nep-law New Economics Papers
on Law and Economics
Issue of 2016‒01‒29
eleven papers chosen by
Eve-Angeline Lambert, Université de Lorraine


  1. Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy By Sergio Galletta
  2. The Court of Justice of the European Union and fixed-term workers: still fixed, but at least equal By Caroline de la Porte; Patrick Emmenegger
  3. Recognition and legal Forms of Social Enterprises in Europe: A Critical Analysis from a Comparative Law Perspective By Antonio Fici
  4. Violent Conflicts and Economic Performance of the Manufacturing Sector in India By Takahiro Sato; Atsushi Kato
  5. Challenges of Indonesian Competition Law and Some Suggestions for Improvement By Manaek SM PASARIBU
  6. Measuring the Effectiveness of Anti-cartel Interventions: A Conceptual Framework By Yannis Katsoulacos; Evgenia Motchenkova; David Ulph
  7. Optimal liability design under risk and ambiguity By L. A. Franzoni
  8. The Legal Conceptions of Hans Kelsen and Eugen Ehrlich: Weighing Human Rights and Sovereignty By Mikhail Antonov
  9. Recourse and the Residential Mortgage Market: the Case of Nevada By Wenli Li; Florian Oswald
  10. Executive Compensation and Misconduct: Environmental Harm By Dylan Minor
  11. The Italian Road to Creating Worker Cooperatives from Worker Buyouts: Italy’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises and the Legge Marcora Framework By Marcelo Vieta

  1. By: Sergio Galletta (IdEP, Economia, Universita' Svizzera italiana, Switzerland)
    Abstract: In this paper, I empirically investigate the presence of spillover effects resulting from the strengthening of law enforcement against corruption and organized crime in local governments. Specifically, I take advantage of an Italian law that gives power to the central government to replace democratically elected municipal officials who are potentially connected with mafia with a commission of non-elected administrators. Fixed effects model estimates that focus on a sample of municipalities from three Italian regions (Campania, Calabria and Sicilia) for the period 1998 to 2013 show that the city council dismissal of a municipality fosters a reduction in public investments in neighboring municipalities. Additional empirical evidence suggests that this result could be explained by the presence of law enforcement spillovers potentially reducing misconducts in neighboring municipalities.
    Keywords: Horizontal interaction, Italy, Mafia, Corruption
    JEL: D73 E62 H72 K42
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lug:wpidep:1601&r=law
  2. By: Caroline de la Porte; Patrick Emmenegger
    Abstract: This Working Paper focuses on the impact of the directive on fixed-term work and the EU's Court of Justice (CJEU) case law concerning fixed-term work from 2007 and 2013. By doing so, this working paper develops an analytical framework to analyse the Europeanisation of labour law with an eye on the literature on labour-market dualisation.
    Keywords: Employment, EU legislation, Labour law
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:etu:wpaper:14767&r=law
  3. By: Antonio Fici
    Abstract: Social enterprise lawmaking is a growth industry. In the United States alone, over the last few years, there has been a proliferation of state laws establishing specific legal forms for social enterprises. The situation is not different in Europe, where the process began much earlier than in the United States and today at least fifteen European Union member states have specific laws for social enterprise. This article will describe the current state of the legislation on social enterprise in Europe, inquiring into its fundamental role in the development of the social economy and its particular logics as distinct from those of the for-profit capitalistic economy. It will explore the models of social enterprise regulation that seem more consistent with the economic growth inspired by the paradigms of the social economy. It will finally explain why, in regulating and shaping social enterprise, the model of the social enterprise in the cooperative form is to be preferred to that of the social enterprise in the company form.
    Keywords: Social enterprise; Social economy; Cooperatives; Comparative law; Non-profit corporate governance
    JEL: K22 L31
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpeu:1582&r=law
  4. By: Takahiro Sato (Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, Japan); Atsushi Kato (School of Business, Aoyama Gakuin University)
    Abstract: We investigate the effects of violent conflicts on the economic performance of manufacturing sector of Indian regional states. The number of violent conflicts, the number of deaths and the number of participants in violent conflicts all have negative impacts on gross value added and capital labor ratio of manufacturing sector. Among violent conflicts, ethnic and religious conflicts, as well as those nested in a large conflict have significantly negative impacts.
    Keywords: Violent conflict, Gross value added, Capital labor ratio, Ethnic conflict, Religious conflict, Nested conflict
    JEL: D74 K42 O43 R3 L2
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2016-01&r=law
  5. By: Manaek SM PASARIBU (Commission For The Supervision of Business Competition (KPPU))
    Abstract: This paper discusses the problems in the implementation of Law No. 5 of 1999, the Indonesian Competition Law, explains the substance of the law, and provides recommendations for amending the Indonesian competition law. Existing loopholes in the enforcement of competition law in Indonesia, both in substantive and procedural terms, have created difficulties in practice. One way to solve this problem would be to amend the competition law. Our suggestions for the amendment of the Indonesian Competition Law relate to institutional status, dawn raid authority, indirect evidence, leniency programme, procedural law, private litigations, legal aspects of cross border enforcement, and merger notification. We expect that amending said law will result in a balance between procedural and substantive law and that implementing the competition law will finally create legal certainty regarding competition law enforcement in Indonesia.
    Keywords: competition law, Indonesia, amendment, dawn raid authority, indirect evidence, leniency programme, procedural law, private litigations
    JEL: L40
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2016-04&r=law
  6. By: Yannis Katsoulacos (Athens University of Economics and Business); Evgenia Motchenkova (VU University Amsterdam); David Ulph (University of St Andrews)
    Abstract: This paper develops a model of the birth and death of cartels in the presence of enforcement activities by a Competition Authority (CA). We distinguish three sets of interventions: (a) detecting, prosecuting and penalising cartels; (b) actions that aim to stop cartel activity in the short-term, immediately following successful prosecution; (c) actions that aim to prevent the re-emergence of prosecuted cartels in the longer term. The last two intervention activities have not been analysed in the existing literature. In addition we take account of the structure and toughness of penalties. In this framework the enforcement activity of a CA causes industries in which cartels form to oscillate between periods of competitive pricing and periods of cartel pricing. We determine the impact of CA activity on deterred, impeded, and suffered harm. We derive measures of both the total and the marginal effects on welfare resulting from competition authority interventions and show how these break down into measures of the Direct Effect of interventions (i.e. the effect due to cartel activity being impeded) and two Indirect/Behavioural Effects – on Deterrence and Pricing. Finally, we calibrate the model and estimate the fraction of the harm that CAs remove as well as the magnitude of total and marginal welfare effects of anti-cartel interventions.
    Keywords: Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust Law, Cartel, Oligopoly, Repeated Games
    JEL: L4 K21 D43 C73
    Date: 2015–12–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:wpecon:1602&r=law
  7. By: L. A. Franzoni
    Abstract: This paper develops an original mean-variance model able to capture the disposition of the parties towards both standard risk and ambiguity. Ambiguity arises when the causal link between conduct and harm is not univocal, as is frequently the case with toxic torts. Risk aversion and ambiguity aversion tend to have a similar impact on optimal liability rules if greater care reduces the ambiguity perceived by the parties, i.e. if safety and predictability go hand in hand. Strict liability dominates negligence when the injurer has lower degrees of risk and ambiguity aversion than the victim and can formulate less ambiguous estimates of the probability of harm. The reverse result only holds under stronger conditions.
    JEL: K13
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1048&r=law
  8. By: Mikhail Antonov (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper considers the relevance of the legal conceptions put forward by Eugen Ehrlich and Hans Kelsen to the contemporary debate on human rights and their limits. It is asserted that the conceptions of Ehrlich and Kelsen adopt a multifaceted approach to the law and, at the same time, a philosophical perspective that secures human autonomy and freedom from “great narratives” and governmental intervention. This perspective opens up a variety of opportunities for better understanding the balance between individual and collective interests, and between the significance of rights and sovereignty. Both conceptions are still relevant to debates in the fields of international and constitutional law, and to legal philosophies about the limits of human rights and the epistemic conditions for identifying these rights, and how these rights can the same time lay claim to a universal character while remaining culturally embedded. The principle of relativity that underpins the Pure Theory of Law of Kelsen and the legal sociology of Ehrlich are of particular importance for discussing the “relative universality” of human rights
    Keywords: human rights, constitutionalization, Hans Kelsen, pure theory of law, Eugen Ehrlich, legal sociology, normativity, social conventions
    JEL: K10
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:62/law/2016&r=law
  9. By: Wenli Li (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Florian Oswald (University College of London [London] (UCL))
    Abstract: The state of Nevada passed a legislature in 2009 that abolished deficiency judgments for purchase mortgage loans made after October 1, 2009 and collateralized by primary single family homes. In this paper, we study lenders’ mortgage lending and households’ mortgage application and subsequent default decisions in response to the law change. Using unique mortgage loan level application and performance data, we find strong evidence that lenders tightened their lending standards. In particular, lenders reduced approval rates and loan sizes for affected mortgages after the implementation of the law. Households, by contrast, did not delay their mortgage applications till after the law change. Furthermore, the law change does not appear to have affected borrowers’ default decisions. These results thus cast a cautionary note on the effectiveness of policy recommendations that intend to use deficiency laws to curb mortgage defaults.
    Keywords: Deficiency judgment; Default; Foreclosure; Approval; Interest rate; Nevada
    JEL: G21 K11 R20
    Date: 2014–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4udtt6bh25946auar877ii1c1e&r=law
  10. By: Dylan Minor (Harvard Business School, Strategy Unit)
    Abstract: We explore the relationship between managerial incentives and misconduct using the setting of environmental harm. We find that high powered executive compensation can increase the odds of environmental law-breaking by 40-60% and the magnitude of environmental harm by over 100%. We document similar results for the setting of executive compensation and illegal financial accounting. Finally, we outline some managerial and policy implications to blunt these adverse incentive effects.
    Keywords: executive compensation, corporate governance, misconduct, environmental performance, accounting scandal, sustainable finance
    JEL: G01 G31 J33 K32
    Date: 2016–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-076&r=law
  11. By: Marcelo Vieta
    Abstract: This paper highlights the first phase of a research program, completed in late 2014 and early 2015 that homes in on worker-recuperated enterprises (imprese recuperate dai lavoratori) in Italy. The paper specifically focuses on Italy’s worker buyouts (WBOs) facilitated by its Legge Marcora (Marcora Law) framework—the form of worker-recuperated enterprises predominating in Italy. The paper first offers a definition of WBOs as a subset of workerrecuperate enterprises. It also reviews the most common scenarios from which WBOs emerge globally. It then overviews Italy’s Legge Marcora’s legal and financial framework, and situates the emergence of WBOs since the early 1980s as direct responses to market failure, business closures, rising unemployment, and, with the most recent WBOs, coinciding with the Great Recession and subsequent austerity measures that continue to negatively impact the country. The paper then discusses key findings from our research on WBO creation in Italy, touching on their most salient demographic and geographic particularities. Throughout the paper distinguishes Italy’s WBOs as exemplar because of their resilience in times of crisis, and the inclusion of multiple stakeholders in its WBO framework, namely: workers, the cooperative sector, and the state.
    Keywords: Worker buyouts, worker-recuperated enterprises, worker-recovered companies, business conversions, worker cooperatives, Legge Marcora, legal framework, enterprise entry and exit rates (birth and death rates), SMEs, Italy
    JEL: J01 J52 J53 J54 K2
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpeu:1578&r=law

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