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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Clark, Andrew E.; D'Ambrosio, Conchita; Zhu, Rong |
| Abstract: | We here consider the relationship between the individual time profile of crime victimisation and sleep quality. Sleep quality worsens with contemporaneous crime victimisation, with physical violence having a larger effect than property crime. But crime history also matters, and past victimisation experience continues to reduce current sleep quality. Last, there is some evidence that the order of victimisation spells plays a role: consecutive years of crime victimisation affect sleep quality more adversely than the same number of years when not contiguous. |
| Keywords: | Crime, time, physical violence, property crimes, sleep quality |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:docweb:1901&r=all |
| By: | Brodeur, Abel (University of Ottawa); Mabeu, Marie Christelle (University of Ottawa); Pongou, Roland (University of Ottawa) |
| Abstract: | A large literature documents persistent impacts of formal historical institutions. However, very little is known about how these institutions interact with ancestral traditions to determine long-term economic and social outcomes. This paper addresses this question by studying the persistent effect of legal origins on female economic empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa, and how ancestral cultural norms of gender roles may attenuate or exacerbate this effect. Taking advantage of the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands across countries with different legal origins, we directly compare women among the same ethnic group living in civil law countries and common law countries. We find that, on average, women in common law countries are signicantly more educated, are more likely to work in the professional sector, and are less likely to marry at young age. However, these effects are either absent or significantly lower in settings where ancestral cultural norms do not promote women’s rights and empowerment. In particular, we find little effect in bride price societies, patrilocal societies, and societies where women were not involved in agriculture in the past. Our findings imply that to be optimal, the design of formal institutions should account for ancestral traditions. |
| Keywords: | legal origins, ancestral norms, women's empowerment, gender roles |
| JEL: | D03 I25 J16 N37 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13105&r=all |
| By: | Jean-Daniel Rinaudo (BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)) |
| Abstract: | According to French Civil Code, groundwater is considered as a private property. However, after this resource started to be intensively exploited by industries in the 1850's, the State increasingly regulated its use. In 1935, a system of individual access and withdrawal rights, managed by the State, was established to protect deep confined aquifers which were showing signs of overexploitation. This system of use right was later on extended to unconfined shallow aquifers with the 1992 water law, mainly to protect the environment. A new management approach, based on individual volumetric entitlements, was then developed and tested in several French groundwater basins, subsequently obtaining a legal basis in the early 2000's. The 2006 water law constitutes a clear break in French water policy. The system of individual volumetric entitlements managed by the State was cancelled and users asked to form Water Users' Associations at the catchment level. Associations became the recipients of pooled water use entitlements, which they lust, share among their members using rules agreed collectively. Although this reform only applies to the agricultural sector, its represents a clear shift from a private to a common property regime. |
| Keywords: | water trading,users' associations,allocation policy,private property,common property |
| Date: | 2020–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02531779&r=all |
| By: | Anatoliy Kostruba (Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University) |
| Abstract: | Article is dedicated to the study of the legal regulatory mechanism of social relations, namely one of its elements – legal relations. The purpose of the article is to define the legal regulatory mechanism of social relations, its elements, and to study civil relations and legal facts as an integral part of this mechanism. The study also seeks to understand properties and features of regulatory legal facts in the legal regulatory mechanism. The article considers the structure and properties of elements of the legal regulatory mechanism of civil relations. As a separate question the article considers customary laws as the main source of law regulating social relations. The author examines legal relations through the lenses of legal acts and, in particular, the enforcement and regulation of legal facts, which is, certainly, a new way of looking at the legal nature of a specified mechanism. Likewise, the article examines currently existing gaps in scientific rationale of the legal regulatory mechanism of social relations in Ukraine. |
| Keywords: | customary law,legal facts,legal facts enforcement,legal regulation,legal regulatory mechanism,social relations. |
| Date: | 2018–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02511709&r=all |
| By: | Andy Yuan; Price V. Fishback |
| Abstract: | Nearly every state has amended workers’ compensation laws in the last two decades and the national averages of cash and medical benefits paid per covered worker have declined. As a result, writers have suggested that the states might be cutting back on workers’ compensation benefits. We show that measures of the statutory benefits have been rising over time, a trend that work against the declining trend in average payouts per covered worker. A decline in accident rates at the national level has contributed to the decline in payouts. We then investigate the impact of specific state laws related to burdens of proof and limits on medical coverage after developing an annual panel data set for all states between 1997 and 2016. The results show that state laws that ban liberal construction of the rules and apportion benefits based on pre-existing conditions contribute to sharp declines in the states where they are enacted. |
| JEL: | J32 J38 K31 K4 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26980&r=all |
| By: | Raphael Auer; Stijn Claessens |
| Abstract: | Cryptocurrencies are often thought to operate out of the reach of national regulation, but in fact their valuations, transaction volumes and user bases react substantially to news about regulatory actions. The impact depends on the specific regulatory category to which the news relates: events related to general bans on cryptocurrencies or to their treatment under securities law have the greatest adverse effect, followed by news on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and on restricting the interoperability of cryptocurrencies with regulated markets. News pointing to the establishment of specific legal frameworks tailored to cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings coincides with strong market gains. These results suggest that cryptocurrency markets rely on regulated financial institutions to operate and that these markets are segmented across jurisdictions. |
| JEL: | E42 E51 F31 G12 G28 G32 G38 |
| Date: | 2020–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddgw:87847&r=all |
| By: | Mélanie Bourassa Forcier; Lara Khoury; Nathalie Vézina |
| Abstract: | This paper explores Canadian liability concerns flowing from the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care (HC) delivery. It argues that the current Canadian legal framework is sufficient, in most cases, to allow developers and users of AI technology to assess each stakeholder’s responsibility should the technology cause harm. Further, it inquires as to whether an alternative approach to existing liability regimes should be adopted in order to promote AI innovation based on recognized best practices which, in turn, could lead to increased use of AI technology. |
| Keywords: | AI,Digital Health,Law,Liability,Doctor,Hospitals,Companies, |
| Date: | 2020–04–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2020s-19&r=all |
| By: | Jeffrey Clemens; Michael R. Strain |
| Abstract: | A holistic assessment of the labor market effects of minimum wage regulation requires understanding employer compliance. We investigate how minimum wage increases and the strength of enforcement regimes affect the prevalence of subminimum wage payment. Using the Current Population Survey (CPS), we find strong evidence that higher minimum wages lead to a greater prevalence of subminimum wage payment. We estimate that increases in measured underpayment following minimum wage increases average between 14 and 22 percent of realized wage gains. Furthermore, we provide evidence that these estimates are unlikely to be driven by measurement error in the CPS’s wage data, which are self-reported. Taken together, we interpret these findings as evidence that minimum wage noncompliance is an important reality in the low-wage labor market. We find some evidence that enforcement regimes mediate both baseline rates of subminimum wage payment and the response of subminimum wage payment to increases in minimum wages. |
| JEL: | J08 J38 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26969&r=all |
| By: | Lehdonvirta, Vili; Lee, Sumin |
| Abstract: | Crowdfunding is becoming a popular way of financing healthcare. Some commentators suggest that crowdfunding could serve as a new institution that fills gaps in conventional safety nets. Others suggest that crowdfunding is simply another way of obtaining help from family, friends, and local associations, and has little transformative potential. We provide one of the first quantitative analyses of medical crowdfunding, and the first to model the broader societal context in which campaigns are situated. We scraped data on US medical campaigns from the leading platform, and combined them with county-level socioeconomic data to model predictors of campaign frequency and success. Our findings suggest that many seek help from crowdfunding when both formal and informal conventional safety nets fail them. Significantly more campaigns are initiated in US counties with poorer private insurance coverage, lower social security provision, fewer social associations, and weaker cultures of giving. However, campaigns are least likely to reach their goals where most needed. Campaigns are more likely to be successful in counties that are wealthier and healthier, and have more social associations. Crowdfunding is not merely ‘friendfunding’: fundraisers can increase their chances of success by having their appeals widely shared on social media. However, the returns to sharing are greater for campaigns initiated in wealthier areas. Overall, our findings suggest that medical crowdfunding is an entrepreneurial safety net: one where protection is not afforded universally or on the basis of need, but on the basis of one’s ability to appeal to the audience and out- compete rivaling needfuls. |
| Date: | 2020–03–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:9kecq&r=all |
| By: | Nishijima, Marislei (University of Sao Paulo); Pal, Sarmistha (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | We examine if compulsory schooling laws (CSL) necessarily lower crimes. We focus on violent youth crime (homicides by assault and guns) among 15-19 years age group in all Brazilian municipalities over 2000-13, taking advantage of the 2009 Brazilian Constitutional Amendment that required introduction of compulsory high schooling of 15-17-year-olds by 2016. Only about 53% municipalities adopted the Amendment by 2013. Difference-in-difference estimates with municipality fixed effects to account for the endogenous adoption of the Amendment by municipalities show small treatment effects for homicides, but insignificant effects for homicide rates in the full sample. In the absence of any significant increase in income/employment among this age group, we attribute this to the incapacitation effect of CSL, which was, however, weakened by overcrowding in day and night schools in treated municipalities after 2009. In contrast, poorer treated municipalities witnessed increased class size, worse school performance and increased crime too. The crime reduction effects of CSL thus crucially depend on whether/how it affects class size and school quality especially in less promising jurisdictions. |
| Keywords: | violent youth crime, compulsory schooling law, Constitutional Amendment 59, school quality, difference in differences model, endogenous adoption, Brazil |
| JEL: | H41 I21 K30 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13097&r=all |
| By: | Marielle Montginoul (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs, Usages - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - AgroParisTech - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Jean-Daniel Rinaudo (BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)); Charlotte Alcouffe (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs, Usages - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - AgroParisTech - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the compliance and enforcement issues relating to groundwater policy in France. It is based on a review of existing grey and scientific literature and a series of interviews conducted by the authors with enforcement officers in 16 French counties. The chapter starts with a presentation of the existing regulations governing groundwater abstraction (Section 1), followed by a description of how the law enforcement agencies are organised (Section 2) and how they operate (Section 3). It then describes the infractions observed by regulators and analyses the factors that may explain compliance and non-compliance (Section 4). The problems that limit the effectiveness of enforcement are discussed. |
| Keywords: | water crime,criminal enforcement,administrative sanction |
| Date: | 2020–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02532168&r=all |
| By: | Nicolas Aubert (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon); Philippe Bernheim |
| Abstract: | France has a one of the longest- and best-established employee financial participation system in the world with 3.5 million employee-owners, the largest number of employee-owners of any European country (EFES, 2019). It has also been the first country in 1967 to have compulsory profit-sharing schemes in firms employing 50 or more. The PACTE law (action plan for the growth and transformation of companies) has been promulgated in France in 2019. The PACTE law introduces new measures that support employee financial participation through profit-sharing, gainsharing and employee ownership and, second, employee participation in decision-making through labor representation in corporate governance and social dialogue. First, gainsharing and profit-sharing bonuses are promoted in small businesses by decreasing the social tax. Second, the law introduces developments relating to the representation of employee shareholders and employees, first in corporate governance and, second, in the supervisory boards of company savings funds (CSF). The objective of this paper is to present the new measures of the PACTE law that will affect the development of employee financial participation. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02532708&r=all |
| By: | David Argente; Salomé Baslandze; Douglas Hanley; Sara Moreira |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between patents and actual product innovation in the market, and how this relationship varies with firms’ market share. We use textual analysis to create a new data set that links patents to products of firms in the consumer goods sector. We find that patent filings are positively associated with subsequent product innovation by firms, but at least half of product innovation and growth comes from firms that never patent. We also find that market leaders use patents differently from followers. Market leaders have lower product innovation rates, though they rely on patents more. Patents of market leaders relate to higher future sales above and beyond their effect on product innovation, and these patents are associated with declining product introduction on the part of competitors, which is consistent with the notion that market leaders use their patents to limit competition. We then use a model to analyze the firms' patenting and product innovation decisions. We show that the private value of a patent is particularly high for large firms as patents protect large market shares of existing products. |
| Keywords: | patent value; productivity; creative destruction; patents; product innovation; growth |
| JEL: | O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2020–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:87832&r=all |
| By: | Claudio Lucifora (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Daria Vigani |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the evolution of sector-level collective agreements in Italy and estimates the wage effects of the diffusion of non-representative agreements, often signed by unknown organisations - i.e. "pirate" agreements. Using employer-employee data from Social Security Archives, we nd evidence of a signicant dumping effect on wages associated with different types of non-representative agreements (-15% with respect to regular collective agreements). We show that half of the wage differential associated with "pirate" agreements is due to selection effects. Also, heterogeneous effects are found across rm size and industry aliation. Finally, we show that rms with non-representative agreements are also less likely to comply with negotiate. |
| Keywords: | collective bargaining, collective agreements, representativeness, wage dierentials. |
| JEL: | J52 J31 J41 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def087&r=all |
| By: | Gabrić, Petar (University of Cologne, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A history of research on radio frequency radiation, and recent scant research on the newly emerging 5G suggests that the expansion of 5G poses a possible public health issue. The media play a decisive role in how the public responds to a public health issue, and what it knows about it. However, there is an increasing amount of misinformation on health topics in the media. The present case study investigated whether the Croatian news website Index.hr manipulates information on the health effects of 5G. We constructed one experimental corpus, containing all articles by Index.hr on health effects of 5G, and two control corpora, one with articles about health effects of 5G published by reliable mainstream media, and one with articles about science (but not 5G) published by Index.hr. We assessed the presence of references, scientific references, misinformation, opinion expression, and opinion subjectivity. Compared to Index.hr science articles, Index.hr 5G articles were 10.78 times likelier to contain no references, 4.20 times likelier to contain no scientific references, 10.78 times likelier to contain misinformation, 288.14 times likelier to express the author’s opinion on the issue, and 16.95 times likelier to express a subjective opinion. The simultaneous increase in misinformation and reduction in referencing suggests that misinformation doesn’t stem from other unreliable sources of information, but that the misinformation is produced within Index.hr. An increase in opinion expression, and opinion subjectivity in the context of misinformation suggests that Index.hr is manipulating the information on health effects of 5G. This is corroborated by the fact that the two types of misinformation identified in the present study included erroneous referencing, and denial of the existence of scientific literature on the topic. Furthermore, all articles on both 5G, and scientific topics were written by different authors, indicating that this phenomenon is systematic within Index.hr. We conclude that our data point to a manipulation of information on health effects of 5G by Index.hr. Still, the small sample size warrants a degree of caution. |
| Date: | 2020–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:dpjbf&r=all |