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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Sonja Fagernäs |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of corporate governance factors and family ties on the pay of managing directors in a sample of Indian stock listed companies. It uses a unique seven-year firm level panel dataset and controls for firm performance and both CEO and firm specific fixed effects. The hypothesis is that corporate governance, ownership structures and market pressure shape the power relations between the board and managers, and affect the level and structure of CEO pay. The evidence for India supports these hypotheses. Managing directors, who are related to the founding family, or controlling group, or any of the members on the board of directors, are paid more. This holds for total pay and both for the less variable component and the performance-related component of pay. In contrast, the presence of outside representatives on the board - non-executive directors or nominees of creditors or institutional investors - is found to have a disciplinary effect. The presence of nominees lowers the level of pay and that of non-executives ties pay more to firm performance. A further timely finding is that the staged introduction of a recent mandatory corporate governance code, aiming to improve governance and pay disclosure in listed companies, has raised the tendency of firms to tie pay explicitly to firm performance. Overall, the practice of tying pay explicitly to performance has become more common over time. |
| Keywords: | Executive pay, Corporate Governance, Family firms, Corporate Law, India |
| JEL: | G30 J33 K22 M52 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp335&r=law |
| By: | Jedidiah Brewer; Robert Glennon; Alan Ker; Gary D. Libecap |
| Abstract: | Rising urban and environmental demand for water has created growing pressure to re-allocate water from traditional agricultural uses. The evolution of water markets has been more complicated than those for other resources. In this paper, we first explain these differences by examining water rights and regulatory issues. Second, we place our research in the context of the economics literature on water marketing. Third, we present new, comprehensive data on prices and the extent, nature, and timing of water transfers across 12 western states from 1987-2005. We find that prices are higher for agriculture-to-urban trades versus within-agriculture trades, in part, reflecting the differences in marginal values between the two uses. Prices for urban use are also growing relative to agricultural use. Markets are responding in that the number of agriculture-to-urban transactions is rising, whereas the number of agriculture-to-agriculture transfers is not. Further, there is a shift from using short-term leases to using multi-year leases of water and permanent sales of water rights. This pattern underscores the need to consider the amounts of water obligated over time, rather than examining only annual flows in assessing the quantities of water traded as is the common practice in the literature. Considering water obligated over time, termed committed water, we find significantly more is transferred and the direction of trading is different than if the focus is on annual flows. Finally, the data reveal considerable variation in water trading across the states. |
| JEL: | H41 K32 Q21 Q25 Q27 Q56 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13002&r=law |
| By: | John Hipp |
| Abstract: | This study compares the relationship between official crime rates and residents’ perceptions of crime in census tracts. Employing a unique dataset that links household level data from the American Housing Survey metro samples over a period of 25 years (1976-2000) with official crime rate data for census tracts in selected cities during selected years, this large sample provides considerable ability to generalize the findings. I find that residents’ perception of crime is most strongly related to official rates of tract violent crime. Models simultaneously taking into account both violent and property crime consistently found that property crime actually has a negative effect on perceived crime. Among types of violent crime, the robbery rate is consistently related to higher levels of perceived crime in the tract, whereas it appears a structural shift occurred in the mid-1980s in which aggravated assault and murder rates now impact perceptions of crime, even when taking into account the robbery rate. |
| Keywords: | perceived crime, official rates of crime, violent crime, neighborhoods, longitudinal, census tract |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:07-10&r=law |
| By: | Bougette, Patrice; Turolla, Stéphane |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to build and empirically evaluate a discrete choice model of merger remedies as a basis for policy analysis. The database consists of 229 merger cases accepted in Phase I or Phase II of the European merger process between 1990 and 2005. We focus on the following question: Which merging firms' characteristics lead the European Commission to decide whether to require conditional acceptance? Although a lot of empirical studies have been carried out these last years, ours is distinguished by at least two original features. First, we explore determinant factors of the Commission's decisions with a neural network model differentiating cases accepted with or without remedies (either structural or behavioral). Secondly, we implement three multinomial logit models. We find that variables related to high market power lead more frequently to a remedy outcome, whatever the phase. Innovative industries such as energy, transportation and communications positively affect the probability of a behavioral remedy. Lastly, former Competition Commissioner Mario Monti's policy appears to be pro-remedy, i.e. seeking concessions from merging parties. |
| Keywords: | Merger Remedies ; Antitrust ; European Commission ; Discrete Choice Models ; Self-Organizing Maps |
| JEL: | L40 K21 D78 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2461&r=law |
| By: | John Schmitt; Ben Zipperer |
| Abstract: | This report finds a steep rise in illegal firings of pro-union workers in the 2000s relative to the last half of the 1990s. It uses published data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to update an index of the probability that a pro-union worker will be fired in the course of a union election campaign. By 2005, pro-union workers involved in union election campaigns faced about a 1.8 percent chance of being illegally fired during the course of the campaign. If we assume that employers target union organizers and activists, and that union organizers and activists make up about 10 percent of pro-union workers, our estimates suggest that almost one-in-five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign. |
| JEL: | J41 J52 J53 J58 J83 K42 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2007-01&r=law |