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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Benito Arruñada; Marco Fabbri; Michael Faure |
| Abstract: | We study a large-scale land titling reform implemented as a randomized control-trial to isolate its causal effects on litigation. The reform consisted of demarcating land parcels, registering existing customary rights, and granting additional legal protection to rightholders. We find that, ten years after implementation, the reform doubled the likelihood of households experiencing land-related litigation, but disputes do not escalate into more frequent violent episodes. We suggest that this litigation increase is likely to reflect the complementarity of land titling by registration and by judicial procedures aimed at further clarifying property rights, as the reform registered titles to all parcels but left many of these titles subject to adverse claims. This raised the demand for complementary litigation aimed at perfecting titles for low value parcels which, under the customary system, it was individually optimal to keep unclarified. Consistent with this explanation, we find that the observed increase in litigation takes place among households characterized by low levels of wealth and market integration, who are likely to own land of lower value. |
| Keywords: | experimental survey, informal institutions, land rights formalization, land tenure reform, litigation, randomized control trial |
| JEL: | K11 K4 Q15 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1271&r= |
| By: | Julien Jacob; Eve-Angéline Lambert; Mathieu Lefebvre; Sarah Van Driessche |
| Abstract: | We experimentally investigate the impact of information disclosure on managing collective harms that are caused jointly by a group of liable agents. Subjects interact in a public bad setting and must choose ex ante how much to contribute in order to reduce the probability of causing a common damage. If a damage occurs, subjects bear a part of the loss according to the liability-sharing rule in force.We consider two existing rules: a per capita rule and a proportional rule. Our aim is to analyze the relative impact of information disclosure under each rule. We show that information disclosure increases contributions only under a per capita rule. This result challenges the classical results regarding the positive effects of information disclosure, since we show that this impact may depend upon the legal context. We also show that while a proportional rule leads to higher contributions than a per capita one, the positive effect of disclosure on a per capita rule makes it as efficient as a proportional rule without information disclosure. |
| Keywords: | Information disclosure; Collective harms; Environmental Regulation; Liability Sharing Rules; Public Bads; Multiple Tortfeasors. |
| JEL: | C92 H41 K13 K32 Q53 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2021-30&r= |
| By: | Gorecki, Paul |
| Abstract: | Since 2017 Ireland’s competition agency, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), has cleared two merger to monopoly transactions, albeit both subject to the divestment of selected assets to an entrant. One of these transactions was Kantar Media’s 2017 acquisition of Newsaccess. Prior to 2017 the CCPC had prohibited mergers to monopoly. Does this apparent relaxation mark a sea change in CCPC merger policy? Taking the Kantar Media/Newsaccess merger as a case study, the paper explores this question. The paper finds that there has been a relaxation of merger enforcement by the CCPC. On an ex ante basis the Kantar Media/Newsaccess merger should have been prohibited or the remedy substantially strengthened. However, ex post, due to business difficulties of the merger entity consequent upon a major pre-merger restructuring, the market has self-corrected through successful entry facilitated in large part by these business difficulties. Such rapid self-correction in restoring competition is very much the exception rather than the rule. If it were otherwise there would be no need for merger control. |
| Keywords: | Ireland; merger control; structural remedies; substantial lessening of competition; ex post evaluation; Competition Act 2002. |
| JEL: | D22 K21 L41 |
| Date: | 2021–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:108743&r= |
| By: | Bos, Iwan (RS: GSBE Theme Conflict & Cooperation, Organisation,Strategy & Entrepreneurship) |
| Abstract: | Motivated by some recent examples, this paper employs a model of public law enforcement to explain why it may not be in society’s interest to send criminals to prison. We establish two main findings. First, independent of the lawbreaker’s societal position, imprisonment is suboptimal when the harm from the illegal activity is sufficiently small. Second, for a given level of harm, imprisonment is suboptimal when the lawbreaker is sufficiently important. This latter result thus provides a rationale for why some parties are taken to be “too big to jail”. |
| JEL: | D63 K42 |
| Date: | 2021–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2021007&r= |
| By: | Goussé, Marion (Université Laval); Leturcq, Marion (INED, France) |
| Abstract: | We study how different levels of protection upon separation affect the labour market behaviour of unmarried cohabiting partners. In Canada, unmarried cohabitation becomes a legal status after one year of relationship. Most provinces automatically expand couples' rights and responsibilities after several years of cohabitation: some provinces allow cohabiting partners to claim for alimony upon separation, while others consider cohabiting couples to be equal to married couples. Using cross-province variations in legal settings and minimum eligibility duration, we show that eligibility for a more protective regime increases men's labour supply and earnings and decreases those of women's. The impact of the marriage-like regime is stronger, especially for women. We find that the effect is significantly stronger for couples directly eligible at the time of the reform than for couples who are eligible after the reform and may have anticipated changes in the legal settings. Our results show that eligibility affects within-household allocation of earnings and hours of work, and reinforces existing inequality. We present some evidence that enhancing protection upon separation has an effect on the selection of couples into cohabitation. Our results contribute to the ongoing public debate regarding the legal recognition and level of protection that should be given to unmarried cohabiting partners. Our results show that behavioural response may offset additional protection upon separation by increasing women's dependence on their partner. |
| Keywords: | alimony rights, unmarried cohabitation, labour supply, common law marriage |
| JEL: | J12 J22 J18 K36 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14520&r= |
| By: | Oana Horhogea (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania) |
| Abstract: | Insolvency at the international level has been for hundreds of years an essential issue of commercial law in general and of international law in particular. There has been a constant attempt to find the appropriate legal instruments to solve creditors’ problems in order to obtain the goodwill that belongs to them, but at the same time to protect the debtor. Along with the economic, social and financial development, there have been several changes in insolvency legislation both domestically and internationally. These legislative changes have become an essential pillar in the economic legislation of a state. |
| Keywords: | insolvency, laws, managers, management, company |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:lpaper:0044&r= |
| By: | Nicoleta-Elena Heghes (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University of Bucharest, Romania) |
| Abstract: | After numerous studies and debates at European and national level, the Romanian Parliament has adopted a series of legislative amendments aimed at complementing existing legislation on discrimination in the workplace and strengthening the levers needed to prevent and combat moral harassment in the workplace. Considered by specialists to be the most harmful source of stress at work, since 2000, moral harassment at work or “mobbing†has become a phenomenon that has caught the attention of both European Union institutions and the Romanian state. |
| Keywords: | harassment, mobbing, contraventional liability, disciplinary liability, criminal liability |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:lpaper:0016&r= |
| By: | Bogdan David (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University of Bucharest, Romania) |
| Abstract: | Legal consciousness has been and remains an integral part of the historical evolution of human society, and even more, it, in the context of the historical process of development of human society is identified as a phenomenon that drives, complements and defines social relations and reflects them in the norms of law, or consciousness is a superior form of reflection of the objective reality, proper only to human. |
| Keywords: | Legal conscience, ancient times, legal work, legal norms |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:lpaper:00181&r= |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Jakubek, Marcin |
| Abstract: | This chapter investigates the impact of the imposition of sanctions for employing illegal migrants on the welfare of native laborers. In response to such sanctions, managers in a firm may be reassigned from the supervision of production to the verification of the legality of the firm's labor force. The chapter analyzes three different conditions of the host country's labor market: full employment, voluntary unemployment, and minimal wage in combination with involuntary unemployment. It is shown that when the sanctions are steep enough, a profit-maximizing firm will assign managers to verification, which impedes the firm's productivity. The impact on the wages and / or employment of the native laborers depends on the efficiency of the verification technology, namely on the percentage of the 'filtered out' illegal laborers in relation to the fraction of reassigned managers. If this efficiency is not high enough, the sanctions bring in their wake consequences that fly in the face of the very aim of their introduction: the welfare of the native laborers will take a beating. |
| Keywords: | Employer sanctions,Illegal migrant laborers,Welfare of native laborers |
| JEL: | D21 I38 J21 J61 K31 L51 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:149&r= |
| By: | Daniel Guth; Shiyu Zhang |
| Abstract: | Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) seek to potentially reduce opioid misuse by restricting the sale of opioids in a state. We examine discontinuities along state borders, where one side may have a PDMP and the other side may not. We find that electronic PDMP implementation, whereby doctors and pharmacists can observe a patient's opioid purchase history, reduces a state's opioid sales but increases opioid sales in neighboring counties on the other side of the state border. We also find systematic differences in opioid sales and mortality between border counties and interior counties. These differences decrease when neighboring states both have ePDMPs, which is consistent with the hypothesis that individuals cross state lines to purchase opioids. Our work highlights the importance of understanding the opioid market as connected across counties or states, as we show that states are affected by the opioid policies of their neighbors. |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2107.04925&r= |