Confronting stylized facts with reality

The article focuses on the role of interest groups in policy making under conditions of globalisation. Building on the Stolper–Samuelson theorem from international trade theory, it has been argued in the literature that interest groups’ domestic political negotiation power varies with the mobility of their factor of production, and that therefore a policy shift towards the interests of capital owners (i.e. liberalisation of domestic regulations) should be observable. Drawing on empirical evidence from detailed case studies in the area of state banking regulation in the United States, Switzerland, and Spain, the article presents examples for bank associations and other representatives of the capital side to blocking or considerably delaying government-initiated attempts at liberalisation. It also demonstrates that the role of interest groups in policy making varies considerably between countries, and that therefore highly specific patterns of interaction exist between interest groups and national political systems. The article concludes therefore that the consideration of situation-specific context, rather than the use of generalising assumptions on a highly aggregated level, is called for in the analysis of interest group influence on policy making.     

Competition and Innovation in Retail Electricity Markets: Evidence from Italy

Italy's 2015 Annual Competition Law, if finally approved, provides for phasing out retail electricity price regulation, as well as the implementation of full retail liberalisation, from 1 July 2018. This is a significant reform, not just because it is consistent with the broader market design for electricity. Indeed, retail liberalisation is a qualifying element of the full integration of the European Union's electricity market. The full opening of retail markets provides a great opportunity for innovation, both on the demand side and on the supply side. This article investigates the theoretical background, and presents some empirical evidence, on the competition–innovation nexus in retail electricity markets.     

影响网络购物意向因素的性别差异研究

文章对影响网络购物意向的因素进行了整理归纳,并重点分析了不同性别消费者对这些因素认知的差异,认为男女消费者对创新性接受度、信任倾向、价格感知、风险感知和售后服务各因素的认知有差异。     

Evaluating the prospective effects of alternative regulatory policies on the investment behaviour and environmental performance of a newly liberalised electricity industry in Taiwan

The research explores the potential effects of alternative regulatory policies for electricity market liberalisation on the investment behaviour and environmental performance of the electricity industry in Taiwan. The results provide insights into how the electricity market might evolve under the proposed reform scheme and other possible scenarios. This paper begins by reviewing the characteristics of the industry and how it has developed so far, and follows by studying the planned liberalisation agenda and the main purposes of the regulatory policies. Whether the liberalised electricity market will develop in a desirable direction is investigated by analysing investors’ aspirations for the market and their possible reactions to regulatory policies. The paper focuses on the investment decisions of the generation sector and concludes with assessments of the implications for security of supply, fuel diversity, electricity price and the environment.     

CREATING A CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER OF FREEDOM IN EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES1

Economic liberalisation offers the greatest hope for bringing the developing world out of poverty, but to be successful economic liberalisation also requires political and constitutional reform to safeguard private property rights and secure the rule of law. This article examines the process of constitutional reform in a number of developing nations that have recently undergone economic liberalisation, with particular reference to the experience of reform in China.     

电视购物相关法律问题探析

近年来,电视购物在我国蓬勃发展,成为一种新的商品营销模式。同时,越来越多的电视购物肆无忌惮地挑战着受众的视听极限,并最终侵害了消费者的利益。破坏了良性的社会主义市场经济秩序。面对这一问题,我们不能单纯地寄希望于商品经营者的行业自律,更需要从法律制度的角度对诸多问题予以探讨,并需要借鉴国外的先进经验,从法律法规和监管制度方面予以完善,结合电视购物的具体特性,制定严格的审查制度和相应的法律法规,以期促进我国电视购物和市场经济的良性发展。     

The political economy of regional integration projects at borders where poor and rich meet: The role of cross-border shopping and community sorting

At borders between poor and rich countries, huge service price differentials could be exploited to mutual benefit, offering better-paid job opportunities to the poor as well as better shopping opportunities to the rich. However, cross-border shopping is often limited by the substantial transaction costs of crossing the border. Moreover, countries and regions frequently fail to cut these transaction costs even when they have the opportunity to do so. We provide a politico-economic analysis of cross-border integration projects. More specifically, we show how the political outcome depends on (i) intra-country mobility, (ii) decision making and housing ownership regimes, and (iii) federal grants and international border regulations. Our analysis builds on two key characteristics in which individuals differ: interregional mobility and intercultural ability.     

零售店的竞争导向定价分析

影响顾客择店的主要因素是价格扣购物成本。零售店如何运用竞争导向定价?在主要考虑消费者到该零售店的距离和零售店的销售面积这两个因素的情况下,本文中我们通过运用豪泰林价格竞争模型和零售引力模型,分析在已知竞争对手价格和购物成本的情况下,该零售店的最佳价格,以及两零售店经过多次博弈后达到纳什均衡时各自的价格。     

The Impact of Multilateral Trade Liberalisation on Economic Development: Some Empirical Evidence

This article examines the impact of multilateral trade policy liberalisation on countries' levels of economic development, proxied by their real per capita income. The study is particularly relevant in the current context of growing rhetoric against international trade, which could fuel domestic protectionism and would likely undermine multilateral trade liberalisation. The analysis has been conducted on a panel data set of 155 countries, over non‐overlapping four‐yearly sub‐periods during 1995–2014. The empirical results suggest strong support for the view that multilateral trade liberalisation promotes economic development. Hence, the rise in unilateral protectionist trade measures around the world would likely endanger the prospects of further multilateral trade liberalisation and ultimately undermine countries' prospects of economic development.     

Unintended consequences of child care regulations

The effects of regulations governing staff-child ratio, group size, and staff qualifications in child care centers are estimated, using data on a sample of centers. The data contain measures of staff characteristics and wages, price of the service, and the developmental quality of the child care provided. Regulations vary across states, but may be endogenous to these outcomes. Estimates with state fixed effects are feasible because regulations vary within states by age group of children and job title of staff. Estimates with state fixed effects show that tougher regulations have some impact on input use, but have little or no impact on price and quality. The most striking finding is that tougher regulations reduce staff wages, suggesting that the incidence of child care regulations is on employees of day care centers.     

Real consumers in the virtual store

This article deals with shopping on the Internet. On a basis of environmental psychology theory, we examine the effects of this new retail interface on consumer shopping behaviour. In an empirical study, we contrast Web shopping with physical store shopping. The findings show discrepancies with regard to the amount and form of purchase planning. Internet shoppers plan their purchases better and seem to be less susceptible to marketing activities. However, these discrepancies can be attributed to differences in store stimuli, as the Web retail interface is not well designed in marketing terms. The mediating effect of shopping orientation was examined and found not to be significant. However, the distribution of shopping types has important implications.     

LAND MARKETS AND THE EFFECT OF REGULATION ON FORMAL-SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN INDONESIA

Until recently, urban land and housing markets in Indonesia seemed to function well. Informal-sector development provided low-income housing affordably. Through government programs, formal-sector developers could build housing for all but the poor. Since 1989, however, daily conversation pictures land speculation as rampant and formal-sector housing as rising beyond the means of the middle class. Newspapers carry stories of conflicts between small landowners and large developers with government officials in between. This article investigates this situation by addressing two related questions: are urban land prices rising “too fast?”; how do land regulations and development practices affect costs, and who pays these costs? The article includes quantitative estimates of urban land prices, changes in urban land supply, movement of land through the permitting process, and the effect of development regulations on costs. Data come from a literature survey and interviews of some of the largest formal-sector developers in Indonesia. A principal finding concerns a development regulation called a “location permit” and the “social function” of land in Indonesian law. Although helpful as a means of assembling land in Indonesia's highly fragmented land markets, location permits allow formal-sector developers to hold land off the market and pay low prices to small landowners. Ultimately, the “social function” of land under Indonesian law holds down the price formal-sector developers pay for land, but not at the price at which they sell their product. The article concludes by proposing reforms to the regulatory process.     

浅谈2013清单计价规范中的工程变更

文章对2013版建设工程工程量清单计价规范(后简称2013清单计价规范或规范)中工程变更的规定进行了陈述,并分析了一些规范对合同执行造价控制的良性作用。     

High shopping mall patronage: is there a dark side?

Shopping malls that provide consumers climatic comfort and freedom from noise and traffic are centers for social and recreational activities as well as shopping. As they grow in number and differ from each other in terms of size and variety, consumer patronage regarding these enclosed retail environments become subject of greater scholarly inquiry. While there are voluminous studies that try to figure out the determinants of mall patronage, there is a lack of interest on its consequences. This study attempts to extend the literature by drawing attention to the dark side of increased mall patronage behavior. High shopping mall patronage level is predicted to be an important stimulator of consumers’ materialism and compulsive consumption orientations. Besides, these effects are expected to be stronger for individuals with hedonic mall shopping motivations than for those with utilitarian mall shopping motivations. Results show that increased mall patronage stimulates materialistic values and compulsive buying tendencies; but these relationships do not show any significant differences among hedonic or utilitarian shopping motivations.     

Liberalising the German model: institutional change,organisational restructuring and workplace effects

Institutional change at supranational, European Union level affects national and firm level institutions in various ways. This article traces effects of liberalisation measures in the airport industry enacted in two airport firms in Germany. The study, based on qualitative empirical research, found that EU liberalisation facilitated company creation of subsidiaries (subsidiarisation) and elevated shareholder interest in corporate governance. These factors affected institutional practices and cultural norms within the German industrial context that in turn influenced significant alterations in employment and workplace relations. Considerable disruption of the German social partnership model of corporate governance and industrial relations was observed. However, in addition to patterns of convergence towards neoliberal practices and outcomes frequently observed in Anglo‐Saxon systems, the study found some elements of effective retention of cultural institutional resources of the German model. Both ‘path departure’ and social embeddedness appear to coexist.     

Do I have to go shopping again? A theory of choice with movement costs

In this model, the standard theory of the one-person household is extended into space and time. The theory is extended into space by imposition of a real trip cost on the act of purchase, separate from the money price of commodities. It is extended into time by imposition of a real cost of storage (represented by “deterioration”) on the stocks of goods held in the household between shopping trips. The necessity for storage permits the theory to include an endogenous choice of capacity to store as well as choices among consumption, leisure, and shopping trip frequency. By use of duality theory, the comparative static effects of price, wage, and trip costs are examined. Production and transformation within the household are integrated into the model and shown to be covered by the dual approach.     

Housing Wealth and UK Consumption

There is widespread disagreement about the role of housing wealth in explaining consumption. However, much of the empirical literature is marred by poor controls for the common drivers both of house prices and consumption, such as income, income growth expectations, interest rates, credit supply conditions, other assets and indicators of income uncertainty (e.g. changes in the unemployment rate). For instance, while the easing of credit supply conditions is usually followed by a house price boom, failure to control for the direct effect of credit liberalisation on consumption can over‐estimate the effect of housing wealth or collateral on consumption. This paper (Janine Aron, John Muellbauer and Anthony Murphyi, October 2006) estimates an empirical model for UK consumption from 1972 to 2005, grounded in theory, and with more complete empirical controls than hitherto used.     

Residential land use regulation and the US housing price cycle between 2000 and 2009

In a sample covering more than 300 cities in the US from January 2000 to July 2009, we find that more restrictive residential land use regulations and geographic land constraints are linked to larger booms and busts in housing prices. The natural and man-made constraints also amplify price responses to the subprime mortgage credit expansion during the decade, leading to greater price increases in the boom and subsequently bigger losses. Contrary to prior literature, our findings indicate a significant link between supply inelasticity and price declines during the bust, whereas Glaeser et al. (2008) found little evidence of such a relationship from an earlier downturn from 1989 to 1996.     

Multilateral trade liberalisation helps promote export product diversification: Trade tensions damage the prospects of the poorest economies

Using a large panel dataset over a 20‐year period, this article explores the effect of multilateral trade liberalisation on export product diversification. Empirical results show that multilateral trade liberalisation is positively associated with export product diversification. However, less‐developed economies experience a greater positive effect than relatively advanced economies. This analysis suggests that if trade tensions reduce cooperation on trade matters among World Trade Organization members, it may hinder export product diversification in developing countries, and the poorest countries might be the most adversely affected.     

One‐Stop Shopping as a Cause of Slotting Fees: A Rent‐Shifting Mechanism

Consumers increasingly prefer to bundle their purchases into a single shopping trip, inducing complementaries between initially independent or substitutable goods. Taking this one‐stop shopping behavior into account, we show that slotting fees may emerge as a result of a rent‐shifting mechanism in a three‐party negotiation framework, where a monopolistic retailer negotiates sequentially with two suppliers about two‐part tariff contracts. If the goods are initially independent or sufficiently differentiated, the wholesale price negotiated with the first supplier is upward distorted. This allows the retailer and the first supplier to extract rent from the second supplier. To compensate the retailer for the higher wholesale price, the first supplier pays a slotting fee as long as its bargaining power vis‐à‐vis the retailer is not too large.