Volume 9, Issue 1 - Special Issue:Vietnam and other Asian countries in the process of globalization, Guest Editors: Xuan Vinh Vo and Dong Phong Nguyen

Emerging and developing countries around the world are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. They move up in the global value chain very quickly. However, these countries constantly facing a plethora of challenges covering a wide range of issues. This paper addresses some key challenges confronting Vietnam economy which potentially deteriorate its economic growth prospects. These include economic slowdown, credit booming, the rise of protectionism around the world, and risk from greater opening of the domestic markets. Addressing these challenges are important for Vietnam to maintain its comparative advantage and foundation for economic growth.

Purpose This study aims to examine how piracy via peer-to-peer (P2P) network affects sales of original version in the video game industry. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an online questionnaire survey in 2009 with a focus on 9970 users of portable video game platforms, and collected information of how familiar respondents were with techniques for downloading pirated video games via P2P network and how this knowledge affected their purchase behavior of original video games. Findings First, 38% of the respondents know how to download pirated video games via P2P network. Younger male respondents with greater enthusiasm for video games are exposed to greater opportunities to learn to pirate. Second, different respondents employ different channels to learn about piracy. Third, 95% of the respondents who knew how to pirate did not download any pirated video game. Once involved in piracy, jobless respondents with less enthusiasm for video games who were informed about piracy by their friends tend to download pirated video games more intensively. Fourth, there is no significantly negative relationship between the number of pirated video games respondents downloaded and the number of original video games they purchased. Fifth, respondents who downloaded pirated video games also purchased original video games of which pirated version they have downloaded. Originality/value This study clarified that heavy pirates are also heavy buyers not only at the aggregate level, but also at the individual level, and interpreted the results from the viewpoint of peculiarities of video games as a cultural product, making piracy harmless to sales of original version.

In recent years, serious accidents in China caused by negligence have resulted in tremendous damage to both human life and property. Taking a cost-utility analysis, law and economics considers that accident law can induce injurers to internalize the costs of harm through liability rules such as victim compensation and criminal imprisonment. Consequently, the injurers are motivated to avoid or reduce accident risks at a more effective level. This article applies the approach of law and economics into the analysis of serious accident laws in China. It argues that the current provisions should be revised to include criminal fines on injurers, so as to enhance legal deterrence, stimulating them to improve the level of care as well as the level of behavior to reduce the incidence of accidents.

Since the way of doing corruption has evolved over time, there are likely possibilities for corporate entities to be involved in corruption activities and infringe the anti-corruption law. This paper endeavors to find justifications to criminalizing corporate entiti(es) from a law and economics perspective. This paper argues that it is ultimately efficient for a party not to be held criminally liable for another party’s culpable act, and thus it concludes that individual vicarious criminal liability is inefficient. Unlike individual vicarious liability, corporate vicarious criminal liability might be efficient. This paper will also explain how and why the implementation of the corporate criminal liability should be classified differently with the liability of corporate officers, particularly under the regime anti-corruption law, so that the distinction between the personal acts of a high ranking corporate officers and the act of corruption involving the corporation itself can be unequivocally distinguished. This paper also critically evaluates Indonesia’s regulation and formulation of corporate entity criminal liability which pursuant to the anti-corruption law and to further examine whether Indonesia’s anti-corruption law has achieved its purpose.

After World War II, under the aegis of globalism, transparency norms have gradually been endorsed and adopted by major organizations involved in the international economy. Many scholars have highlighted the role of international organizations as vehicles for policy reform in developing countries through a wide range of commitments related to domestic public policy. Nevertheless, the impact of international integration on transitional process toward transparency and accountability in some Asian developing states remains doubtable due to “transparency policy dilemma.” This paper aims to demonstrate this dilemma by examining the case of Vietnam to shed more light on the legislative phenomenon existing in some regimes.