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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Carr, Joel (University of Antwerp); Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna (University of Bath); James, Jonathan (University of Bath); Vujic, Suncica (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | We provide causal evidence of the impact of the Brexit referendum vote on hate crime in the United Kingdom (UK). Using various data sources, including unique data collected from the UK Police Forces by Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and various estimation methods (difference-in-differences, event-study analysis and synthetic control methods), we find that the Brexit referendum led to an increase in hate crime by around 15-25%. This effect was concentrated in the first quarter after the referendum and was larger in areas that voted to leave the European Union (EU). We also provide evidence against the hypotheses that this was due to victims' greater willingness to report crimes or due to changes in police behaviour and perceptions of the victims. We also present suggestive evidence that the media and social media played a small but significant role in the increase in hate crime. |
| Keywords: | Brexit, referendum vote, hate crime, synthetic control method |
| JEL: | D72 J15 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13902&r=all |
| By: | Frédéric Marty (Université Côte d'Azur, France; GREDEG CNRS) |
| Abstract: | Nicolas Petit's Big Tech & the Digital Economy - The Molygopoly Scenario offers a most stimulating insight into the conditions of competition between digital ecosystems and emphasises its dynamic aspects by placing the question of innovation in a context of uncertainty at the centre of its subject matter. This review aims to present the analysis carried out by Nicolas Petit and his proposals in terms of controlling the strategies of the firms through competition rules. It puts Nicolas Petit's work into perspective by successively considering three dimensions: the comeback of structuralist analyses of competition, considering it from the perspective of an effective rivalry on the market, the understanding of competition both as competition in the market and competition for the market, and finally the analysis of the enforcement of competition rules in molygopolistic markets. |
| Keywords: | digital ecosystems, competition laws, innovation, dominance |
| JEL: | K10 K20 K30 L41 N42 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2020-51&r=all |
| By: | Giovanni Facchini; Brian Knight; Cecilia Testa |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and law enforcement practices using evidence from the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. We find that, following the VRA, black arrest rates fell in counties that were both covered by the legislation and had a large number of newly enfranchised black voters. We uncover no corresponding patterns for white arrest rates. The reduction in black arrest rates is driven by less serious offenses, for which police might have more enforcement discretion. Importantly, our results are driven by arrests carried out by sheriffs - who are always elected. While there are no corresponding changes for municipal police chiefs in aggregate, we do find similar patterns in covered counties with elected rather than appointed chiefs. We also show that our findings cannot be rationalized by alternative explanations, such as differences in collective bargaining, changes in the underlying propensity to commit crimes, responses to changes in policing practices, and changes in the suppression of civil right protests. Taken together, these results document that voting rights, when combined with elected, rather than appointed, chief law enforcement officers, can lead to improved treatment of minority groups by police. |
| Keywords: | Voting Rights Act, black arrest rates, black voters, elected sheriffs, arrests data, franchise, policing, minority groups |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2020-09&r=all |
| By: | Giovanni Facchini; Brian Knight; Cecilia Testa |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and law enforcement practices using evidence from the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. We find that, following the VRA, black arrest rates fell in counties that were both covered by the legislation and had a large number of newly enfranchised black voters. We uncover no corresponding patterns for white arrest rates. The reduction in black arrest rates is driven by less serious offenses, for which police might have more enforcement discretion. Importantly, our results are driven by arrests carried out by sheriffs - who are always elected. While there are no corresponding changes for municipal police chiefs in aggregate, we do find similar patterns in covered counties with elected rather than appointed chiefs. We also show that our findings cannot be rationalized by alternative explanations, such as differences in collective bargaining, changes in the underlying propensity to commit crimes, responses to changes in policing practices, and changes in the suppression of civil right protests. Taken together, these results document that voting rights, when combined with elected, rather than appointed, chief law enforcement officers, can lead to improved treatment of minority groups by police. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2020-18&r=all |
| By: | Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann; Armin Steinbach |
| Abstract: | Reforms of international trade and investment law and institutions are hampered by conflicting economic paradigms. For instance, utilitarian Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism (e.g. promoting self-regulatory market forces privileging the homo economicus), constitutional European ordo-liberalism (e.g. protecting multilevel, constitutional rights and judicial remedies of EU citizens), and authoritarian state-capitalism (e.g. protecting totalitarian power monopolies of the communist party in China) pursue different legal and institutional designs of trade and investment agreements. Globalization and its transformation of national into transnational public goods (PGs) require extending constitutional and institutional economics to multilevel governance of transnational PGs in order to enhance the wealth of nations. Maintaining the worldwide legal and dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) - and interpreting its regional and national exception clauses broadly in order to reconcile diverse, national and regional institutions of economic integration and of ‘embedded liberalism’ - remains in the interest of all WTO member states. |
| Keywords: | Adjudication, climate litigation, constitutionalism, neo-liberalism, ordo-liberalism, public goods, state-capitalism, WTO |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2020/74&r=all |
| By: | Soni, Aparna (American University); Tekin, Erdal (American University) |
| Abstract: | Over the past four decades, more than 2,300 people have been the victims of mass shootings involving a firearm in the United States. Research shows that mass shootings have significant detrimental effects on the direct victims and their families. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which the impacts of these tragedies are transmitted into communities where they occur, and how they influence people beyond those directly affected. This study uses nationally representative data from the Gallup-Healthways survey to assess the spillover effects of mass shootings on community wellbeing and emotional health outcomes that capture community satisfaction, sense of safety, and levels of stress and worry. We leverage differences in the timing of mass shooting events across counties between 2008 and 2017. We find that mass shootings reduce both community wellbeing and emotional health. According to our results, a mass shooting is associated with a 27 percentage point decline in the likelihood of having excellent community wellbeing and a 13 percentage point decline in the likelihood of having excellent emotional health four weeks following the incident. The effects are stronger and longer lasting among individuals exposed to deadlier mass shootings. Furthermore, the reductions in wellbeing are greater for parents with children below age 18. Our findings suggest that mass shootings have significant societal costs and create negative spillover effects that extend beyond those immediately exposed. |
| Keywords: | mass shooting, gun, crime, violence, happiness, wellbeing, mental health, depression, homicide |
| JEL: | I12 I18 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13879&r=all |
| By: | Eguia, Jon (Michigan State University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | I propose a measure of artificial partisan advantage in redistricting. Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district maps. Electoral outcomes depend on the maps drawn. The measure I propose compares the share of seats won by a party to the share of the population that lives in jurisdictions (counties and towns) won by this party. If a party has a larger share of seats than the share of the population in jurisdictions in which the party won most votes, then the drawing of the electoral maps conferred an artificial advantage to this party. This measure takes into account the geographic sorting of partisan voters and is simple to compute. Using U.S. election data from 2012 to 2018, I find an artificial partisan advantage of seventeen House seats to the Republican party. I argue that the artificial partisan advantage in the congressional maps of North Carolina, Utah, Michigan and Ohio is excessive. |
| Keywords: | Election law; redistricting; gerrymandering; partisan advantage |
| JEL: | D72 K16 |
| Date: | 2020–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:msuecw:2020_014&r=all |
| By: | Vermeulen, Mathias |
| Abstract: | Independent researchers have requested access to a wide variety of platform data in order to scrutinize the actors and methods responsible for the spreading of disinformation, as well as to assess the effectiveness and impact of the self-regulatory measures platforms have taken to counter disinformation. Over the past two years the European Union has increasingly supported these requests, including by facilitating the adoption of the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, in which platforms committed themselves to provide such access through a variety of mechanisms. However, both European decision makers and researchers have consistently criticized the insufficiency of these mechanisms. On a number of occasions platforms have invoked their obligations under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as rationale for failing to make certain data sets available. This paper aims to assess those claims in order to clarify to which extent, if any, GDPR concerns prevent the disclosure of (sensitive) personal data by platforms to independent researchers. The paper will argue that the GDPR currently allows the sharing of personal data for such purposes in a number of ways, but recommends the adoption of a binding legal obligation for platforms to hand over data and a Code of Conduct on Access To Platform Data under Article 40 of the GDPR as necessary measures to provide more legal certainty about the specific roles and responsibilities of both platforms and independent researchers. |
| Date: | 2020–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:vnswz&r=all |
| By: | Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | Seemingly, comparative law invites quantitative analysis: there are more than 200 sovereign states, and many of them are federations, which increases the number of jurisdictions. Yet actually, proving causal claims about the effect of some institutional detail on some outcome variable of interest with the help of comparative law is fraught with challenges. Translating (legal) text into numbers is not easy in the first place. But even if this initial step has been successful, there are the usual concerns with observational data, like reverse causality, omitted variables, or measurement error. More concerning even is the fact that legal orders do not develop independently of each other. This calls the independence assumption into question, which is at the core of any statistical analysis. The paper analyzes the challenges, discusses potential solutions, and explains why the traditional attention of comparative lawyers to institutional detail is key. |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2020_29&r=all |
| By: | Mersch, Yves; Achtouk-Spivak, Laurie; Affaki, Georges; Contartese, Cristina; Puig, Ramón Vidal |
| Abstract: | The five contributions in this legal working paper discuss various aspects of investment arbitration. They were originally presented at the ECB legal colloquium on ‘The new challenges raised by investment arbitration for the EU legal order’ which took place in Frankfurt am Main in 2019. |
| Keywords: | Achmea, arbitration tribunals, bilateral investment treaties (BITs), Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) tribunal, Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), dispute settlement mechanism, division of competence, European Central Bank, investment arbitration, investor-state arbitration clauses, Opinion 1/17, with investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms (ISDS) |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecblwp:201919&r=all |
| By: | Vera Rusinova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Ekaterina Martynova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Polina Kurakina (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the understanding of why states resort to ‘good old’ sanctions to meet the relatively new threat of cyber intrusions and whether this type of response is a forced measure or an effective tool to halt, prevent and punish attacking states. The tools of analysis used in this paper are legal positivism, and political and economic theories, including Mancur Olson’s theory of groups, Francesco Giumelli’s analytical framework for sanction assessment, cost-benefit analysis and game theory. The authors address the effectiveness of sanctions as a reaction to cyber-enabled activities through the lens of regulation introduced in the US and the EU, which are the most developed counter-cyber sanction regimes, analyzing publicly known cases of cyber-related sanctions. |
| Keywords: | sanctions, cyber operations, cybersecurity, retorsion, effectiveness. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:96/law/2020&r=all |
| By: | Baumann, Florian; Rasch, Alexander |
| Abstract: | We analyze a monopolist who offers different variants of a possibly dangerous product to heterogeneous customers. Product variants are distinguished by different safety attributes. Customers choose product usage which co- determines expected harm. We find that, even with customers being perfectly informed about product variants' safety, product liability can further welfare by limiting the firm's incentives to distort product safety in pursuance of profit- maximizing price discrimination. In this context, strict liability has to be accompanied by a defense of product misuse, but reasonable use of the base product variant should be defined more leniently than what an application of the Hand rule or instructions in user manuals might prescribe. |
| Keywords: | Comparative negligence,Price discrimination,Product liability,Product use |
| JEL: | D82 K13 L11 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20071&r=all |
| By: | Eckes, Christina; D’Ambrosio, Raffaele |
| Abstract: | The two contributions in this legal working paper discuss the various aspects of composite administrative procedures in the context of both Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) decision-making procedures. It addresses the definition of such procedures, their relevance in the SSM and SRM context, the allocation of powers in such procedures, differences between composite procedures in the SSM and SRM spheres and differences between composite procedures and mere cooperation or exchange of information procedures. They were originally presented at the ECB legal colloquium on ‘Composite administrative procedures in the European Union’, which took place in Frankfurt am Main in 2020. JEL Classification: G2, G21, K2, K23 |
| Keywords: | admissibility in national proceedings of materials gathered by Union bodies, allocation of jurisdiction between the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the national courts, composite administrative procedures, Due process requirements, European Central Bank, legal professional privilege, national competent authorities (NCAs), national punitive proceedings, national resolution authorities (NRAs), procedural and defence rights, punitive and non-punitive, Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to be heard, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecblwp:202020&r=all |