Unfair Terms in Contracts: Proposals for Reform in the UK

The English and Scottish Law Commissions have made radical proposals for simplifying UK law on unfair terms in consumer contracts, combining the Regulations that implement the Directive and the earlier legislation into a single instrument that is to be written in language that would be clear and accessible to consumers and businesspeople. The article discusses some of the difficult policy choices involved in combining the different approaches of the two existing instruments, what is needed in order to make the legislation understandable to the lay person, and the extent to which the case of Commission v The Kingdom of the Netherlands requires Member States to use the language of the Directive when implementing it. The Law Commissions also proposed to extend the broader controls found in the Directive to business-to-business contracts, but the proposals did not find favour with the business community.     

A non-co-operative bargaining model of membership expansion in a producer co-operative

This paper presents a non-co-operative bargaining model of membership expansion in a producer co-operative. The emphasis is on examining the distribution of the resulting surplus between the existing partners and the new member. In the presence of a number of alternative candidates, the existing partners can use the threat of switching negotiating partners to extract additional surplus from the negotiations. The degree of symmetry between the competing candidates necessary for these threats to be credible is specified, as is the nature of the dependence of the parties' payoffs on the various parameters of the model. Potential sources of misallocation within the model are identified.     

Effects of firm owenership structure on hiring of M&A advisors

This study tests the hypothesis that certification is an important service performed by M&A (merger and acquisition) advisors. It conducts an empirical investigation of the relationship between corporate ownership and the decision to hire an advisor. It demonstrates that ownership by institutional investors increases the propensity of firms to hire advisors in merger and acquisition transactions. The effect is (1) nonlinear in institutional investor percentage ownership, (2) greater for the selling firm than for the buyer, and (3) stronger where control is changing than where significant assets are being bought and sold. Confirmation of the certification hypothesis is also found in the decision to hire a prestigious advisor given that an advisor is to be hired.     

On the commercialization of accountancy thesis: A review essay

Hanlon's thesis on the commercialisation of accountancy is examined in relation to contemporary changes in the organization of work and the concentration and Intelnationalization of the accounting industry. Attention is drawn to the tensions between Hanlon's empirical materials and his exegesis of theoretical debates. An appreciation of the value of his book for highlighting the wider significance of accounting to a shift from Fordist to more flexible forms of accumulation is balanced by a discussion of various limitations. These include the neglect of non-audit business undertaken by accounting firms, and the sketchy treatment of the links between these firms and other key players that have supported and legitimised the progressive commercialization of accountancy.     

Land use planning and health and well-being

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the planning of settlements and health. It gives a brief introduction to the issues before summarising the evidence in relation to a range of topics, concluding with some more speculative thoughts on likely future findings.Modern planning was invented in response to inhumane living conditions in 19th century cities. But in the last century the connection was lost. Only now, with concerns over climate change and obesity, is there beginning to be the realisation that the physical environment is an important determinant of health.The paper uses a particular model of this relationship based on eco-system and health determinants theories to structure the review of evidence. The review covers: lifestyle choices in relation to physical activity and diet, mental well-being and community, the local economy and income, health inequalities and strategic land use transport planning, pollution and urban form, and finally impacts on global ecology.There is now a growing consensus that while personal factors are critical in determining health, the urban environment exacerbates or mitigates health and well-being outcomes.The level of active travel (walking and cycling) and outdoor recreational activity is strongly affected by accessibility to local facilities. Access to green, natural environments, and to local social networks, are factors in mental well-being. The wider sub-regional pattern of housing, economic development, land use and transport is a determinant of social exclusion and therefore health inequalities. It also affects health-damaging pollution, adaptability in the face of climate change and the level of carbon dioxide emissions.We have literally been building unhealthy conditions into many of our towns and cities. But comparisons with the best cities in Europe indicate that it is possible to reverse the less desirable trends. Success depends, however, on more radical policies of local authority control over land and finance than any political party has yet advocated. It also requires collaboration between the full range of powerful public and private organizations that influence the built environment.Future research is likely to further strengthen these conclusions. It will become much more obvious that planning for health and well-being is not only the NHS, but about creating a health-promoting physical, social and economic environment.     

Investigation of institutional changes in the UK housing market using structural break tests and time-varying parameter models

This paper investigates the effects of institutional changes within the UK housing market in recent decades using structural break tests and time-varying parameter models. This approach is motivated by models of institutional change drawn from the political science literature which focus on the existence of both fast-moving and slow-moving institutional changes and the interactions between them as drivers of the dynamics of asset prices. As a methodological contribution, we use several time-varying parameter models for the first time in investigations of institutional change. Our findings support the existence of both structural breaks and continuous variance in parameters. This contributes to our understanding of the housing market in two respects. Firstly, the dates of structural breaks appear to better match unexpected market shocks rather than remarkable political events, and this supports prior institutional theory. Secondly, assessment of the effect of slow-moving institutional changes shows that people’s biased expectations rather than the economic fundamentals have increasingly played an important role in driving housing prices in the short run although fundamentals continue to drive house prices to converge to their long-run equilibrium.     

Competition,Prices and Quality in the Market for Physician Consultations

Prices for consultations with General Practitioners (GP's) in Australia are unregulated, and patients pay the difference between the price set by the GP and a fixed reimbursement from the national tax‐funded Medicare insurance scheme. We construct a Vickrey‐Salop model of GP price and quality competition and test its predictions using individual GP‐level data on prices, the proportion of patients who are charged no out‐of‐pocket fee, average consultation length, and characteristics of the GP's, their practices and their local areas. We measure the competition to which the GP is exposed by the distance to other GP practices and allow for the endogeneity of GP location decisions with measures of area characteristics and area fixed‐effects. Within areas, GP's with more distant competitors charge higher prices and a smaller proportion of their patients make no out‐of‐pocket payment. GP's with more distant competitors also have shorter consultations, though the effect is small and statistically insignificant.