Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults: Will This Be the Greatest Challenge for Employment Discrimination Law?

This article examines the issues surrounding the treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Recently, medical research has shown that ADHD, which had formerly been thought to be a childhood impairment, in many cases persists into adulthood. Because of the projected prevalence and severity of the disorder, ADHD has the potential to be a critical employment issue as well. This article begins with an examination of the current state of knowledge regarding ADHD. Then, attention is turned to the intersection of ADHD and the ADA. Three central questions are then addressed. These include whether ADHD is a covered condition under the ADA and how ADHD might enter into the employment selection process, and finally, the question of how employers can and should provide reasonable accommodation to ADHD-affected employees. A concluding discussion addresses how the convergence of ADHD and the ADA could become the health issue of the 1990s and beyond for both individual employers and employment law in general.     

Stock price crash risk and internal control weakness: presence vs. disclosure effect

This study examines the stock price crash risk for a sample of firms that disclosed internal control weaknesses (ICW) under Section 404 of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX). We find that in the year prior to the initial disclosures, ICW firms are more crash‐prone than firms with effective internal controls. This positive relation is more pronounced when weakness problems are associated with a firm's financial reporting process. More importantly, we find that stock price crash risk reduces significantly after the disclosures of ICWs, despite the disclosure itself signalling bad news. The above results hold after controlling for various firm‐specific determinants of crash risk and ICWs. Using an ICW disclosure as a natural experiment, our study attempts to isolate the presence effect of undisclosed ICWs from the initial disclosure effect of internal control weakness on stock price crash risk. In so doing, we provide more direct evidence on the causal relation between the quality of financial reporting and stock price crash risk.     

The China–US Trade War: Deep‐Rooted Causes,Shifting Focus and Uncertain Prospects

The USA has waged a trade war against China, whose rapid rise has come to be seen as a threat to US hegemony. Besides imposing additional tariffs on imported Chinese products, the USA is also tightening restrictions on the transfer of technology to China and the business activities of some Chinese high‐tech companies, notably Huawei. The escalation of the trade war into a tech war could lead to a decoupling between the US and Chinese economies, if not a world economy divided into two economic blocs that centered on them.     

Collusion and combines in Canada, 1880–1890

ABSTRACT

It is a little-known fact that Canada adopted its own antitrust law one year before the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Anti-Combines Act of 1889 (‘the Act’) was adopted after a decade in which ‘combines’ (the Canadian equivalent of ‘trusts’) had grown more numerous. From the combines’ numbers, Canadian historians, legal scholars, and economists have inferred that consumer welfare was hindered. However, price and output evidence has never been marshalled to provide even a first step towards assessing the veracity of this inference. This paper undertakes that task. I highlight the fact that the output from industries accused of collusion increased faster than national output in the decade before the passage of the Act and that their prices accordingly fell faster than the national price index. I argue that these findings militate for the position that the origins of Canada's Anti-Combines Act were partially rooted in rent-seeking processes similar to those that American scholars have found driving the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.     

The rationale for an employment guarantee in South Africa

This article considers what would happen if unemployed people in South Africa had a right to a minimum level of regular work on decent terms. It looks at the example of India, where a law was passed in 2005 guaranteeing rural households up to 100 days of work a year at minimum wage rates. More than 55 million households now participate in this programme – a rare example of a policy innovation bringing about significant change in a society. India's employment guarantee has important implications for social and economic policy and gives new meaning to the concept of ‘a right to work’. The article explores how structural inequality limits South Africa's development options, and considers early lessons from South Africa's Community Work Programme to make the case for an employment guarantee in South Africa.     

Financial crises and the asymmetric relation between returns on banks,risk factors,and other industry portfolio returns

We show that the relations between the returns on the banking industry, risk factors, and other industries often are asymmetric. Lagged banking industry returns seem to improve predictability but the positive impact of a 1‐month lag of the return on the banking portfolio is much higher in the lower part of the return distribution. However, after the Dodd‐Frank Act in 2010, the cross‐autocorrelation with banks is changed and becomes negative in the upper part of the distribution. Returns on banks also seem to lead returns on five risk factors. This relation, however, is not robust across the distribution.     

从“腾笼换鸟”分析东莞市经济产业转型

本文从东莞过去30年中经济产业发展历程出发,分析了东莞经济发展特点以及所面临的资源、市场等方面的挑战。分析了东莞经济产业转型的必然性和紧迫性。进而提出东莞市在未来经济产业转型过程中应当采取的措施。最后通过总体分析和思考,总结了政府作为、区域环境、企业自身三者的相互作用关系,提出三方力量相互配合的科学运作模式。     

《合同法》第308条在司法实践中的适用风险

本文从国别立法比较的角度解读《合同法》第308条规定,剖析该条规定在海运实践中因与《海商法》并存的法律选择、托运人作为唯一的权利主体以及变更解除合同行为属性等问题可能产生的法律预测功能丧失或者运作不正常导致的司法风险,提出完善立法、补充司法解释等观点,希望有益于《合同法》第308条适用风险的降低和化解。     

Environmental participation in the U.S. sulfur allowance auctions

The 1990 Clean Air Act established a sulfur emissions-trading program among utilities. This was the first large scale adoption of this type of emissions-trading program and the program’s success has attracted international attention. An interesting aspect of this program is that in addition to trades among the polluting firms and brokers or investors, individuals and groups have been participants, buying allowances to retire them and reduce sulfur emissions. This provides a relatively unique way to examine the “willingness to pay” for further reductions of sulfur emissions. I examine environmental participation in the sulfur allowances market, focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowance auctions which have been conducted annually since 1993. The existence of groups purchasing these allowances in order to retire them suggests that the overall cap on sulfur emissions may be higher than the optimal emissions level. The marginal benefits from the first ton of emissions reduction appear to be significantly larger than marginal abatement costs. Total spending to retire sulfur emissions allowances, while small in relation to the total market, is sizeable in terms of the alternate purchases these groups and individuals could have made.      

Mountain bike tourism in Austria and the Alpine region – towards a sustainable model for multi-stakeholder product development

This paper interrogates the polarized and heated discussions about mountain bike tourism in Austrian forests, with several organizations favoring permitting biking on all forest roads, using claimed tourism development opportunities, while other stakeholders including hikers, hunters and landowners wish to restrict development. An international literature review on the value and impacts of mountain biking shows that both sides have oversimplified complex cases. The paper draws on 12 in-depth interviews with Austrian tourism destination and mountain bike experts to find ways forward. Results suggest that in Austria, bike tourism will increase in the future, supported by new bike technology, including electric bikes and new hand-held route information technology. It notes the complexity of the market for mountain and other forms of cycle tourism, and the pressing need to create not more trails but more sophisticated tourism products, including appealing and well-maintained trails plus attractive leisure infrastructure (bike rental, service and repair facilities, attractive localities, accommodation suited to the mountain bikers’ needs, etc.). Collaborative planning with all stakeholders, better trail construction standards adapted to differing preferences, needs and environmental conditions as well as clear standards for monitoring are prerequisites of an Austrian strategy for sustainable cycle tourism development and management, which can be replicated elsewhere.