremental innovations, and litigation costs are private information such that a pretrial settlement may be better for both litigants. We show that the Unjust Enrichment rule yields less trials than the Lost Pro fit one. But regarding three main objectives, Patentee's protection, incentives to invest in R&D, and social welfare maximization,we find that no rule is better than the other generally speaking. Our model also allows to emphasize how the combination between the size of litigation costs, the negotiation gains and the IPR strength, shapes the incentives to enforce as well infringe a IPR, although in a way specifi c to each rule.

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements, particularly the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), it derives insights from a large number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) that embody substantive provisions on both government procurement and services trade. An important finding is that, from an economic perspective, general market access commitments with respect to services trade and commitments regarding government procurement of services are complementary and mutually reinforcing. In contrast, from a legal point of view and at the multilateral level, disciplines in the two areas have been "divided up" into two Agreements with different (but complementary) spheres of application: the key provisions regarding the scope of application of the GATS and the GPA make clear that each serves purposes that the other does not. Analysis of corresponding provisions of RTAs broadly supports and extends this finding. In light of the foregoing, a question arises as to possible ways of deepening disciplines in this area. Part 5 sets out, for reflection, several related options: (i) the built-in mandate in the GATS for negotiations on services procurement (Article XIII:2); (ii) "multilateralization" of the GPA; (iii) the reactivation of work in the (currently inactive) WTO Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement; and (iv) the taking up of relevant issues in the context of bilateral or regional negotiations. Overall, we find that each of these possibilities has potential merits, though none is without related challenges.

We study how net neutrality regulations affect high-bandwidth content providers’ investment incentives in quality of services (QoS). We find that the effects crucially depend on network capacity levels. With a limited network capacity, the prioritized delivery services are complements to content providers' investments and can facilitate entry of high-bandwidth content. By contrast, if the network capacity is large enough, the prioritized delivery and QoS investment are substitutes. In either case, the social welfare effects of the prioritized service is ambiguous. In the limited capacity case, the beneficial effects of entry by high-band width content should be weighed against the cost of increasing congestion for other existing content. In the high capacity case, the negative impact of reduced investment incentives can be counterbalanced by the benefit of improved traffic management. Our findings have important implications for the contrasting neutrality regulations across the Atlantic: US FCC treats mobile networks more leniently than fixed networks, while the EU treats them equally.

In 2006, the Netherlands commenced market based reforms in its health care system. The reforms included selective contracting of health care providers by health insurers. This paper focuses on how health insurers may increase their market share on the health insurance market through selective contracting of health care providers. Selective contracting is studied by eliciting the preferences of health care consumers for attributes of health care services that an insurer could negotiate on behalf of its clients with health care providers. Selective contracting may provide incentives for health care providers to deliver the quality that consumers need and demand. Selective contracting also enables health insurers to steer individual patients towards selected health care providers. We used a stated preference technique known as a discrete choice experiment to collect and analyze the data. Results indicate that consumers care about both costs and quality of care, with healthy consumers placing greater emphasis on costs and consumers with poorer health placing greater emphasis on quality of care. It is possible for an insurer to satisfy both of these criteria by selective contracting health care providers who consequently purchase health care that is both efficient and of good quality.

In this work, we examine Thomas Reuters News Analytics (TRNA) data. We found several fascinating discoveries. First, we document the phenomenon that we label “Jam-the-Close”: The last half hour of trading (15:30 to 16:00 EST) contains a substantial and statistically significant amount of news sentiment releases. This finding is robust across years and months of the year. Next, upon further investigations we found that the “novelty” score is on average 0.67 in this period vs . 2.09 prior to midday. This indicates that “new” news is flowing at a rapid pace prior to the close. Finally, we discuss the implication of such phenomena in the context of existing financial literature.

International audience; Over the last three decades, the world economy has been facing stock market crashes, currency crisis, the dot-com and real estate bubble burst, credit crunch and banking panics. As a response, extreme value theory (EVT) provides a set of ready-made approaches to risk management analysis. However, EVT is usually applied to standardized returns to offer more reliable results, but remains difficult to interpret in the real world. This paper proposes a quantile regression to transform standardized returns into theoretical raw returns making them economically interpretable. An empirical test is carried out on the S&P500 stock index from 1950 to 2013. The main results indicate that the U.S stock market becomes extreme from a price variation of 1.5% and the largest one-day decline of the 2007–2008 period is likely, on average, to be exceeded one every 27 years.

As well as highlighting the importance of cost benefit analyses in decision- making processes where (expected) outcomes are very difficult to predict – given the degree of prevailing and potential risks and uncertainties, as well as the unquantifiable nature of such risks and uncertainties, this paper also illustrates the importance of complementary measures in the current Basel risk based capital adequacy framework. As technological advances and societal changes contribute towards the generation of certain levels of risks – some of which were previously not in existence, it is increasingly becoming evident that risks certainly have a dual nature. Institutional risks comprise of risks which are not only attributable to the firm or organisation where models (such as internal controls) or techniques are operated, namely internal control risks, but also the risks involved in managing those risks. In view of such uncertainties, and the continual evolution of risks, it becomes immediately apparent that certain outcomes cannot be predicted with high accuracy and certainty – hence the need to weigh the investment of high expenditure in such unpredictable outcomes. Is the desire to achieve comparability, as well as simplicity, greater than the need to attain accurate, reliable and more relevant results through investment in more complex techniques? Such techniques involving not only initially high outlays but also costs (as well as risks) involved in managing such techniques? These constitute some of the questions which this paper attempts to address.

Islamic Finance: Issues in Ṣukūk and Proposals for Reform is a jointly edited volume by Mohammad Hashim Kamali and Abdul Karim Abdullah. This publication is on an important current topic of Islamic economics and finance. With the increasing currency of ṣukūk products, there has been increasing volume of literature on the subject. But still there is dearth of works in English by writers simultaneously having expertise in Sharīʿah and practical experience in the industry. In this sense, the present work is a significant addition.

A general theoretical and empirical framework is developed for assessing the potential of a vertically integrated firm to foreclose downstream competitors. Using this framework a policymaker may also evaluate the empirical welfare effects from a vertically integrated firm raising rivals' costs. The framework is developed within the context of a vertically integrated multichannel video programming distributor ("MVPD"), and this framework extends the applicability of PCAIDS to vertical mergers. Using public data from the Comcast-Time Warner-Adelphia Merger Order of the Federal Communications Commission, price effects from the threat and action of foreclosure in several designated marketing areas were simulated. Empirical results suggest that the Commission Staff Model substantially underestimated price increases to end users as a result of the threat and action of foreclosure. Empirical results suggest that Commission's Program Access Rules were essential for MVPD competition.

Random shifting typically appears in credibility models whereas random scaling is often encountered in stochastic models for claim sizes reflecting the time-value property of money. In this article we discuss some aspects of random shifting and random scaling in insurance focusing in particular on credibility models, dependence structure of claim sizes in collective risk models, and extreme value models for the joint dependence of large losses. We show that specifying certain actuarial models using random shifting or scaling has some advantages for both theoretical treatments and practical applications., 11 pages