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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Deák, Dániel |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with legal unorthodoxy. The main idea is to study the so-called unorthodox taxes Hungary has adopted in recent years. The study of unorthodox taxes will be preceded by a more general discussion of how law is made under unorthodoxy, and what are the special features of unorthodox legal policy. Unorthodoxy challenges equality before the law and is critical towards mass democracies. It also raises doubts on the operability of the rule of law, relying on personal skills, or loyalty, rather than on impersonal mechanisms arising from checks and balances as developed by the division of political power. Besides, for lack of legal suppositions, legislation suffers from casuistry and regulatory capture. |
| Keywords: | unorthodox economic and legal policies, populism, special industry levies, quality of legislation, rule of law, legal certainty, substantive and procedural justice, review of constitutional provisions |
| JEL: | K20 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cvh:coecwp:1606&r=law |
| By: | Evan Starr; Natarajan Balasubramanian; Mariko Sakakibara |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of enforcing non-compete covenants (CNC) on the formation and performance of new firms using matched employer-employee data on 30 US states. To identify the impact of CNC, we exploit the inter-state variation in CNC enforcement along with the fact that courts do not enforce such covenants between law firms and departing lawyers in any state. Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference specification with law firms and firms that are not withinindustry spinouts as the baseline, we find states with stricter CNC enforcement have fewer, but larger within-industry spinouts that are more likely to survive their nascent years, and conditional on survival, grow faster during those years. These results are consistent with CNC enforcement having a selection effect on within-industry spinouts. Particularly, with stricter enforcement, only founders with higher-quality ideas and resources choose to overcome CNC-related barriers, which reduces entry rate but increases observed short-term performance of these spinouts. |
| Keywords: | Covenants Not to Compete, Entrepreneurship, Spinouts |
| JEL: | L25 L26 L41 L5 K2 K3 J6 M2 M5 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:14-27&r=law |
| By: | Ronald A. Cass |
| Abstract: | Commentators, public officials, and scholars have sounded alarms over the smartphone patent wars — hundreds of cases asserting infringement of patents by makers of smartphones and tablet computers—often suggesting broad, categorical “fixes” to problems this litigation reveals. In general, these recommendations sweep too broadly, throwing out good claims as well as bad and needed remedies as well as questionable ones. However, calls for attention along two margins promise improvements. One factor, the identity of the enterprise asserting patent rights, already is being used by courts in considering appropriate patent infringement remedies but its use needs to be refined. The other factor, patent quality—especially in software patents, where the existence of parallel schemes of intellectual property protection exacerbates quality problems—is even more critical to the way the system operates. Addressing the patent quality issue (which is distinct from patent clarity or patent notice) can do more than other reforms to reduce costs without reducing innovation incentives. |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:05-2014&r=law |
| By: | Brekke, Kurt R. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Siciliani, Luigi (University of York); Straume, Odd Rune (University of Minho) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of a hospital merger using a spatial competition framework with semialtruistic hospitals that invest in quality and expend cost-containment effort facing regulated prices. We find that the merging hospitals always reduce quality, whereas non-merging hospitals respond by increasing (reducing) quality if qualities are strategic substitutes (complements). A merger leads to higher average treatment cost efficiency and, if qualities are strategic substitutes, might also increase average quality in the market. If a merger leads to hospital closure, the resulting effect on quality is positive (negative) for all hospitals in the market if qualities are strategic substitutes (complements). Whether qualities are strategic substitutes or complements depends on the degree of altruism, the effectiveness of cost-containment effort, and the degree of cost substitutability between quality and treatment volume. |
| Keywords: | Hospital mergers; Quality competition; Cost efficiency; Antitrust. |
| JEL: | I11 I18 L13 L44 |
| Date: | 2014–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_021&r=law |
| By: | Noemí Pulido Pavón (University of Seville, Spain); Luis Palma Martos (University of Seville, Spain) |
| Abstract: | The analysis and implications of copyright provide the foundation for copyright economics, where an array of different streams of thought coexist feeding a number of controversies that at the same time both hinder and enrich the research agenda. One of the keenest debates concerns the relation between copyright and competition policy. The goal of the current work is to explore to what extent competition policy determines the level of protection afforded to copyright. The paper also analyses the effect of other variables such as education, innovation, culture and national wealth. Panel data techniques are applied for a sample of eight countries over the period 2006 to 2011. Findings show that copyright protection is more intense in countries which have more effective competition policy laws, and which perform better in education, innovation and wealth. The link with regard to spending on culture does not prove significant, opening up a range of hypotheses for formulating cultural policy goals and instruments. In terms of countries, those in the Mediterranean area display the weakest regimes for protecting intellectual property. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright Economics, Competition Policy, Panel Data Techniques. |
| JEL: | D4 L5 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2014-12.&r=law |
| By: | Gabriel Galvez-Behar (IRHiS - Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion - CNRS : UMR8529 - Université Lille III - Sciences humaines et sociales) |
| Abstract: | Symbol of a global policy, the TRIPS agreement is often considered as a way to impose a Western intellectual property regime and, thus, as a form of neocolonialism. Some critical analysis of the Western intellectual property invite us to historicize its development and refuse therefore to consider the TRIPS agreement as the inevitable outcome of a teleological process. Characterized by an early international regulation - with the creation of the 1883 Paris Convention on patents and trademarks, and with the 1886 Berne Convention on copyright - the history of intellectual property gives rise, it is true, to such a finalist perspective. For some, insofar as they were concluded when the Western countries shared Africa and the world, these treaties symbolize the first step of an imperial vision of intellectual property. The parallel is tempting : the late 19th century conventions would be to imperialism what the TRIPS agreement is to neo-colonialism. However, concerning the industrial property, this analogy is problematic and threatens to revive the teleological perspective which is denounced. To what extent, in fact, did the 1883 convention constitute a form of imperialism ? How were the territories under the domination of Western countries embedded in the development of industrial property in the 19th century and the early 20th century ? Our paper has no other purpose than to offer some considerations about the patent right relating with these questions. First, we will consider the issue of international but also sub-national diversity : culture can not be only considered from a national point of view and even in industrialized countries traditional knowledge, for example, was excluded from the field of patentability. Then we will focus on the emergence of the Paris convention, which constituted, at the same time, a French attempt to homogenize the international patent practices and a way to close the patent controversy. At last, our paper will deal with the integration of colonies in the Paris Union, which occurred in the Interwar period and especially with the Hague Conference (1925), which will be analyzed more specifically. |
| Keywords: | brevets d'invention; propriété industrielle; histoire; innovation; Union de Paris |
| Date: | 2014–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01009953&r=law |
| By: | Stefanie Hoherz |
| Abstract: | This research examines re-entry into the labour force for mothers after maternity leave. The empirical analysis focuses on the first twenty-two years of post-reunification Germany, using proportional hazards models. Results show that the re-entry into part-time employment is primarily affected by the mother's own resources and former career, the return to full-time work is more linked to the partner's resources. This behaviour is especially prevalent in families where the mother has a higher earning potential than the father, a group having the highest re-entry chances into full-time employment. The results concerning experiences of unemployment for the male partner show that mothers try to compensate uncertainties with increased labour force participation. |
| JEL: | D13 J22 J64 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp647&r=law |
| By: | Ognedal, Tone (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | There is a growing interest in morale as a potential substitute for sanctions, encouraged by exerimental evidence that people's morale affect their economic decisions. I show that while morale may be a substitute for sanctions for each citizen, it is not a substitute in the market. In a model where employed and self-employed differ in their opportunities for tax evasion, I demonstrate that a higher fraction of tax compliant citizens may reduce social surplus and tax revenues. In contrast to sanctions, morale usually differ between individuals and this distorts the ranking of costs among sellers and willingness to pay among consumer. Tax evading sellers crowd out tax compliant sellers with higher productivity. Tax evading buyers crowd out tax compliant buyers with higher willingness to pay. As a result, improved tax morale may lead to less efficient production and exchange. Experiments show how sanctions crowd out morale in some settings. My paper points to the opposite problem in markets: Low sanctions may crowd out morale. While the paper explores the effects of tax morale only, the results apply to a wide range of areas where morale matters for peoples choices in he market, such as environmental and safety regulation. |
| Keywords: | Tax morale; Tax evasion; Norms; Sanctions |
| JEL: | D01 H26 K42 |
| Date: | 2014–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:osloec:2014_004&r=law |
| By: | Afful, Efua Amoonua |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) for 15 OECD economies from 1990 to 2012 using an iterative Phillips curve process and tests the relationship between strictness of employment protection and the NAIRU. A possible negative externality of employment protection legislation is a higher level of structural unemployment. Using Prais-winsten estimation correcting for panel-level heteroscedasticity a panel-specific first-order autoregressive process, results indicate that there is no relationship between strictness of protection for individual and collective dismissals for regular contracts and the NAIRU. The effect of strictness of employment protection for regular contracts is sensitive to model specification; the coefficient loses its significance when full controls are used in estimation. An implication is that deregulation is not a necessary policy tool in addressing the problem of structural unemployment. |
| Keywords: | NAIRU, natural rate, structural unemployment, employment protection legislation |
| JEL: | E24 J48 K31 |
| Date: | 2014–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56875&r=law |
| By: | Mikhed, Vyacheslav (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Scholnick, Barry (University of Alberta) |
| Abstract: | We are the first to show that the cost of personal bankruptcy filers traveling to their bankruptcy trustees affects bankruptcy choices. We use detailed balance sheet, income statement, and location data from 400,000 Canadian bankruptcies. To control for endogenous trustee selection, we use the location of local government offices as an instrument for the location of bankruptcy trustees (while filers interact with trustees, and trustees interact with local government, filers do not interact with the local government). We find that increased travel costs reduce the number of filings. Furthermore, for those individuals who do file, we find that their increased travel costs need to be compensated by increased financial benefits of bankruptcy. Filers without cars (higher travel costs), as well as those with jobs (higher opportunity costs), receive larger per-kilometer financial benefits from bankruptcy. |
| Keywords: | Bankruptcy; Travel Costs; |
| JEL: | D14 G23 G33 K35 |
| Date: | 2014–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:14-18&r=law |