Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university

Can civic crowdfunding be used to improve the structures and services offered by public universities? Are stakeholders willing to make donations to such projects? This paper answers these questions by analysing a successful civic crowdfunding project in an Italian university. Stakeholders were found to be willing to engage in crowdfunding and make donations. The key to success is to ensure effective communication and to draw on feelings of belonging to the institution.     

To each according to their ability? Academic ranking and salary inequality across public colleges and universities

This article compares the salary structure of tenured and tenure-track faculty across schools within the university systems of North Carolina and New York. Specifically, we establish a positive relationship between school prestige and salary inequality, both overall and within specific academic ranks. This result suggests that the value to teaching is less discipline-specific than the value to research output. Marked differences in the aforementioned statistical linkage across academic ranks also confirm prior speculation that junior faculty salaries are more closely tied to academic value than senior faculty salaries.     

An examination of the effects of 2014 concealed weapons law in Illinois on property crimes in Chicago

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of ‘may issue’ Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) law implemented in early 2014 in Chicago. Based on the daily community-level crime data from January 2006 to December 2015, using zero-inflated negative binomial difference-in-difference specification with Philadelphia as the control group, the property crimes in Chicago declined after the implementation of ‘may issue’ CCW law. The findings are robust to alternate treatment windows and to a placebo test using time windows before implementation of the law.     

Economic Competition,Policy Interdependence,and Labour Rights

Extant scholarship treats national policies concerning labour rights as a function of economic factors and yet neglects influences of policies among economically competing states. Relying on the policy interdependence theory, this study argues that labour rights policy in a state is dependent on its economic competitors’ labour policy decisions. It specifically maintains that the intensifying competition for foreign direct investment and exports as well as against imports channels negative externalities of deteriorating labour protection in competing states which drives expansive downward policy mimicking and leads to a global decline in labour rights – a race to the bottom. Utilising spatial econometric technique to analyse a new data on labour rights for the period 1994–2009, it finds that labour rights practices are interdependent among economic competitors and experience global deteriorations; whereas labour rights laws remain largely independent due to high policy and reputational costs of lowering them and show more fluctuations.     

Salvador Allende's development policy: Lessons after 50 years

Last year, 2020, was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the ‘Chilean road to socialism’ by Salvador Allende. Although the Allende government is the political reference for the 'socialism of the 21st century’ in Latin America, international supporters tend to disregard the primary cause of its downfall, focusing instead on the circumstances of Allende's death. This article explains the link between the Allende government's development policies and its macroeconomic outcomes between 1970 and 1973. It finds that Chile's economic collapse had an endogenous cause related to government policies. This supports the views of Mises and Hayek on the feasibility of socialist economic policies. Policymakers and commentators should recognise essential lessons from the Chilean experience to learn from past errors and effectively promote Latin America's economic development.     

A $10 million question and other cybersecurity-related ethical dilemmas amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Cybercrime and cybersecurity are like two sides of the same coin: They are opposites but cannot exist without each other. Their mutual relation generates a myriad of ethical issues, ranging from minor to vital. The rapid development of technology will surely involve even more ethical concerns, like the infamous example of a fitness tracking company allegedly paying $10 million worth of ransom. Every cybersecurity solution, tool, or practice has to be ethical by design if it is to protect people and their rights. To identify the ethical issues that cybersecurity/cybercrime might bring about in the future, we conducted the first broad and comprehensive horizon-scanning study since the COVID-19 pandemic arose. As we began this project, nobody had the slightest idea that the coming months would bring the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the reality we had known was about to change dramatically. As it soon became apparent, the deadly coronavirus brought completely new cybersecurity/cybercrime ethical dilemmas to light, and some of the ones known before were transformed or shifted. This article presents the results of our horizon-scanning study concerning the ethical dilemmas that emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic.     

民营企业党员教育要做好三个结合

加强民营企业党员教育工作,对增强党的阶级基础、扩大党的群众基础、巩固党的执政基础具有十分重要的意义。做好党的宗旨和企业宗旨相结合、企业党建活动与生产运营活动相结合、党课内容革新与企业文化建立相结合,不仅能加强民营企业基层党组织建设,而且能促进民营企业又好又快发展。     

上市公司股东不可撤销表决权委托研究——问题、挑战与监管

表决权是上市公司股东参与管理决策的重要方式。证券监管实践表明,不可撤销表决权委托既有规避股份限售和减持规则的动机,也有出于增强控制权转让交易中博弈弹性的考虑。表决权委托并非一项简单的债权债务法律关系,其合规性及对证券市场的影响需引起足够的重视。为规范上市公司股东不可撤销的表决权委托,本文建议:在信息披露监管方面,重点关注表决权委托对权益变动、控制权稳定性、投资者保护的影响;在制度规范方面,发布表决权委托示范协议指引等规则,明确表决权委托的关键要素和监管要求。     

我国互联网金融消费者权益保护体系建设与优化路径

互联网金融作为互联网技术与传统金融融合后的新兴业态模式,具有降低交易双方成本,提升金融服务效率和便捷性的作用,在满足了个性化金融服务需求的同时,还促进了我国普惠金融发展。但随着互联网金融模式的不断丰富,互联网金融混业经营及脱媒现象加剧,在缺乏监管和法律定位不明的情况下,互联网金融给消费者带来诸多潜在风险。对此,需要按照时间发展顺序,在短期内强化互联网金融消费者权益保护相关政策措施,保证互联网金融市场平稳发展;中长期则注重互联网金融发展质量,通过不断完善互联网金融消费者权益保护机制,进而构建具有综合性特征的互联网金融消费者权益保护体系。     

Complexity in valuation practice: an inquiry into valuers’ perceptions of task complexity in the Dutch real estate market

The aim of this paper is to examine valuer judgement behaviour, by exploring the manifestation of task complexity in Dutch commercial valuation practice. For this purpose, we adopted a grounded theory approach and undertook 18 in-depth interviews with senior valuation professionals across the Netherlands. Our findings indicate a strong presence of situational task complexity in commercial valuation practice, as professionals operating in large valuation teams perceive different elements of task complexity throughout commercial valuation practice in comparison to peers working in small valuation teams or self-employed valuers. Further, coping strategies used to deal with task complexity vary substantially by type of valuer as well. From our data, we deducted three types of task environment constructs in which valuers operate, which basically represent the various levels of professional standards required by clients as well as organisational settings composed to meet client standards. As such, we found that task environment settings strongly coincide with perceptions of task complexity. The presence of situational task complexity in commercial real estate valuation practice points to the need for customisation of professional valuer’s development programs to facilitate valuers to deal with task complexity in different stages of valuation practice and hence contribute to advancing valuer judgement skills.