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In the name of combating COVID-19, many countries have enacted laws that restrict citizens’ freedom of movement and freedom to operate businesses. These laws attempt to use the expressive effects of law and legal sanctions to make people conform to legal norms different from pre-existing social norms. The economic theory of law and social norms predicts that when legal norms deviate significantly from social norms, they can cause people to protest or violate them, leading to a division of social norms and possible social conflicts not only between the state and its citizens but also among people with different beliefs. Using Japan’s COVID-19 laws as a case study, this paper examines under what conditions laws that aim to change social norms can fail and what the side effects are in such cases.

Understanding the application of economic analysis methods in merger reviews across various jurisdictions can benefit antitrust authorities when reviewing cases and aid the legal and economic teams that work with merging parties in better anticipating concerns and outcomes. The comparative studies on economic analysis methods applied in merger cases have mainly been focused on China/the US and the EU/US. The objective of this study is to explore how the EU and China apply economic analysis methods to merger control enforcement for the same concentrations, by means of a comparative case study. Two research questions are addressed: (i) What are the economic analysis methods employed by Chinese antitrust authorities when investigating merger cases and how are they used? (ii) What similarities and differences exist between the antitrust authorities in the EU and China in applying economic analysis methods during merger case reviews?

Building on insights from the insider-outsider theory, we examine the effects of the Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) on labour market outcomes, using high-court verdicts on labour disputes invoking Chapter 5-A and 5-B of the Industrial Disputes Act. Our regression analysis of a statewise unit-level dataset suggests that pro-worker judicial verdicts lead to an increase in wages and labour productivity especially in labour intensive industries, but discourage employment. The study demonstrates how the insider-outsider model combined with the labour market segmentation theory, unlike labour adjustment models, explain such findings consistently. The results suggest that loosening the EPL regime will have implications on the balance between the quantity and the quality of jobs, with serious consequences on industrial performance.

Under the external pressure mainly in the frame of the TRIPS and out of the intrinsic motivation to strengthen intellectual property protection from the height of national strategy, China raised the protective level under criminal law and introduced punitive damages in all intellectual property infringement cases. Rulemaking activities enlarged the scope of criminal offences of Internet piracy, and law enforcement became more active than before. Specifically, tricks for pirating online games, including setting up a private service and hacking games to cheat can be crimes. Additionally, the unauthorised dissemination of copyrighted works through information networks (peer-to-peer file-sharing technology or leeching websites) and circumvention or disability of technological protection measures have been criminalised. The Internet service provider may face a criminal sanction when it fails to delete or block pirated content. The commercial scale, a constructive element of criminal copyright infringement, gained a measuring standard in online piracy cases.