Institutional Change in Nepal: Liberalization,Maoist Movement,Rise of Political Consciousness and Constitutional Change

ABSTRACT

Contradicting the rest of the world’s promptness to discredit communism as an alternative and Francis Fukuyama’s (1992 Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man . New York: The Free Press, A Division of Macmilan Inc. [Google Scholar]) teleological account of ‘the end of history,’ Nepal witnessed a Maoist revolution between 1996 and 2006. Such a ‘deviation’ from what Fukuyama and others have viewed as the path of development raises questions about the linear progression of history and its implicit dualism of market vs. government. As several Original Institutional Economists have discussed, analytical dichotomies lead to a simplistic understanding of transformation that disregards the multilayered nature of society and, thus, concludes that history unfolds linearly to arrive at a predetermined and homogeneous end. This paper analyzes the social transformation of Nepal that preceded the Maoist revolution, through the lens of Feminist Institutionalism, utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to understand the complexity of the impacts of liberalism-protectionism political changes on Nepali institutions.     

Integrated reporting: an international overview

This article analyses the determinants associated with the use of the Integrated Report (IR) as a corporate reporting model for sustainability information. IRs provide information regarding the use and interdependence of different company resources. The previous literature has identified determinants behind the presentation of IRs at the country level (legal system, investor protection, economic development, cultural characteristics) as well as at the company level (size, industry, verification of the sustainability report). Our work contributes to the literature by using a novel statistical approach that addresses the likelihood of the non‐independence of data: companies in the same country are more similar to one another than are companies from different countries. Our results confirm significant inter‐country variance, which may be partially explained by the existence of specific regulations and the individualism vs. collectivism dimension. Although we confirm the effect of company‐level determinants, our results do not support the role of specific variables tested as determinants.     

Emotional and satisfaction benefits to visitors as explanatory factors in the monetary valuation of environmental goods. An application to periurban green spaces

Over the last few decades, especially in urban areas, there has been a revival of the notion of quality of life in connection with periurban green spaces, the presence of which is thought to improve emotional well-being. This paper aims to determine how far the monetary valuation of this environmental resource is influenced by aspects relating to users’ emotional experience and satisfaction. The contingent valuation method is used to estimate monetary valuation and structural equation models allow examination of the relationships between visitor attitude and behaviour variables. The study focuses on two periurban green spaces in Spain and the data are obtained by means of face-to-face, in situ surveys of visitors. The findings support the relationship between visitor attitudes and the monetary valuation of this environmental good, revealing the need to advance further in exploring the potential of such natural resources to enhance urban social well-being.     

Network effects, market structure and industry performance

This paper analyzes oligopolistic markets with network externalities. Exploiting a minimal complementarity structure on the model primitives that allows for pure network goods, we prove existence of non-trivial fulfilled-expectations equilibrium. We formalize the concept of industry viability, investigate its determinants, and show that it improves with more firms in the market and/or by technological progress. These results enlighten some well-known conclusions from case studies in the management strategy literature. We also characterize the effects of market structure on industry performance, which depart substantially from ordinary markets. The approach relies on lattice-theoretic methods, supplemented with basic insights from nonsmooth analysis.     

俄罗斯产业结构现状

苏联解体后,俄罗斯的产业结构依然保持了苏联经济结构的基本格局和特点,而且其产业中轻重结构畸形和原材料化趋势还在发展,出现了自发性和退化性的反工业化趋势。俄罗斯产业结构具有以能源工业为支柱,军事工业与机械重工业为重点,民用工业严重落后的特点。应改革国家调控制度,降低通货膨胀和利率,发展抵押贷款信贷制度,加强立法,保障市场的有效运转。     

Economic integration and specialization in production in the EU27: does FDI influence countries’ specialization?

The objective of this article is twofold. Firstly, we proceed to an analysis of the evolution of specialization in production in the enlarged EU, taking into account all its 27 member countries. Given their decomposability properties, we use the entropy-based indices to measure countries’ relative specialization and then, given our rather short period of analysis, we use the bootstrap method to analyze the evolution of the specialization index. We first analyze all economic sectors and then, our analysis is more detailed focusing on manufacturing industries. Globally, we find that specialization is decreasing across all economic sectors, while it is increasing across manufacturing industries. Secondly, we study specialization determinants, with a special interest in the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI). For homogeneity reasons, we analyze two separate samples, one including old EU members plus Cyprus and Malta and the other, the CEECs. In order to take into account the endogeneity of most of our independent variables, we use the vector autoregression (VAR) technique and analyse the impulse response functions. Globally, FDIs seem to positively influence countries’ relative specialization, for our both samples and for both economic sectors and manufacturing industries. However, their impact appears weaker than most of the other independent variables, such as the market potential or the relative endowments.     

Correlation of Labor and Civil Contracts Related to the Performance of Work: Preventing the Substitution of Concepts

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal - Legal relations arising from a civil law contract for the performance of work or the provision of services are not identical to labor relations, and...     

Tacit Collusion in Repeated Auctions: Uniform Versus Discriminatory

Within an infinitely repeated game, I compare the level and conduct of collusion under uniform and discriminatory auctions. For this purpose, I characterize the optimal collusive schemes and sets of sustainable profits under these auction formats. I show that uniform auctions facilitate collusion more than discriminatory auctions: the optimal penal code is equally severe under the two formats; but bidders' deviation incentives are weaker in uniform auctions given that the pay-off irrelevant bids can be used to relax the enforcement problem. This discussion is particularly relevant after the recent reforms in the electricity industry in England & Wales, and elsewhere.     

Environmental business strategy: the Portuguese case

This study focuses on the adoption of environmental management systems and corporate social responsibility reporting as mechanisms for creating a differential advantage, looking at how different stakeholders in an organization perceive the importance of instituting these mechanisms as determinants of market success. The paper then aims to focus on environmental business strategy and corporate social responsibility reporting in companies, rather than prescribing policy for the entire sector. In so doing it postulates that compliance with market requirements on environmentally related issues, by instituting proper environmental management mechanisms and corporate social responsibility reporting, is a pre‐requisite for acceptance of the firm and its products in the market. The paper is methodologically based on a set of 60 interviews conducted with various agents in the Portuguese textile industry, ranging from policy‐makers to industrialists and NGOs, with a view to determining differences in perception between the various stakeholders. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.