银行信用证议付及其追索权的法学解读

在法学视角下，信用证议付实质上是议付银行向信用证受益人（出口商）给付价值后买入信用证项下的汇票和整套单据的法律行为。议付不同于出口押汇。议付是一种买卖汇票和单据的行为，而出口押汇是一种以单据为质押的融资行为。议付单据遭到开证银行拒付，议付银行有权对信用证受益人（出口商）行使追索权。议付银行的这种追索权既可以来自于合同条款的约定，也可以来自于票据法所赋予的请求权。     

Assessing French nursing home efficiency: An indirect approach via budget-constrained DEA models

In this paper, data envelopment analysis (DEA) techniques are applied to the French nursing home industry in order to address two policy issues. The first involves nursing home size and returns to scale, while the second deals with the potential effects of a change in nursing home reimbursement from a flat rate to one based on the severity of case-mix. To accomplish this, our analysis expands on the existing nursing home literature to analyze technical and allocative efficiency along with budget-constrained models rather than the more common direct input-based distance function. Technical efficiency is evaluated via an indirect output distance function while allocative output efficiency is computed with a cost indirect revenue function. The findings suggest that system-wide efficiency and equity may result from coming reforms since payments would more accurately reflect resource use.     

Strategic spin-offs of input divisions

When a downstream producer enters backward into the input market, a “helping the rivals effect” exists: Such entry hurts the firm's downstream business as it increases upstream competition and thus benefits its rival downstream firms. This negative externality prevents the newly-created upstream unit from expanding. A spin-off enables the firm to credibly expand in the input market, thereby forcing its upstream competitors to behave less aggressively. Spin-offs occur in equilibrium if and only if the number of downstream firms exceeds a threshold level. When there is more than one integrated firm, a spin-off by a firm can trigger spin-offs by others that would not occur otherwise.     

Critical factors in computing externalities for electricity resources

The New York State Environmental Externalities Cost Study and computerized externality model (EXMOD) are used to examine the specification of methods design and application factors in the computation of electricity externalities. We report the sensitivity of externality estimates with alternative specifications for 15 different factors in the analysis, including the selection of facility type, site, and operating characteristics; air emission assumptions and air modeling procedures; dose-response assumptions; economic valuation assumptions; and other modeling procedures and assumptions. Many of the factors that most influence externality computations can be well specified in the analysis, such as the facility type, age, characteristics, emission rates, whether there is SO₂ trading, and the inclusion of long range impacts. Most significant among the factors for which there remains significant scientific uncertainty are the selection and application of air dispersion models, selection of air pollution thresholds for health impacts, reduced life span risks associated with ozone exposure and with long-term exposure to PM₁₀, values for CO₂ damages, and the value to be applied to increased risks of reduced life span for individuals age 65 or older.     

Predation and mergers: Is merger law counterproductive?

This paper extends the literature on predation and mergers to a multi-firm setting. Two new arguments why predation is rational when a merger is an alternative are provided. First, predation is less prone to the free-rider problem, since mergers concentrate the costs of eliminating a rival with one firm, whereas predation allows the costs to be spread out. Second, predation can be profitable since it limits the negative effects of the bidding competition for the prey. It is also shown that a restrictive merger policy might be counterproductive by “helping” predators avoid the disadvantageous bidding competition for the prey.     

Intertemporal market division:: A case of alternating monopoly

In this paper, we report on an equilibrium with market dominance that exists in a simple two-firm model that features neither entry barriers nor sophisticated punishment strategies. This equilibrium induces an intertemporal market division in which the two firms alternate as monopolists - despite the fact that the model also sustains a Cournot duopoly. Even when initially both firms are active in the market, the alternating monopoly reveals itself rather quickly. Moreover, it Pareto dominates the Cournot equilibrium - as it is close to the cartel outcome. Several examples of what well may be such alternating monopolies are presented.     

The factory system in the British industrial revolution: A complementarity thesis

This paper offers an explanation for the rise of the factory system in Britain during the Industrial Revolution (1770-1850) based on the concept of complementarity: Investment in machinery, process supervision, and improved quality control formed a cluster of complementary activities in which adopting any one increased the marginal return to also adopting the others. Further, factory owners introduced process supervision not only to increase work effort, but also to balance worker incentives among production, quality control, and asset maintenance tasks. To test this hypothesis, I have constructed a new data set from firm studies and archival records. Measures of firms’ adoption of the activities are positively correlated in the cross-section of firms, providing evidence in favor of the complementarity hypothesis.     

Looking behind the curtain—effects from modernization of European Union competition policy

The European Commission issued a proposal for reform of some aspects of Communitary competition policy. In particular, proposes a shift from ex-ante control (notification system) to an ex-post control regime of agreements (or decisions) conflicting with Article 81 (Ex-Article 85).We highlight the expected effects of this shift on the type of agreements that firms will implement. The type of agreements has been taken as exogenous in most analysis of the reform proposal. We contend that significant economic effects may result from recognizing the endogeneity of agreements.We predict that the proposed reform will result, in general, in firms implementing less restrictive agreements.     

Contest architecture

A contest architecture specifies how the contestants are split among several sub-contests whose winners compete against each other (while other players are eliminated). We compare the performance of such dynamic schemes to that of static winner-take-all contests from the point of view of a designer who maximizes either the expected total effort or the expected highest effort. For the case of a linear cost of effort, our main results are: (1) If the designer maximizes expected total effort, the optimal architecture is a single grand static contest. (2) If the designer maximizes the expected highest effort, and if there are sufficiently many competitors, it is optimal to split the competitors in two divisions, and to have a final among the two divisional winners. Finally, if the effort cost functions are convex, the designer may benefit by splitting the contestants into several sub-contests, or by awarding prizes to all finalists.