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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Rémy Herrera (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | This working paper dealing with the right to education is at the origin of a written statement presented by the Centre Europe Tiers-Monde (CETIM) during the March 2007 4th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Organization in Geneva (item 2 : implementation of the General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006, symbol : A/HRC/4/NGO/19). It analyzes child labour as a phenomenon not only massive (today, it could concern in the world more than 400 million children over 5 years of age), but also systemic in capitalism. It is urgent to obtain strict respect for the prohibition of child labour -the age limit to be decided internationally- and to enforce compulsory education, at the same time as establishing a true system of wealth redistribution worldwide. |
| Keywords: | Children, labour/work, education, development. |
| JEL: | I3 J13 J82 K14 K31 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:r07019&r=law |
| By: | Oilver Budzinski (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Philipps Universitaet Marburg); Katharina Wacker |
| Abstract: | We review the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office Germany) decision on the proposed merger between Springer and ProSiebenSat.1 from an economic point of view. In doing so, it is not our goal to analyse whether the controversial decision by the Bundeskartellamt has been correct or flawed from a legal point of view. Instead, we analyse whether the economic reasoning in the decision document reflects state-of-the-art economic theory on conglomerate mergers. Regarding such types of mergers, anticompetitive effects either do not occur regularly or are more often than not overcompensated by efficiency gains, so that a standard welfare perspective demands reluctance concerning antitrust interventions. This is particularly true if two-sided markets, like media markets, are involved. However, anticompetitive conglomerate mergers are not impossible, in particular in neighbouring markets where there is some relationship between the products of the merging companies. In line with the more-economic approach in European merger control, a particular thorough line of argumentation, backed with particularly convincing economic evidence, is necessary to justify a prohibition of a conglomerate merger from an economic point of view. Against this background, we do not find the reasoning of the Bundeskartellamt entirely convincing and sufficiently strong to justify a prohibition of the proposed combination from an economic perspective. The reasons are that (i) the Bundeskartellamt fails to continuously consider consumer and customer welfare as the relevant standards, (ii) positive efficiency and welfare effects of cross-media strategies are neglected, (iii) in contrast, the competition agency sometimes appears to view profitability of post-merger strategy options to be per se anticompetitive (efficiency offence), (iv) the incontestability of the relevant markets is not sufficiently substantiated, (v) inconsistencies occur regarding the symmetry of the TV advertising market duopoly versus the unique role of the BILD-Zeitung and (vi) the employment of modern economic instruments appears to be underdeveloped. Thus, we conclude that the Bundeskartellamt has not embraced the European more-economic approach in the analysed decision. However, one can discuss whether economic effects are overcompensated in this case by concerns about a reduction in diversity of opinion and threats to free speech. Similar to the Bundeskartellamt, we do not consider these concerns in our analysis. |
| Keywords: | merger control, media markets, more-economic approach, conglomerate mergers, cross-promotion |
| JEL: | L82 L40 K21 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:volksw:200704&r=law |
| By: | Benito Arruñada; Marco Casari |
| Abstract: | In an experiment we study market outcomes under alternative incentive structures for thirdparty enforcers. Our transactions resemble an anonymous credit market where lenders can give loans and borrowers can repay them. When borrowers default, judges are free to enforce repayment but are themselves paid differently in each of three treatments. First, paying judges according to lenders’ votes maximizes surplus and the equality of earnings. In contrast, paying judges according to borrowers’ votes triggers insufficient enforcement, destroying the market and producing the lowest surplus and the most unequal distribution of earnings. Lastly, judges paid the average earnings of borrowers and lenders achieve results close to those based on lender voting. We employ a steps-of-reasoning argument to interpret the performances of different institutions. When voting and enforcement rights are allocated to different classes of actors, the difficulty of their task changes, and arguably as a consequence they focus on high or low surplus equilibria. |
| Keywords: | impersonal exchange ; third-party enforcement ; experiments ; steps of reasoning ; judges’ incentives ; repeated interaction |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D63 D72 K40 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pur:prukra:1200&r=law |