法律如何构建时间？——系统理论脉络下的展开

现代法律对时间的构建与社会系统的功能分化相关,社会系统与环境的区分实现了不同系统的时间维度,因此,法律系统构建时间的问题是一个在法律运作和法律理论演化中真实存在的问题。法律系统构建时间的独特性与法律的规范性预期功能具有紧密关联,法律系统的时间维度呈现为以当下为视角观察过去并指向未来的特点,而以政治目标为导向直接对未来进行“规划”的政治规范模式无法匹配法律系统一般意义上的时间塑造方式。政治决策无法恰当地实现法律系统维持规范性预期的社会功能,因此政治系统的目的式纲要无法替代法律系统以当下为视角构建的条件式纲要。系统理论对“时间”问题的考察展现了法律系统演化中可能出现的风险,这也是系统理论对法律演化问题的贡献。     

外部环境视角下的企业创新决策：地缘政治风险的影响与应对

在地缘政治事件频发的背景下,探究地缘政治风险对企业经营决策的影响具有重要的现实意义。本文实证检验了地缘政治风险对企业创新的影响,实证结果表明：地缘政治风险抑制了企业创新,降低了企业下一年度的专利申请数量;作用机制检验发现,地缘政治风险通过增加企业融资约束程度和提升现金持有水平来影响企业创新行为;异质性分析发现,对于高地缘政治风险暴露水平和高管理层短视程度的企业,其创新活动受到地缘政治风险的负向影响将会更大。此外,有效的外部监督措施有助于企业抵御地缘政治风险的冲击。本文拓展了在外部环境不确定性下,企业创新决策的相关研究,对政府调控地缘政治事件导致的外生风险,企业管理外部环境风险冲击具有一定的参考价值。     

我国对外承包工程的风险与对策

<正>改革开放以来,我国对外承包工程已经取得了一定发展,但在工程项目实施过程中总会面对一定的政治、经济、法律、社会、自然、技术等风险,因此,我国对外承包工程的企业有必要采取风险降低、风险规避、风     

基层央行履职的法律风险分析及对策建议

基层央行履职法律风险及原因分析 （一）行政决策法律风险。基层央行行政决策法律风险主要表现在以下两个方面：一是重大决策未提交行党委会议研究决定,领导干部未能做到民主决策、科学决策且因决策失误引发重大社会事件或经济损失;如果领导干部在重大决策过程中负有个人责任的,可能会涉嫌滥用职权或玩忽职守罪等渎职犯罪。     

探析加强商业银行操作风险管理的动因

操作风险是由不完善或有问题的内部程序、人员及系统或外部事件所造成损失的风险;它包含法律风险,但不包括策略风险和声誉风险,其中法律风险包括但不限于:因监管措施及私下调解而支付罚金、罚款、处罚赔偿金所导致的风险暴露。本文从商业银行自身固有特点出发,论述了加强商业银行操作风险管理的动因。     

论《巴塞尔新资本协议》对完善我国商业银行法律风险监管制度的借鉴意义

法律风险是指银行因经营活动不符合法律规定或者外部法律事件导致风险敞口的可能性,普遍存在于商业银行业务活动和管理控制的各个方面。我国应当积极借鉴《巴塞尔新资本协议》体现的先进监管理念和成熟的风险管理经验,适时修订《商业银行操作风险管理指引》,从明确法律风险的表现形式、引导商业银行完善管理法律风险的组织结构以及推动商业银行开发管理法律风险的技术和方法等三个方面入手,初步建立起法律风险监管制度。     

农业融资担保机构决策机制研究

为研究农业融资担保机构的决策机制,论文构建了农业融资担保机构与农户两大群体的演化博弈模型,围绕双方期望收益值变化所形成系统演化均衡的四种可能性,用计算实验仿真法进一步深化研究各因素对农业融资担保机构决策行为的影响。研究发现:首先,财政风险补贴不到位、农业风险大是导致担保机构不担保决策行为的重要因素;其次,通过落实风险补贴、提升担保风险容忍度、加大农户失信惩罚、完善"龙头企业+农户"的经营模式等措施,可以促使担保机构倾向于采取担保行为。     

系统风险、系统性风险与金融危机——基于金融杠杆与资产负债表视角的解释

文章以资产负债表为切入点,从金融杠杆的角度构建基于风险调整的金融资产总供求模型,分析系统性风险(由金融市场外部因素导致)和系统风险(由金融市场内部因素导致)引发金融危机的机制,并重点阐述和论证个别风险系统化导致风险转移、积累和集聚的机制以及金融危机的发生。分析表明,杠杆交易机制使得金融市场具有天然的不稳定和脆弱性;个别风险对冲是金融市场系统风险积累和集聚的源头之一;做市商制度为个别风险对冲转化为系统风险提供了渠道;系统风险和系统性风险导致金融危机的过程和机制相异。     

参股投资高新技术企业法律风险及防范

PREF ACE/前言法律风险存在于企业股权投资管理活动各环节以承担法律责任为特征,是企业股权投资风险防控的关键。本文基于工作实践评析了参股投资高新技术企业的法律风险及防范措施,对于企业建立股权投资法律风险系统防范机制具有一定参考意义。文章指出高新技术企业以知识产权为核心竞争力,现金投资者比技术投资者面临更高的知识产权法律风险。同时,投资管理过程中参股股东比     

浅谈如何加强债权债务管理,保证资金正常周转

<正>由于现代社会活动较复杂,每个人及各行各业每天都必须面对各种不同的风险。风险是指在企业经营的各种活动中发生损失的可能性,其中经营风险是企业随时面临的风险,从某种程度上来说,企业所做的所有决策都具有风险,管理层不能保证所做的每一个决策都是正确的。流动性风险是企业经营管理中普遍存在的风险。流动性风险是指由于缺乏可用资金而产生的到期无法支付应付款项的     

The precautionary principle: an 'unprincipled' approach to biotechnology regulation

A tenet of administrative law, particularly in the United States, is that regulators must base their decisions on 'intelligible principles' to provide consistency, predictability, transparency and accountability. The precautionary principle, which purports to provide a new decision rule for making environmental decisions under conditions of uncertainty, fails to provide such an intelligible principle for making decisions. The precautionary principle is ambiguous on the use of the two major criteria currently used to make environmental decisions - significant risk and cost-benefit balancing - yet offers no new specific decision criteria in their place. The second fundamental problem with the precautionary principle is that it is based on the unsubstantiated premise that the current regulatory system is insufficiently protective. The current system already tends to err on the side of the safety, as it should, but the relevant question is just how precautious should we be? As illustrated by the example of genetically modified organisms, the prudent level of precaution depends on factors such as the magnitude, distribution and uncertainty of risks, the extent of exposure, and the trade-offs and lost benefits in foregoing the risk. These are precisely the factors that are considered under the current risk-based approach, which the precautionary principle seeks to replace.     

Precautionary principle and discursive strategies: classifying and managing risks

The paper covers an integral risk concept consisting of a criteria-based risk evaluation, a novel proposal for risk classification and corresponding risk management strategies aimed at an analytic-deliberative approach in risk regulation. For this purpose, technical and scientific as well as social scientific concepts were integrated into a single conceptual framework. Eight criteria were selected for evaluating risks: probability of occurrence, extent of damage, incertitude, ubiquity, persistency, reversibility, delay effect and potential of mobilization. With respect to these criteria, six risk classes were formed in which risks may exceed thresholds determined by deliberative action. Effective and practicable management strategies were deduced for each risk class. The characterization and classification of risks provide a knowledge base for designing risk policies and class-specific management strategies. Three major management categories were identified: risk-based, precautionary and discursive strategies. In deliberative processes actors need to agree on norms and procedures to manage risks. If the results reflect the agreement of previous discourse procedures, political decisions become more legitimate. Because the risk evaluation, risk classification and management strategies are based on the concept of analytic-deliberative processes, the essential requirements for an effective and democratic risk policy are met.     

Comparing precaution in the United States and Europe

The regulation of health and environmental risks has generated transatlantic controversy concerning precaution and the precautionary principle (PP). Conventional wisdom sees the European Union endorsing the PP and proactively regulating uncertain risks, while the United States opposes the PP and waits for evidence of harm before regulating. Without favouring either approach, this paper critically analyses the conventional depiction of transatlantic divergence. First, it reviews several different versions of the PP and their different implications. Second, it broadens the transatlantic comparison of precaution beyond the typical focus on single-risk examples, such as genetically modified foods. Through case studies, including hormones in beef and milk production and mad cow disease in beef and in blood donations, as well as reference to a wider array of risks, the paper demonstrates that relative precaution varies enormously. Sometimes the EU is more precautionary than the US (such as regarding hormones in beef), while sometimes the US is more precautionary than the EU (such as regarding mad cow disease in blood). Thus, neither the EU nor the US can claim to be categorically 'more precautionary' than the other. The real pattern is complex and risk-specific. Third, the paper seeks explanations for this complex pattern in five sets of hypotheses: optimal tailoring on the merits, political systems, risk perceptions, trade protectionism, and legal systems. None of these hypotheses fully explains the observed complex pattern of relative transatlantic precaution. The paper concludes that differences in relative precaution depend more on the context of the particular risk than on broad differences in national regulatory regimes.     

Choosing between precautions for nanoparticles in the workplace: complementing the precautionary principle with caring

Workers who develop and use nanoparticles are on the front line of exposure to the purported risks of nanoparticles. Employers have a legal duty to protect their employees against any work-related harm. However, it is difficult to perform the required risk assessment and management when dealing with uncertainty. Risk ethicists have therefore argued for using the precautionary principle to guide such decisions on uncertain risks. In this paper, I argue that if we want to make use of innovative products, such as nanomaterials, but lack the knowledge and shared standards for choosing between protective measures, the precautionary principle is underdetermined. For the use of nanoparticles in working environments, there are several guidelines that suggest different precautionary strategies for dealing with their purported risks, but choosing between these guidelines proves difficult in the absence of a clear, scientific, decision principle. I therefore explore the ethics of care to develop a complementary decision criterion for the precautionary principle. From this perspective, the caring qualities of working relationships are key in comparing precautions with each other. I propose three conditions for assessing risk management strategies based on (1) the existence of a mutual concern for employee health and safety, (2) the connectedness and continuity of the relationships between employer and employee, and (3) the responsiveness of employers to employee needs. Using these criteria will support choosing between precautions, by shifting attention from the acceptability of imposing a risk to creating a social context in which the imposition of the residual risks can be considered acceptable.     

Foreign shareholders,relative foreign policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings

Studies have shown that foreign investors hedge risks stemming from economic and political uncertainty in the home country through outward investment. This paper studies how foreign investors' home country risk affects their overseas investment and the host country firms' corporate cash holdings. We find that relative foreign EPU, defined as the difference between foreign investors' home country EPU and the host country of investment EPU, negatively impacts the host country firms' cash holdings through their influences on managerial decision-making. This negative relationship arises from firms' precautionary and transaction motives as foreign investors perceive lower corporate risk and better investment opportunities in the host country firms. Good corporate governance is also instrumental in yielding this negative relationship. The reduction in cash holdings due to high relative foreign EPU is more pronounced if foreign investors' home country legal environment is weaker, the two countries are further apart, and there is little trade partnership between them.     

Corporate Management of Highly Dynamic Risks: Evidence from the Demand for Terrorism Insurance in Germany

This paper investigates a corporation's risk management response to highly dynamic risks. Using a unique data set on the German terrorist insurance market, the paper tests whether corporate risk managers have a clear understanding of the probability distribution of highly dynamic risks or if risk managers learn from severe losses and base their decisions upon day-to-day experience. The paper further investigates whether risk managers become more confident in their risk management decisions over time. For this purpose, we apply Viscusi's prospective reference theory to a corporate context. We find that firms learn from single events when making their risk management decisions, and that risk managers become more confident with their risk management decisions over time.     

The influence of the precautionary principle on science-based decision-making: questionable applications to risks of radiofrequency fields

The precautionary principle, recognized by the European Commission as a 'full-fledged and general principle of international law,' has been advanced as a paradigm for response to potential risks to the environment or health when scientific data are uncertain. But lacking the elements and operational qualities that characterize principles that have proven useful in law, politics, science, and ethics, the precautionary principle lends itself to regulation based on the perception of a threat or fear itself. In the absence of scientific evidence for risk, recent application of the precautionary principle to questions about radiofrequency electromagnetic fields of cellular telephones and cellular telephone base stations has produced wasteful and misguided regulations and questionable advice to the public. The formation of scientific 'fire brigades' is suggested for rapid acquisition of targeted scientific data needed so that precautionary policies on technologically driven issues can be based on quantitative risk assessment.     

Intergenerational risksharing and equilibrium asset prices

In the presence of overlapping generations, a social security system, with contingent taxes and benefits, can affect both asset prices and intergenerational risksharing. In a simple model with two risky factors of production—human capital, owned by the young, and physical capital, owned by all older generations—a social security system that optimally shares risks exposes future generations to a share of the risk in physical capital. Such a system reduces precautionary saving and increases the riskbearing capacity of the economy. Under plausible conditions it increases the riskless interest rate, and lowers the price and risk premium of physical capital.     

Precautionary Saving and Consumption Smoothing across Time and Possibilities

This paper examines how aversion to risk and aversion to intertemporal substitution determine the strength of the precautionary saving motive in a two-period model with Selden/Kreps–Porteus preferences. For small risks, we derive a measure of the strength of the precautionary saving motive that generalizes the concept of "prudence" introduced by Kimball (1990b) . For large risks, we show that decreasing absolute risk aversion guarantees that the precautionary saving motive is stronger than risk aversion, regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Holding risk preferences fixed, the extent to which the precautionary saving motive is stronger than risk aversion increases with the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. We derive sufficient conditions for a change in risk preferences alone to increase the strength of the precautionary saving motive and for the strength of the precautionary saving motive to decline with wealth. Within the class of constant elasticity of intertemporal substitution, constant-relative risk aversion utility functions, these conditions are also necessary.     

What role for social scientists in risk expertise?

When it comes to risks – health and environmental risks, like those linked to the use of nanotechnologies, pesticides, etc. – three main groups of actors are easily identified, brought together through boundary organisations such as environmental and sanitary risk agencies: the natural and technical scientists, who provide their expertise to assess risks (especially toxicologists, epidemiologists and microbiologists); the policy makers, who take decisions regarding risk management and risk regulation; the lay public, who are more and more involved in participatory frameworks. Sometimes three other groups of actors are added: the ‘economists’ who can for instance conduct cost–benefit assessments or multi-criteria analyses (especially ecological economists, public economists, political economists and social economists); the ‘philosophers’/‘ethicists’ who can use ethics to highlight moral choices and responsibilities in face of risks; and the ‘jurists’/‘legal experts’ who can justify authorisation or interdiction according to law. Inversely, there is a group of actors which is not clearly identified, that of social scientists, even though a considerable quantity of social science knowledge on risk has been produced. Why is there such a discrepancy? This article, based on a critical review of the literature, aims to make sense of the fuzziness surrounding the involvement of social scientists when it comes to risk expertise. The article shows that one reason for this puzzling situation is to be found in the gap between what social scientists often want to do when they are called in as risk experts and what natural scientists and public policy makers actually expect from them.