Can a Dictator Turn a Constitution into a Can-opener? F.A. Hayek and the Alchemy of Transitional Dictatorship in Chile

Commenting on the Pinochet regime, Friedrich Hayek famously claimed in 1981 that he would prefer a ‘liberal’ dictator to ‘democratic government lacking liberalism.’ Hayek's defense of a transitional dictatorship in Chile was not an impromptu response. In late 1960, in a little known BBC radio broadcast, Hayek suggested that a dictatorial regime may be able to facilitate a transition to stable limited democracy. While Hayek's comments about Pinochet have generated much controversy, this paper neither provides a blanket condemnation of his views (he did not advocate dictatorship as a first-best ‘state of the world’) nor tries to excuse his failure to condemn the Pinochet junta's human rights abuses, but instead provides a critical assessment of Hayek's implicit model of transitional dictatorship.     

Subtle discrimination in the rental housing market: Evidence from e-mail correspondence with landlords

We find that landlords practice subtle discrimination in the rental housing market through the use of language associated with describing and viewing a unit, inviting further correspondence, making a formal greeting, and using polite language when replying to e-mail inquiries from a white name more often than to an African American name, they also send longer e-mails and respond quicker to white names.     

‘The Magnificent 7[am]?’ Work‐life articulation beyond the 9[am] to 5[pm] ‘norm’

This article focuses on the work‐life ‘balance’ challenges of those who work in organisations that operate beyond standard hours. The concept of work‐life articulation is utilised to examine the experiences and practicalities of attempting to reconcile the, often competing, demands of employment and family life. Qualitative research was conducted in two private sector businesses and one‐third sector organisation in the UK during the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. The findings reveal increasing competitive pressures, efficiency drives and work intensification. ‘Business needs’ are prioritised over care responsibilities, and in the private sector organisations there is declining flexible working with a reassertion of the management prerogative. This article contributes to current debates over work‐life ‘balance’ and highlights variable, changeable and unpredictable working time arrangements that permeate non‐standard hours, which creates additional complexities and challenges for family time schedules and routines.     

A conceptual framework for the location of public facilities in the urban areas of developing countries: the Nigerian case

The provision of adequate public services to their urban populations within the constraints of financial resources is a major problem of most developing countries. The fact that the few available facilities are unevenly distributed in the urban areas suggests a need for efficient physical planning of public services. This paper suggests a conceptual framework for the provision of public services in Nigerian urban areas. The paper identifies the supply and demand factors which should govern the distribution of public services in the urban areas of the country.     

The Market Instinct: The Demise of Social Preferences for Self-Interest

Environmental policy design has much to gain from a better understanding of existing voluntary behaviour and motivations. In laboratory experiments, participants often exhibit social preferences such as altruism, spite, reciprocity and notions of fairness. In contrast, traditional neoclassical theory assumes that people act rationally in a way that maximises their self-interest. In environmental markets, social preferences and self-interest interact. We apply experimental economics to test the hypothesis that social preferences are not maintained in the presence of a competitive market institution. In the initial public goods game, many participants were prepared to make costly voluntary contributions. However the introduction of the market institution triggered a ‘market instinct’ in experimental participants. They abandoned the social preferences they were previously expressing and became self-interested profit maximisers. This self-interested behaviour persisted even after the market institution was discontinued. These findings are important to understanding the role and impact of markets for environmental policy.     

Multi-market trading and arbitrage

We measure arbitrage opportunities by comparing the intraday prices and quotes of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and other types of cross-listed shares in U.S. markets with synchronous prices of their home-market shares on a currency-adjusted basis for a sample of 506 U.S. cross-listed stocks from 35 different countries. Deviations from price parity average an economically small 4.9 basis points, but they are volatile and can reach large extremes. Price parity deviations and their daily changes are positively related to proxies for holding costs that can impede arbitrage, even after controlling for transactions costs and foreign investment restrictions.     

Environmental Protection,Agency Motivations,and Rent Extraction: The Regulation of Water Pollution in Louisiana

Direct environmental regulation has been in place in the United States for more than twenty-five years. Yet there has been little study of what actually affects regulatory enforcement levels. This study examines enforcement issues by focusing on water quality enforcement by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The study finds that penalties are more likely to occur, and are likely to be higher, the more serious a firm's violation of a regulation. Penalties are also more likely, and likely to be higher, if a firm has a previous record of environmental violations. In contrast to other studies, however, we do not find that enforcement varies across regional offices. In addition, we did not find any systematic effects of the Weingast and Moran (1983) theory of legislative dominance. We did, however, find evidence of rent extraction, along the lines of McChesney (1987; 1991).     

The Complementarity Of Mass Customization And Electronic Commerce

In this technology-intensive business world, it is important to note that technology does not work alone; it only works when all other supporting elements work in concert. Two ‘things’, or business strategies, are complementary when the marginal contribution of one increases with the value of the other, and vice versa This paper models two business strategies, electronic commerce and mass customization, in a profit maximization model and shows that these two strategies as complementary under certain assumptions. In doing so, this paper sheds light on why many mass customization attempts failed and why electronic commerce does not bring in as high a return as expected. This paper includes three sub-models and shows the optimal price movements under each scenario.     

Reply to Cockshott and Cottrell

This note reaffirms the author's conclusion that measured price–valuecorrelations have been tainted by the influence of industrysize and are therefore spurious. ‘Deflation’ ofsectoral prices and values by costs destroys the correlationonly because the theory in question is false, as the author'soriginal paper proved deductively. Cockshott and Cottrell'sresults do not refute this proof. Deflation destroys the correlationbetween their simulated prices and values precisely becausetheir simulation model assumes that the theory is false.     

Adapting auctions for the provision of ecosystem services at the landscape scale

Auctions, or competitive tenders, can overcome information asymmetries to efficiently allocate limited funding for ecosystem services. Most auctions focus on ecosystem services on individual properties to maximise the total amount provided. However, for many services it is not just the total quantity but their location in the landscape relative to other sites that matters. For example, biodiversity conservation may be much more effective if conserved sites are connected. Adapting auctions to address ecosystem services at the landscape scale requires an auction mechanism which can promote coordination while maintaining competition. Multi-round auctions, in which bidding is spread over a number of rounds with information provided between rounds on the location of other bids in the landscape, offer an approach to cost effectively deliver landscape-scale ecosystem services. Experimental economic testing shows these auctions deliver the most cost effective environmental outcomes when the number of rounds is unknown in advance, which minimises rent-seeking behaviour. It also shows that a form of bid-improvement rule facilitates coordination and reduces rent seeking. Where the biophysical science is well developed, such auctions should be relatively straightforward to implement and participate in, and have the potential to provide significantly better outcomes than standard ‘one-shot’ tenders.