In this article, I develop three measures of party organization in multi-level systems: vertical integration, influence and autonomy. I assess these in 27 parties in Canada, Australia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United States and Spain and investigate how parties respond to the incentives and opportunities created by their institutional environment. Clear patterns emerge between the form of federal state design and the predominant form of party organization: in decentralized federations with low coordination requirements between federal and state-level governments, a tendency can be found towards highly autonomous state parties. Where resources are centralized and intergovernmental coordination requirements are high, integrated parties with low autonomy can be found. However, neither aspect of institutional design has a significant relationship with `upward' influence of state-level parties in the governance structure of federal parties.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of psychological contract violation (PCV) as a mediating variable in the relations between psychological contract breach (PCB) and workârelated attitudes and behaviors. In addition, this study aims to expand the generalizability of psychological contract theories by examining serviceâoriented employees rather than a population of managers as in most research on PCB. Design/methodology/approach A survey was administered to 196 serviceâoriented employees working in the USA. Factor analyses (principal components, varimax rotation) were conducted on all the variables in the study to determine the factorial independence of the constructs. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the main effects and mediating hypotheses. Findings The findings are consistent with the proposed mediation model of the study. PCV was found to fully mediate the relations between PCB and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intentions to quit, perceived organizational support, service delivery, serviceâoriented organizational citizenship behavior, and participation serviceâoriented organizational citizenship behavior. PCV was found to partially mediate the relation between PCB and loyalty serviceâoriented organizational citizenship behavior. PCV was not found to mediate the relation between PCB and inârole job performance. Research limitations/implications The use of a crossâsectional nonâexperimental design does not allow for definitive conclusions regarding causality and there is a possibility that the results may be influenced by common method variance. Practical implications Managers need to carefully consider and manage the psychological contracts of their subordinates from a cognitive perspective (PCB) and an affective perspective (PCV). Originality/value The paper empirically examines the PCBâPCV Outcomes model using a sample of serviceâoriented employees.
This paper studies a periodic-review, serial supply chain in which materials are ordered and shipped according to (R,nQ) policies. Three information scenarios are considered, depending on the level of information available: echelon, local, and quasilocal. In the echelon scenario, each stage can access the inventory and cost information within its echelon (comprising the stage itself and all downstream stages); in the local scenario, each stage only accesses its own local information. Finally, in the quasilocal scenario, each stage knows its local information, plus the actual customer demands. We propose coordination schemes that regulate the stages to achieve the supply chain's optimal cost under each information setting. All these coordination schemes fit comfortably within an emerging practice called supply chain finance, which includes the organization and technology needed to implement them.
We address the problems of privacy-preserving duplicate tuple matching (PPDTM) and privacy-preserving threshold attributes matching (PPTAM) in the scenario of a horizontally partitioned database among N parties, where each party holds a private share of the database's tuples and all tuples have the same set of attributes. In PPDTM, each party determines whether its tuples have any duplicate on other parties' private databases. In PPTAM, each party determines whether all attribute values of each tuple appear at least a threshold number of times in the attribute unions. We propose protocols for the two problems using additive homomorphic cryptosystem based on the subgroup membership assumption, e.g., Paillier's and ElGamal's schemes. By analysis on the total numbers of modular exponentiations, modular multiplications and communication bits, with a reduced computation cost which dominates the total cost, by trading off communication cost, our PPDTM protocol for the semihonest model is superior to the solution derivable from existing techniques in total cost. Our PPTAM protocol is superior in both computation and communication costs. The efficiency improvements are achieved mainly by using random numbers instead of random polynomials as existing techniques for perturbation, without causing successful attacks by polynomial interpolations. We also give detailed constructions on the required zero-knowledge proofs and extend our two protocols to the malicious model, which were previously unknown.
In two important recent books, John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley each argue that non-evidential factors, such as the cost of being wrong and salience of possible error, have a place in epistemological theorizing. This point is familiar from the work of epistemological contextualists, who emphasize non-evidential speaker factors: factors which, when present in a speaker's conversational context, affect the semantic content of her knowledge attributions. According to Hawthorne and Stanley, the appropriate focus is on the subject, rather than the speaker: when the relevant non-evidential factors are present in a subject they can affect whether the subject knows. This suggests a reorientation for epistemology, away from the standard âintellectualistâ (Stanley's term) model, endorsed even by contextualists, according to which only evidential or more broadly truth-related factors (evidence, safety, sensitivity, reliability, etc.) bear on whether a subject knows. If Hawthorne and Stanley are right, then the contextualist program should give way to a program of anti-intellectualist invariantism, or to use a more common label, subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI).1 The books explore in insightful and original fashion a range of important issues in epistemology, all focused on the concept of knowledge: the lottery puzzle, skepticism, the knowledge rule of assertion, the relation of knowledge to objective chance, epistemic closure, etc. Here, we limit ourselves to the relative merits of SSI. Stanley claims that the only plausible argument for contextualism is based on intuitions about certain stakes-shifting cases (like Keith DeRose's bank cases and Stewart Cohen's airport case). (84) This is because he takes the contextualist about knowledge attributions to be positing a sort of context-sensitivity which departs significantly from the familiar sorts. He painstakingly backs up this claim in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 2, âknowâ is shown not to be a gradable expression (it doesn't admit modifiers and has no associated comparative), and so the assumption that gradable expressions are context-sensitive is no evidence that âknowâ is. Chapter 3 argues for two general points: first, our use of propositional anaphora (âwhat I saidâ) and speech reports (âI said that I knewâ) doesn't follow the pattern displayed by familiar context-sensitive expressions (like modals, demonstratives, quantifiers, gradable expressions); second, we do not find the sorts of intra-discourse context-shifts that we find with the uncontroversial examples and which we would expect to find given the plausible assumption that context-sensitivity has its source in particular occurrences of elements in logical form.2 Stanley's conclusion is that if the intuitions in the stakes-shifting cases can be explained away adequately without resorting to contextualism, we would have little reason to accept contextualism.3 If Stanley is right about the dialectical situation, the ramifications for epistemology are significant. Contextualists have wanted to argue that, because these cases force us to acknowledge dramatic shifts in epistemic standards across contexts of use, we have good reason to think that even more dramatic shifts could be the source of the appeal of skeptical arguments. Without an independent reason to think that dramatic shifts occur, contextualists have no good answer to the charge that their response of skepticism is ad hoc, the sort of easy response available to solve almost any philosophical puzzle. With all this in mind, here are DeRose's original (1992) bank cases: Bank Case A (Low Stakes). My wife and I are driving home on a Friday afternoon. We plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit our paychecks. But as we drive past the bank, we notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. Although we generally like to deposit our paychecks as soon as possible, it is not especially important in this case that they be deposited right away, so I suggest that we drive straight home and deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning. My wife says, âMaybe the bank won't be open tomorrow. Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays.â I reply, âNo, I know it'll be open. I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday. It's open until noon.â Bank Case B (High Stakes). My wife and I drive past the bank on a Friday afternoon, as in Case A, and notice the long lines. I again suggest that we deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning, explaining that I was at the bank on Saturday morning only two weeks ago and discovered that it was open until noon. But in this case, we have just written a very large and important check. If our paychecks are not deposited into our checking account before Monday morning, the important check we wrote will bounce, leaving us in a very bad situation. And, of course, the bank is not open on Sunday. My wife reminds me of these facts. She then says, âBanks do change their hours. Do you know the bank will be open tomorrow?â Remaining as confident as I was before that the bank will be open then, still, I reply, âWell, no. I'd better go in and make sure.â (913) How do these cases support contextualism?4 It seems (premise 1), you speak the truth in both cases. But (premise 2) you have the same evidence and generally the same truth-related factors regarding the proposition in question. Therefore, (conclusion) the sentence âI know that the bank will be open on Saturdayâ must differ in semantic content in these two contexts of use, due to a difference in content associated with âknowâ: contextualism is true.5 Stanley grants both premises but denies the conclusion. The conclusion follows only on the assumption of intellectualismâonly on the assumption that, if the content of âI know that the bank is open on Saturdayâ is the same in the two cases, a difference in the sentence's truth-value across the cases requires a difference in the evidence for the bank is open on Saturday. But perhaps intellectualism is false: even if âI know that the bank will be open on Saturdayâ has the same content across the cases, it could be true in one case but false in the other because the practical facts differ. SSI can handle the bank cases just as well as contextualism. DeRose's bank cases are cases of first-person present-tense knowledge attributions in which the attributor is aware of his practical interests. SSI delivers the same results as contextualism for these cases. The same goes for first-person versions of the lottery puzzle. The contextualist says that the sentence âI don't know my ticket is a loserâ is true in a context in which the possibility that one wins is salient, even though it wasn't true in a previous context when that possibility wasn't salient (e.g., because, as in Hawthorne's example, one is thinking about whether one will have enough money to go on Safari next year). For the contextualist, the change in truth-value is due to the association of a higher epistemic standard in the later context than in the former, and this association is made possible by the content-shifting power of salience. The SSIist, piggybacking off the contextualist, may say that salience destroys knowledge. When the possibility of your winning wasn't salient, you knew you would lose. Now that it is, you don't know. And the same case could be made for skeptical arguments. The SSIist might say that the salience of the possibility that one is a brain in a vat strips one of much of one's empirical knowledge. These anti-intellectualist manoeuvres incur an explanatory burden, for it is unclear how salience of possible error, or raised practical stakes, could destroy knowledge. But the view does at least match contextualism in its claims about the truth-values of first-person present-tense knowledge attributions and denials. Moreover, the SSIist doesn't make the vindication of our intuitions about cases dependent on delicate use/mention issues, such as the distinction between the question of whether what is said in uttering âI know that pâ is true and the question of whether the subject knows that p. It appears, then, that we have a prima facie case for thinking that either contextualism or SSI is true. But which? One consideration that might seem to favor contextualism is the fact that SSI predicts the truth of odd-sounding temporal and modal embeddings. It sounds wrong to say âI don't know that p, but, assuming p is true, I used to know that p,â or âIf I didn't have so much at stake, then if p were true, I'd know it was.â But SSIists seem committed to the potential truth of both of these utterances. Is this a reason to favor contextualism over SSI? Stanley suggests (pp. 107â13) that contextualists might find themselves committed to similarly peculiar temporal and modal embeddings, depending on how they explain the source of context-sensitivity. If so, these oddities would be no reason to favor contextualism over SSI. He considers in particular David Lewis's (1996) contextualism, according to which knowledge-ascribing sentences contain a context-sensitive quantifier under semantic analysis. Under Lewis's account, âS knows that pâ is true in a context iff âS has evidence which rules out all possibilities in which not-pâ is true in the context, with âall possibilitiesâ contextually restricted to those that are not being properly ignored in the context, where attention to a possibility is one way of not being properly ignored. Because the best semantic account of quantifiers holds that they express properties, it would seem that Lewis is committed to thinking that the relevant property is not being properly ignored by A, where A is the attributor. But then we should expect that a sentence such as âIf A were properly ignoring more possibilities than he is, S would know that p, if p were trueâ to be acceptable, which of course it isn't. We have a reservation about Stanley's argument. Consider his example of âevery bottleâ. In a context of use, this expresses a property, e.g., being a bottle on such and such shelf. Which property it expresses depends on what is salient to the attributor or conversational participants, but the property expressed itself is not about salience to a certain attributor. Thus, âJohn bought every bottle but wouldn't have if I had been thinking about a different grocery storeâ won't come out true. Similarly, it seemed to us that one could revamp Lewis's view by proposing that which property âall possibilitiesâ expresses in a context of use depends on what the attributor is properly ignoring but the property expressed isn't itself about the attributor and his ignorings. So, perhaps SSI is committed to the peculiar sounding embeddings in a way that contextualism isn't. Nonetheless, there are ways to soften the blow. As Hawthorne (177n.40) remarks, anyone who thinks barn façade cases are Gettier cases must say that in many cases in which you look at a barn it is true to say, âI know that's a barn, but if unbeknownst to me there were a lot of barn facades around then even if this one was a barn I wouldn't know it was.â The defeasibility of knowledge, too, generates odd-sounding predictions like this: âI don't know that Mary is sick, now that her boyfriend told me she was faking it, but if he is misleading me, then if he hadn't told me anything, I would know (having seen her coughing earlier today).â If we can live with these embeddings, perhaps we can live with SSI's temporal and modal embeddings as well. SSIists, however, must further part company with contextualists on third person knowledge attributions. When Mary and John, whose evidence is the same as Smith's, utter not only âWe don't knowâ but also âAnd neither does Smith,â the intellectualist contextualist will say that Mary and John speak the truth about Smith if they speak the truth about themselves. The SSIist will of course have to insist that this move is in general illicit, because, e.g., less might be at stake for Smith than for Mary and John or fewer counterpossibilities of error salient to him. Yet we seem to make this move on a regular basis. It would be very odd for Mary and John to wonder, âWe don't know whether the plane stops in Chicago, but if it does, then Smith knows it does.â The SSIist has to explain away mistakes about third-person knowledge attributions and denials. Keith DeRose (2004) has called this the problem with SSI. Hawthorne and Stanley are well aware of it, and propose their own solutions. The core idea behind both proposals, spelled out most clearly in Stanley (who is trying to improve upon Hawthorne's account (see pp. 162â66)), is that we treat others as if they were in our situation, having our stakes (or finding salient possibilities we find salient). Stanley puts it this way: our real aim is to deny that if they were in our situation they'd know. Indeed, they wouldn't. But what is strictly said, that they don't know, is false. (101â4) This proposal is committed to an error theory about some of our knowledge attributions. But, as Hawthorne and Stanley would be quick to point out, contextualism has a similar problem because as we noted above, contextualists place heavy weight on the use/mention distinction. Mary and John are happy to assert not only âSmith doesn't knowâ but âWhat Smith said is false. He doesn't know any more than we do.â Equally worrisome, Stanley notes that contextualists have to strain, more than SSIists, to accommodate intuitions about other third person casesâcases in which the attributor has lower stakes than the subject. Stanley calls such cases Low Attributor-High Stakes and claims that contextualism delivers the wrong result about them. Intuitively, Stanley claims, the speaker's attribution of knowledge to the subject is false, whereas contextualism predicts its truth. Contextualism in his view also than SSI in certain person cases, such as Stakes which a subject thinks her stakes are but they are He that the weight of the versions of the stakes-shifting SSI over contextualism. does not that contextualism is false. Therefore, there is a way to accommodate without Stanley's intuitions about all the versions of the stakes cases, by for a contextualist of it is part of the for knowledge attributions that that pâ only when the subject is to as if p in of the So, when a attributor says of a subject knows that p,â the attributor that intellectualist contextualism, it will have to to This takes of all but the subject has stakes, but we have the the attributor when she says, doesn't know that handle this case, we the contextualist when one's stakes that one a certain standard to know, in one's speech context associated with having an epistemic that at least that so that if a subject doesn't it with to p, the subject doesn't with to p in one's speech possibility for all the stakes-shifting cases is to with a view which would also have the over contextualism that it doesn't different intuitions depending on whether the say or he said is rather than doesn't The possibility of these of up the to the epistemological question of whether intellectualism is true from both the semantic question of whether knowledge-ascribing sentences in content across contexts of use and the question of whether knowledge-ascribing can only be true relative to an (e.g., a or an epistemic Stanley is right that intellectualism is a for contextualism for in the of stakes-shifting cases. As Stewart in contextualist from his case of Smith and Mary and John, what is in the is a good enough reason for Smith to know, then it is a good enough reason for John and Mary to But there is no reason an anti-intellectualist to semantic or are to accommodate intuitions such as those in the cases. the are as as we know no one is on as they do the cases. these we are with intellectualist contextualism and each of which is committed to error about our to some of the cases at has to to accommodate those It will seem to some that all this and in the is an Consider what Hawthorne calls This is intellectualist invariantism with the claim that the standards for knowledge are enough so that a many of our knowledge claims are in fact true. it is that contextualism and SSI are committed to error of their own about the versions of the bank cases, there is now no from consideration of those cases, to invariantism just because it requires its own error theory to handle we to the invariantism, is a reason to that knowledge, or even is to salience or practical in the such factors are not truth-related or the used in standard Gettier misleading into the at we little in salience of possible error as a subject seems to us to be no other than the to the cases, to a between knowledge and salience of possible The situation is more for knowledge and This is the of our Hawthorne us to the are a for a lottery ticket that cost a in a ticket lottery with a and reason as I will the If I the ticket I will If I the I will a I to the This he claims, is The is that you don't know the is true. this lottery case to Hawthorne's A or so you bought a lottery ticket in a ticket the in a at I won't have enough money to go on Safari next the less as to the This is In Hawthorne's because you know the is true. like these are used to support Hawthorne's one is to use p as a in practical if and only if one knows that Hawthorne that it is to give the the difference between the and the other the lottery is that in the case the for the subject that he will is enough so as to be to the practical issues at he can the epistemic that is This knowledge out in favor of a about you can use p in practical just in case the that p is false is just in case it can be in your practical this the If this is so we give in and accept Hawthorne's is to appeal to the according to which that p is and for having epistemic or for being or for there being no epistemic for the subject that the epistemic of is the same in both cases or If it is the then by the you don't know that you will in the you don't know, in the lottery case, that you will the But if you don't that, then by you don't know that you won't have enough money to go on But the seems to be a of knowledge. Thus, Hawthorne that if the epistemic of is the same in the two cases, then skepticism So, skepticism the for you of winning between the cases, and so by the the two cases differ with to your knowledge that your ticket will lose. It follows that practical can affect knowledge in the way We can think of two ways to to Hawthorne's argument. one might argue that you know in the case isn't to in the case you do have a lottery and might be have a reason to think you might have enough money to go on Safari next In response Hawthorne (pp. argues that lottery cases can be at will for just about any of our claims to knowledge. If so, then there is about the case, because there is about the of that is a lottery one might question the We with this are the relevant to between If your epistemic for p is then, it should follow that you would be to accept a on p at any But you wouldn't be to do this for very many doesn't think he would on the of at any Thus, the seems to One can to this as Hawthorne does, by intellectualism about epistemic and so that how a proposition is for a person can with practical This seems to us If you me a on the proposition this will come up that doesn't seem to lower its and not to the that it will come up us the Is there any other reason to knowledge into the of certain of practical are and others not just on the If you an when a for his lottery he isn't to it, he will you that he doesn't know that the ticket will lose. If you the same in the he the rather than the given that he of on he will answer that he knows he won't have enough money to go on seem to knowledge its to their As Stanley A standard use of knowledge attributions is to When I I to the on the rather than the on the right, I will by that I knew that the on the had the I but I not know whether the on the right When my wife me I rather than I that I knew that it was the to go to the If we could have a view that knowledge relevant but doesn't us to the this might seem to just the right And it such a view is We can claim that knowledge is with a epistemic of error but only an This view at least the of Hawthorne's will of course to the Stanley as having rather than semantic The idea would be that there are cases in which one knows but isn't to on it, that one knows often or at least in some way that one is to on it Stanley is well aware of this and a to come up with a We that it is not easy to give such a (see our but we that he shifts the of As we above, many in our view will insist that intellectualism is a cost than positing or intellectualism us to the claim that you can or knowledge, not by or by but by or up a large check. And that seems Is there a more argument available for a When it to would deny that when can be to other It does not follow from the fact that your is even from the fact that you that you have a reason to that your won't But you know that your is you have an reason to that your won't that your is So, when it to we do to say that, when you know that p, p can be your your for course, when you know that p, p can to be your for some for the very reason that p has to do with if you know that your is that it is is not a reason you have for that is from the than But its to be a reason you in this case, is not the result of the for you that your is not the result of any other epistemic you have with to the proposition that your is When you know that p, in the for you that doesn't in the way of p being a reason you have for We can say very similar about the very there are facts such that, when you know to be true, they can be you have to do The fact that your will be by a which is the you and in the next seems to be such a that the of this fact would not that you have any reason to your (having no idea of the situation, you would be it in on the with your would your in it if be enough if that itself were not But if you know this then you do have a reason to your This is a of the situation. As with the situation, when you know that p, p might to be a reason you have for but not because of any epistemic of with to because for example, the for you that might know that your is But this is not a reason you have to your out of the way of an its to be a reason you have is not due to any epistemic with to the proposition that your is seems little to the practical and the cases in the way by the If the that doesn't in the way of p being a reason you have for for any then the that doesn't in the way of p being a reason you have for A, for any This other of the fact that, when we that p in the course of about what to we don't then p off from our about what to When we p, we can use p. But, noted that, when you know that p, then the that doesn't in the way of p being a reason you have for in with the a general not those by and more in a by Hawthorne and Stanley If you know that p, then the that doesn't in the way of p being a reason you have for or a problem for intellectualism if there are of for the that is the but are such that the that in the way of p being a reason one has but not the Consider again the airport Smith and Mary and John are with to the that the plane stops in According to the Smith and Mary and John all know that the plane stops in the that the plane doesn't stop in doesn't in the way of it being a reason they have say, In case, at For Mary and John, there is. and the assumption that Mary and John have knowledge, Mary and John have an reason not to checking with the a of the case is so that they should check with the given all that is at So, the had better not Mary and reason to just go and to Mary and John in just and How might the that the plane stops in is a reason that Mary and John have to the that, even if they have a very good reason to in their reason is by some other reason they The A proposition about the of error with the of the relevant or to use the a proposition to the that checking further A general intellectualist then, for is to make a first, having to do with of error can with about what is in fact the case and second, when the stakes are about of error can out about what is in fact the This is For this would seem to the sort of the one the plane stops the other it might And if it doesn't it the are I'd better check further to it stops in it This is not what we do when we we we do when we is the at and which is more the one the other Which is more the good or the that both that we don't facts the that those facts don't if we were facts would the one the plane is to the other it might not Which is more the fact that it is, or the that it In the intellectualist what seems to be a about having When you have a reason to or about when you have a reason to to that reason for in whether to This is not to say that, you have a reason to you should But it is to say that, when you have that you to it into with other you have without the relative of those In this you have are might not have as that it will that you will have to for the If you do then when whether to your you might have to the that it will how long you think have to for the if you have both as then you can use both in your without their to and have to So, to if I don't the Because this off the intellectualist there is us from on the of that if knowledge is with a of error, then knowledge can come and go with in the practical If Hawthorne's is false, so is
The study reported here found that producers were familiar with the biofuel industry through mass media channels and were willing to convert cropland to energy crops. Producers were motivated by patriotic reasons, but overall profitability was the greater motive for converting cropland to dedicated biofuel crops such as switchgrass. Barriers to energy crop production were a lack of markets (biorefineries) and information about biofuel crop production. It is recommended that an educational campaign regarding biofuel crop production best practices, especially cellulosic crops (switchgrass) and marketing, be implemented. A statewide leadership campaign to attract biorefineries to the state is also recommended.
Tompa and Woll constructed a zero-knowledge proof of knowing a square root of $X$ mod $N$, where $N$ is the product of two large, secret primes. In this paper, we construct a zero-knowledge proof of knowing a square root of $X_1$ or $X_2$ mod $N$. Compared with the existing solution to this problem, ours is significantly simpler.
Federalism research has recently seen a downright renaissance by putting the question âDoes federalism matter?â on centre stage (Kaiser 2004). Findings in this respect are, however, ambiguous so far. Some authors observe a positive influence of federalism on lower inflation rates (Lijphart 1999; Lancaster/Hicks 2000), lower unemployment (Crepaz 1996), or a higher economic growth (Lancaster/Hicks 2000), whereas other researchers do not find any effects of federalism with regard to the macroeconomic performance of political systems (Lane/Ersson 1997; Castles 2000).p1 In addition to disputed findings and a preference for case studies instead of comparative research, there is next to no theoretical argument in these contributions as to why federalism should or should not have consequences for policy output. Against this background, the history of federalism research has a surprise in store. The question of performance effects of federalism refers back to Ostrom (1973) who turns against Rikerâs (1969) claim that federalism (apart from more complicated decision-making) makes no real difference. Ostromâs argument rests explicitly on findings of the public finance literature (in particular Oates 1972) and the assumption that federal countries can fully exploit the advantages of a decentralized provision of public goods and services. It is therefore rather startling that federalism literature has, for the most part, neglected the dimension of economic decentralization, the more so as there appears to be no alternative basis for the purported performance effects of federalism.p2
Competitive dynamics research does not offer a cohesive theory that explains and predicts why, how, and where non-market players attack firms and disrupt competitiveness. The purpose of this manuscript is to offer a general framework that addresses the components of non-market hostility, or non-market players' attacks on firms. We argue that non-market players, motivated by social inefficiencies, unleash direct and indirect non-market hostility on visible firms with reputations for high social (in) efficiency through media, government, and corporate interfaces. Finally, we explore implications for researchers and managers and offer directions for future research.
This paper studies a problem of non linear taxation when individuals have different longevities resulting from a non-monetary effort (like exercising). We first present the laissez-faire and the first best. Like Becker and Philipson (1998), we find that the laissez-faire level of effort is too high compared with the first best, because individuals do not internalize the impact of survival on the return of their savings. We also claim that because of its non-monetary form, effort is not contractible. That is why we modify our framework and assume, for the rest of the paper, that effort is determined by the individual while the social planner only allocates consumptions. It turns out that, under full information, a tax on the return of annuitized savings is desirable for both types. This tax is higher for the low-survival individual. Under asymmetric information, the low-survival individual still faces a tax while the high-survival individual might now face a positive or negative tax on annuities. Interestingly, our results depend on the value of life.
It is well known that non-renegotiable contracts with third parties may have an effect on the outcome of a strategic interaction and thus serve as a commitment device. We address this issue when contracts are renegotiable. More precisely, we analyze the equilibrium outcomes of two-stage games with renegotiation-proof third-party contracts in relation to the equilibrium outcomes of the same game without contracts. We assume that one of the parties in the contractual relationship is unable to observe everything that happens in the game when played by the other party. This implies that contracts are incomplete and we show that such incompleteness restricts the set of equilibrium outcomes to a subset of Nash equilibrium outcomes of the game without contracts. Introducing renegotiation, in general, imposes further constraints and in some games implies that only subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes can be supported. However, there is a large class of games in which non-subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes can also be supported, and hence, third-party contracts still have strategic implications even when they are renegotiable.
While the current financial crisis has challenged nearly everyone from management to media, it has exposed some fundamental flaws in management pay. In recent years, bonuses have been too high in up-cycles and they now risk being too low in the current downturn. Adopting an investor's perspective addresses the impact of external factors in distorting actual performance. By measuring operating performance only - irrespective of the economy's performance - bonus systems become fairer and longer lasting. This article illustrates options for designing bonus targets using Bell Helicopters, owned by the industrial conglomerate Textron, as an example.
Economists have advocated, and courts have accepted a decline in the stock price of a defamed corporation as an economic measure of its reputational harm. Although the economic rationale for this approach is sound and widely accepted, its legal foundations and consistency with the damages doctrines of defamation law have remained unexplored. This article presents an analysis of its legal basis. The analysis shows that the logic of common law precedent, supported by statutes and academic commentary, points to a measure of special damages for reputational harm based on stock market data.
The idea of Identification parade is to test the veracity of the witness in the question of his capacity to identify, from among several persons made to stand in a queue, an unknown person whom the witness had seen at the time of occurrence. In cases where the identity of the accused is not known to the eye-witness, it is essential for the investigating officer to get such suspect identified from eye-witness in a test identification parade, which has mainly two works - a) Ensures that investigation is proceeding on a right track, b) Ensures that the eye-witness's memory regarding the identity of the appellant. Further, there are certain principles with must be followed while conducting the identification parade. The establishment of these principles can be done examining the witnesses who conducted the identification parade i.e. they must be put to the cross examination by a magistrate. Further, if the manner of holding the identification parade throws suspicion on police, then the TI parade would not have any evidentiary value. It is also true that the presence of police officer and the public prosecutor at the place of the identification parade would not vitiate it, when there was no prejudice against the accused. The parade should be held by a magistrate or any officer who is not a police officer because the police should not take part in the identification parade. It can also be held by the panch (Ordinary person). Police can make arrangement for conducting identification parade but it must be done in the presence of the Panch or a magistrate as it does not come in the purview of sec. 162 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
We make the case for the U.S. government to issue a new security with a coupon tied to the United Statesâ current dollar GDP. This security might pay, for example, a coupon of one-trillionth of the GDP, and we propose the name 'Trill' be used to refer to this new security. This new debt instrument should be of great interest to the Government for its stabilizing influence on the budget (as coupon payments fall in a recession with declining tax revenues) and for its yield, based on our valuation. Standard asset pricing analysis also suggests that Trills would enable important new portfolio diversification strategies and, in contrast to available assets that protect relative standards of living in retirement, Trills would have virtually no counterparty risk. We believe there would be a lively appetite for the Trill from institutional investors, public and private pension funds, as well as the individual investor.
This paper analyses and reports on discussions at the international forum held at the University of Oxford, entitled 'Internet Governance for Development: Focusing on the Issues'. It started with an open meeting on 31 August 2006 followed on the next day by a workshop for a specially invited group of knowledgeable and experienced participants, encompassing a broad range of perspectives. They sought to discuss and clarify key Internet governance issues, such as those on the agenda for the first meeting of the United Nation's Internet Governance Forum, held in Athens from 30 October to 2 November 2006. This paper explores underlying values and policy-making dynamics in international Internet government processes, particularly in relation to the needs of developing countries. In addition to the views of participants expressed during the Oxford event, it draws on position papers prepared for it, documents submitted for consideration by the IGF meeting in Athens and other relevant information.
How does risk tolerance vary with stake size? This important question cannot be adequately answered if framing effects, nonlinear probability weighting, and heterogeneity of preference types are neglected. We show that the increase in relative risk aversion over gains cannot be captured by the curvature of the utility function. It is driven predominantly by a change in probability weighting of a majority group of individuals who exhibit more rational probability weighting at high stakes. Contrary to gains, no coherent change in relative risk aversion is observed for losses. These results not only challenge expected utility theory, but also prospect theory.
This paper argues that what is at stake in the debate over the nature of social normativity is the understanding of the significance of the tension between repetition (and reinforcement of it) and change (and openness to it). The first and second parts of the paper offer illustrations of the pervasiveness and tenacity of reinforcement, as well as the rarity, but also urgent need for, openness. The paper also argues that the most dominant reason as to why the above-mentioned tension has received little attention in the literature is because of the focus on the analysis of the nature and status of orders (composed of normative requirements), which are assumed or are posited to regulate or govern social life (and thereby reified). The paper argues that when we resist reification of normative orders and see these orders, instead, as projections that enable human beings to achieve certain aims, we open the door to understanding the above-mentioned tension and its significance. Further, when we see normative orders as projections, we can also understand that normative requirements are all capable of being distinguished only in degree, and not in kind. In other words, what we ordinarily think of as the normal and the normative form a continuum (rather than a gap) ranging from, on the one hand, that which we would be surprised or enraged to see as being doubted or undermined, to, on the other hand, that which is the subject of much debate and disagreement.
This paper introduces a symposium issue on WTO law in a fragmented, decentralized international legal order, resulting from a conference which was held at Loyola University School of Law on February 15, 2008, and was co-sponsored by the American Society of International Law. The introduction introduces the five papers published in the issue by Padideh Alaâi, Raj Bhala, Tomer Broude, Jeffrey Dunoff, Merit Janow, and Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann. The conference assessed the place of WTO law in a fragmented, decentralized legal order, examining on the one hand its relation to other international law, and on the other its relation to national law. That is, the papers examine WTO law in its vertical and its horizontal dimensions in terms of the allocation of authority, legitimacy and impact. The conference was organized into four sessions, complemented by a keynote address from Merit Janow on her reflections as a member of the WTO Appellate Body. Collectively, the articles in this issue demonstrate how the study of the interaction between the WTO, other international legal regimes and domestic legal orders will comprise a key part of the future of the discipline.