Volume 7, Issue 3

This paper examines the incentive performance of liability and regulation when a potential injurer can take two types of preventative care, one of which is observed and one of which is not. The problem is studied in a general asymmetric information model, where settlement behavior is endogenous and which incorporates an uncertain legal standard. Contrary to existing literature, we find (1) a shift to a negligence rule may have a perverse effect on unobserved care; (2) uncertainty in legal standards may be socially beneficial as it provides a relatively good incentive for unobserved care; (3) a regulation may not be effective if preventative care efforts are substitutes but is effective if they are complements; (4) an increase in settlement rate may or may not increase the level of care, depending on the cause of the increase; (5) a “decoupling” arrangement with a feature that the defendant pays more than the plaintiff recovers, reduces legal costs and is therefore socially beneficial.

Over the last decades, more and more countries have integrated environmental protection into their constitution. In this article, we argue that a simple economic model can explain why some countries have adopted the legal innovation of constitutional environmental protection, while others have not. Environmental protection can be thought of as an investment that only pays off over the long term, and may even imply intergenerational redistribution to the advantage of future generations. Moreover, the adoption of constitutional environmental protection leads to the provision of public goods, which redistributes resources among all members of a society. Taken together, these arguments imply that democratic states with a culture that favors future-oriented behavior are more likely to entrench environmental protection in their constitution. We study the adoption of constitutional environmental protection in a panel dataset for 122 countries using semi-parametric survival analysis techniques. Our results suggest that future-oriented preferences are a robust determinant of a country’s propensity to adopt a green constitution. Political institutions are less important and do not exert a statistically significant effect.

There are two functions of the state liability principle. The first is to secure individual rights (including economic rights) from a wrongful act conducted by a government, and the second is to compensate for damage caused by the infringement of individual right. Economic right is inherently allowing an individual to pursue economic interest both domestically or globally. In order to accommodate this right, a government is obliged to provide trade rules and mechanisms for every individual to conduct their global economic activities by participating in the WTO. The objective of the WTO significantly corresponds to the individual’s right in order to obtain trade benefits. Hence, when a government infringes trade rules and mechanisms underlined in WTO Law, it will directly restrict individuals from gaining trade benefits under the WTO or, moreover, it will restrain individuals from enjoying their inviolable economic rights. When the right is violated, and the damage occurs, it thus leads to the obligation for the government to compensate the damage according to the state liability principle. This article discusses the nexus between the state liability principle and WTO Law, in order to encourage national courts to exercise the function of state liability by referring to the infringement of economic rights caused by the violation of WTO Law.

The price effects of a partial acquisition may be far more complex than those of a full merger. The discussion on this issue, however, has not been well developed in Asian countries, including Korea. However, a partial acquisition case occurred in Korea in which Essilor intended to acquire fifty-percent shares of its competitor, DM Optical. In this paper, we modify and reorganize theories of upward pricing pressure (UPP) in partial acquisitions and apply them to this case. This paper, therefore, intends not only to initiate a discussion, but also to suggest an exemplary method to conduct UPP analysis in partial acquisition environments. Specifically, it will contribute to methodological advances by analyzing the case in a fashion that circumvents limitations of time and data, the main obstacles merger reviewers often face, in practice.

This study examines the herd behavior in Vietnam stock market using a sample of firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange covering the time period 2005–2015. We find evidence of herding in both rising and falling market employing the common least squares estimation. Further analysis by applying quantile regression method also confirms the evidence of herding during the whole period. The results are robust when we split the data into two sub-periods.