International Review of Law and Economics最新文献

We attempt to identify the causal effect of wages on a prosecutor’s effort by studying an exogenous salary increase in New York. We measure the performance by the likelihood that a conviction is upheld when appealed. If the efficiency wage theory explains behavior, then the exogenous wage shock should entice better performance. Alternatively, if individuals who hold office are motivated primarily by an intrinsic motivations rather than strictly financial compensation, then their performance would be unrelated to changes in their salary. We mostly find, inconsistent with efficiency wage theory, that a pay increase has a null effect on prosecutor performance.

In recent years super-PACs jumped into the political fray by making significant donations to political parties and candidates thus tilting political outcomes to suit their agendas. Super-PACs raise their money from individuals and corporations and spend it to promote their cause. Numerous commentators studied their impact on the American political landscape and highlighted its implications from a constitutionally driven perspective, anchored in the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment as it applies to corporate persons. In this Essay we analyze the phenomenon from a different vantage point, the prohibition to spend other people’s money in support of a cause which they refuse to endorse. We prove that although contributions made by private donors to super-PACs may sometimes be justified, no such redeeming grace is tenable in the case of contributions made by large public corporations. The distortion is caused by inviting corporations to identify their presumed political preferences by employing the decision rule current in corporate matters of “one share one vote” which allocates disproportionate power to the holders of large blocks of shares. Since political controversies ought to be governed by a different decision rule- “one person one vote” the distortion cannot be remedied through the intermediation of corporate players.

Does a women-friendly legal environment help women overcome discrimination in credit markets? By examining antidiscrimination laws and their implications for women-led businesses' access to credit in 124 countries, the current study differentiates an effect on discouragement (i.e., not asking for credit when they need it, demand side) and an effect on the probability that they obtain credit (supply side). Legal protections are associated with lower discouragement for women-led firms, but they do not support the attainment of more credit. We demonstrate that enforcement efforts dramatically amplify the effect of women-friendly laws on self-restrictions in terms of credit and enable women-led firms to access more credit. Women are sensitive to the legal environment in which they operate, while banks need strong incentives to change their behavior. This effect is notable with regard to rational discouragement and prevails among smaller firms and in high-income countries. These results are robust to several tests.

One of the main goals of competition authorities is to deter anticompetitive practices. That is one of the reasons why antitrust decisions are made public: to reinforce the deterrence effect, as the impact of the mass media on public opinion may affect firms’ reputations. Our empirical strategy focuses on identifying how the nature of specific antitrust actions by competition authorities affects the size of news items and their visibility within the newspaper. We study this relationship by using a new database containing all news published in Spain over a 30-month period, regarding all cases analysed by the Spanish competition authority. Our analysis produced two key conclusions about how the media deals with positive and negative news on the reputation of listed and non-listed companies. On average, the difference in size between positive and negative news for listed firms is greater than the difference present in the actions referring to non-listed firms. Secondly, newspapers concede greater visibility to them by positioning more favourably, both on the right-hand side of the paper and on initial pages. These results suggest that the deterrence effect that competition authorities seek by making their decisions public may be weakened by the presence of bias in media.

Why are innovators in creative industries often not concerned about their unprotected intellectual properties? Based on a unique dataset obtained from an extensive survey among one, two and three-starred Italian chefs, we explore the determinants of a creator’s lack of concern about the imitation of their innovations. Several determinants are identified. We confirm that the lack of fear of imitation and, thus, the lack of need for further IP protection, is associated with organizational strategies for the management of new ideas. Furthermore, this lack of fear of imitation is motivated by the innovator’s strategies aimed at product differentiation and client loyalty. Interestingly, in all the models estimated with the two samples considered (full sample and 2 and 3-starred chefs only), the most robust driver of innovators’ peace of mind is their own perception that innovative creation is a spontaneous, individual, innovator-specific process.

We describe crime attributable to the Mariel Boatlift, the 1980 Cuban refugee crisis that increased Miami’s population by nearly 10%. Using synthetic control methods to match Miami with cities that exhibit similar pre-intervention crime patterns, we find the phenomenon comparatively increased property crime and murder rates; we also document weaker but suggestive relative growth in violent crime. Compositional features of the newcomers partially drive results; the disproportionately young, male Cubans’ characteristics highly correlate with illicit activity. However, the degree of prior incarceration and psychiatric institutionalization likely explains the majority of the observed effects. Given the group’s unique composition and the absence of rigorous screening, it likely constitutes the worst observed migration event in terms of public safety in US history. The Marielitos bear little resemblance to other groups of newcomers. Hence, it would be imprudent to use crime connected with the 1980 event we study to inform immigration policy.

The standard political economy narrative of representative assemblies in Western Europe is one of political bargaining and credible commitments. Monarchs sought to bargain with the leading men of the realms, exchanging their commitments on various policies for revenues and other resources. This narrative has been forcibly challenged by Boucoyannis (2015, 2021) who points out that, in the High Middle Ages, it was strong monarchs who were able to compel the leading men of their realms to assemblies She argues that strong monarchs were able to leverage their subjects’ demand for adjudication (justice) to compel their attendance; and then extract their promises of resources. In this paper, I add to the discussion of the origins of representative institutions. Prior to the High Middle Ages, assemblies were ubiquitous but scarcely democratic. I provide a coordination model of assemblies that provides a compelling account of these early medieval assemblies. Similar to arguments put forth by Hardin (1989, 1999), Ordeshook (1992), Weingast (1997), Weingast (2005), and Hadfield and Weingast (2014) regarding modern de jure constitutions, I argue that assemblies allowed monarchs to provide focal point around which they could coordinate their leading men. There was relatively little meaningful bargaining at these assemblies; rather, monarchs provided ceremony and spectacle meant to focus their leading men on their agendas.

This paper examines the impact of fiduciary duties on collective asset sales in the case of owners acting as delegates for other owners, thereby potentially inducing conflicts of interests. Our identification strategy exploits a unique legal shock in Singapore, which established fiduciary duties in those transactions in the real estate market known colloquially as en bloc sales. The imposition of fiduciary duties caused the price premium of units sold via en bloc sales to increase over units ineligible for en bloc sale, as well as over units that, although eligible for en bloc sale, are sold individually. In addition, this valuation effect is stronger for projects with especially severe agency problems as proxied by high ownership turnover. This legal reform also affects the general private housing market beyond the en bloc premium: findings show that residential owners are increasingly willing to participate and reduce condominium turnover. Finally, we find that the stock price of public real estate developers responded positively to the legal reform, which indicates a possible overall positive welfare effect. Our study highlights the importance of judicial oversight for addressing agency conflicts in non-consensual asset-sale mechanisms.

Since the infamous riot of 1967, high crime rates and negative media reports have labeled the city of Detroit as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. Using a Spatial Dynamic Panel Data model with both individual and time fixed effects to capture the unobserved heterogeneity as well as the time varying common factors, we investigate the spatial and temporal interactions of criminal activities among the block groups in Detroit. The results indicate that the crime incidents in a block is correlated with the average crime incidents in neighboring block groups contemporaneously, with an estimated coefficient of 0.4758, and the block crime incidents is also correlated with the average crime incidents in neighboring blocks from the previous year, with an estimated coefficient of 0.1572. And crime incidents in a block are positively correlated with its own crime incidents in the previous year. The findings are robust against different model specifications based on alternative spatial weights matrices. The results for both violent crimes and property crimes also suggest strong spatial and temporal correlations among neighboring blocks, providing suggestive and preliminary evidence for policy implementation.