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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Sofia Amaral; Girija Borker; Nishith Prakash; Maria Micaela Sviatschi |
| Abstract: | Frontline state agents exercise substantial discretion over citizens’ access to public services, yet little is known about whether the attitudes and beliefs shaping this discretion can be changed among incumbent bureaucrats. Partnering with the Bihar Police - one of India’s largest states that operates under comparatively severe policing capacity constraints, we conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial across 417 police stations and roughly 2, 500 active duty senior field police officers to evaluate a three-day expressive arts intervention, grounded in the Theatre of the Oppressed, designed to change police responses to gender-based violence (GBV). Approximately 7 months after baseline, treated officers exhibit more favorable attitudes toward GBV, greater empathy, and stronger legal knowledge. These changes translate into observed policing behavior: in standardized victim audits conducted one year later, officers in treated stations are 15 percentage points less likely to blame victims, dismiss fewer complaints, and provide more referrals, while administrative records show a 41 percent reduction in registration delays and, over a longer horizon, increased GBV reporting by citizens. Exploiting variation generated by officer transfers, we find suggestive evidence that these effects persist when treated officers relocate and diffuse to untreated officers working alongside treated colleagues. The effects also extend to the workplace: junior female officers working with treated senior officers report lower harassment and anxiety. These findings show that the attitudes shaping bureaucratic discretion are malleable and that changing how incumbent state agents exercise authority can improve both citizen-facing service delivery and the broader workplace environment. |
| Keywords: | police, gender-based violence, state capacity, bureaucratic discretion, gender attitudes, workplace spillovers |
| JEL: | J16 K42 J45 D73 D91 C93 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13050 |
| By: | Ali Salmande |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how domestic courts in Indonesia and Malaysia engage with and enforce the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA). Employing a mixed doctrinal and empirical methodology, it analyses judicial decisions alongside interviews with judges and legal experts involved in ATIGA-related disputes. The study highlights key cases, including Indonesian tax court rulings that overturned customs authorities’ import duty assessments on the basis of ATIGA provisions, and Malaysian decisions concerning the implementation of ATIGA tariff preferences through the Licensed Manufacturing Warehouse (LMW) scheme. The findings demonstrate that, notwithstanding ASEAN’s limited supranational enforcement mechanisms, domestic courts in both countries have emerged as important actors in ensuring compliance with regional trade commitments. By interpreting and applying ATIGA in domestic disputes, these courts function as de facto enforcement mechanisms and contribute to strengthening the effectiveness, predictability, and credibility of ASEAN’s regional legal order. |
| Keywords: | - |
| Date: | 2026–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2026-03 |
| By: | Bühler, Benno; Fischer, Dominik; Ganglmair, Bernhard |
| Abstract: | We develop a licensing-litigation model to analyze how different injunction frameworks affect bargaining behavior, equilibrium royalties, and litigation outcomes in standard-essential patent (SEP) disputes. Motivated by recent developments in German case law, we compare two legal frameworks that differ only in whether the patent holder's licensing offer conditions the availability of injunctive relief. We show that removing the patent holder's offer from the injunction analysis raises equilibrium royalties and the risk of patent hold-up when courts are sufficiently imprecise in assessing FRAND compliance; when courts are predictable, the two frameworks coincide. Higher royalties arise because SEP holders make more aggressive, non-FRAND, licensing offers, while implementers respond with higher counteroffers to reduce the risk of an injunction. The same mechanism, however, can reduce the incidence of injunctions, so injunction frequency is an imperfect measure of hold-up. Whether the higher royalties raise or lower welfare depends on where the socially optimal royalty lies relative to the rates the two frameworks produce. |
| Keywords: | bargaining, FRAND, hold-up, injunction, legal uncertainty, licensing negotiations, litigation, standard-essential patents (SEP) |
| JEL: | C78 K21 K41 L24 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:344104 |
| By: | Prashant Narang (TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation); Animesh Bordoloi (Asian International Arbitration Centre) |
| Abstract: | A court hearing a section 11 application decides whether an arbitrator should be appointed, and then who it should be. Indian arbitration law has developed considerable doctrine on the first question and very little on the second. The Act regulates several attributes of a person already under consideration and says nothing about how candidates are produced, whether alternatives are weighed, or what the court should record about the choice. This article examines the reported and retrievable section 11 orders of the Bombay and Madras High Courts from 2016 to 2024, a corpus of 372 orders naming 387 appointments among 201 individuals, with 36 semi-structured interviews. It reads orders as evidence of observable appointment practice, while distinguishing what the orders record from considerations (such as professional knowledge, informal inquiries, party suggestions) that may occur outside the published record. Retired judges took 63.3% of named appointments. The court named the individual in 84.7% of orders; 13.4% recorded both parties’ agreement to the person appointed. Only 4.8% of orders recorded any reason for choosing the person appointed, and 1.6% a reason specific to that person; none compared candidates. Bombay directed a section 12 dis- closure in 115 of 123 orders and Madras in four of 249. Of 387 named appointments, 186 went to someone the same court had already appointed. Where courts continue to appoint, publishing periodic aggregate data on section 11 appointments would make a public function observable over time without constraining any individual choice. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bjd:wpaper:25 |
| By: | Julián Costas-Fernández; Simón Lodato; Gustavo Torrens |
| Abstract: | Because laws are susceptible to multiple interpretations, interest groups care not only about the choices of lawmakers but also those of interpreters. When institutions restrict groups from directly influencing interpreters, such as judges, they may instead seek to shape the interpretability of laws in ways that advance their interests. Data from the United States show that activities aimed at influencing the interpretability of laws have increased dramatically over the last sixty years and that those involved in these efforts also tend to influence through traditional lobbying. We discuss these ideas within an agency model that links the arenas of influence, lawmaking and law interpretability, and report multiple evidence of complementarities in interest group involvement across both. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2026-14 |
| By: | Kirchmaier, Tom; Machin, Stephen; Sandi, Matteo; Witt, Robert |
| Abstract: | Whether working in a team or alone results in higher productivity has been extensively studied in many settings, often being a controversial issue. This is none more so than for the police. Whether single or double crewing enhances or diminishes police productivity remains a perennial, contentious debate, yet credible empirical evidence is scarce. This paper provides new, quasi-experimental evidence on the causal impact of crew size on officer performance. Rich administrative data show that a policy shift (known as the 'Banded Shift Pattern') increased double crewing by altering vehicle-to-officer allocation in response teams. Double crewing significantly enhances police performance through two primary mechanisms: it improves officer productivity and reduces officer injury risks by enhancing situational safety. A cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that the performance gains of double crewing outweigh its increased operational expenses, proving it can be an effective strategy for modern policing. |
| Keywords: | police;double crewing;productivity;safety |
| JEL: | J45 K42 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141338 |
| By: | Lucas Braga de Melo; Valdemar Pinho Neto |
| Abstract: | Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is a form of intimate partner violence (IPV) and a strong predictor of intimate partner homicide (IPH). We compile NFS statute data, link them to homicide reports, 1990–2019, and estimate effects on IPH using a two-stage difference-in-differences estimator for staggered adoption and heterogeneous effects. NFS laws reduce IPH for ages 18–49, by 0.169 female-victim homicides per 100, 000 women and 0.090 male-victim homicides per 100, 000 men. We find no effects on IPH for ages 50–70 or on stranger-perpetrated homicides. Evidence from reported IPV incidents is suggestive of changes in reported incident classification and arrest patterns. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2026-02 |