{"title":"A Note on Competing Merger Simulation Models in Antitrust Cases: Can the Best Be Identified?","authors":"Oliver Budzinski","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1116181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1116181","url":null,"abstract":"Advanced economic instruments like simulation models are enjoying an increased popularity in practical antitrust. There is hope that they – being quantitative predictive economic evidence – can substitute for qualitative structural analysis and lead to unambiguous results. This paper demonstrates that it can be theoretically impossible to identify the most appropriate simulation model for any given merger proposal. Due to the inevitable necessity to reduce real-world complexity and multi-parameter character of merger cases, the comparative fit of proposed merger simulation models with mutually incompatible predictions can be the same. This is valid even if an ideal antitrust procedure is assumed. This insight is important regarding two aspects. First, the scope for partisan economic evidence cannot be completely eroded in merger control. Second, simulation cannot eliminate or substitute for qualitative reasoning and economically informed common sense.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131648755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heroes Live Forever: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (the Founder of Bangladesh)","authors":"M. Abdin","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1143363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1143363","url":null,"abstract":"Man is mortal - the universal truth. I want to say that, not only man of human being is mortal but also all living being is mortal. Nobody can live forever but ones goodwill or image is immortal. Society never forgets some ones activities. Human's activities are universal. Man can live in his goodwill or positive image forever. Whose who are remarkable in the world they have done something for society without any personal profit. They are heroes of the nations. There activities are immortal. Human being will remember the mass people will remember their activities forever as well as their name. For this reasons we can say that, heroes live forever. In the same way, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is one of the national heroes of Bangladesh. He was a symbol fighter politician at the whole Pakistan period from 1950s to 1971. He has a major part to become Bangladesh it self as an independent country. Bangladeshi Nationals were free from the Pakistani unitary rule. At first let's know some thing about this great leader.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122014599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Economy of Conditional Aid in a Federal Economy","authors":"Pooja Sharma","doi":"10.1111/j.1467-9361.2007.00390.x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2007.00390.x","url":null,"abstract":"This paper employs a political economy approach to model the joint determination of national and subnational sectoral protection in an open federal economy. Political interactions between special interest groups and policymakers as well as economic interrelationships between federal and state government policies are analyzed. The model is applied to study the effects of conditional financial assistance on policy-making in the aid-receiving federal economy. We find that policy-based financial assistance to the federal government tends to reduce the extent of distortions resulting from the federal government policy. However, if federal and state government policies are strategic substitutes, state government induced policy distortions would increase, thereby detracting from the effectiveness of conditionality in reducing overall policy distortions in the recipient economy.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"149 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116530611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping Out Flexicurity Pathways in the European Union","authors":"T. Wilthagen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1118725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1118725","url":null,"abstract":"This paper contains a practical step by step method for national governments and social partners to map out their own national pathway to flexicurity, based on the recently established EU policy framework on flexicurity, which includes a set of common principles and different pathways of flexicurity. The central idea is to develop positive sum games where not just one party gains and the other lose.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116822144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Economic Policy: Was There a Bush Doctrine?","authors":"Barry Eichengreen, D. Irwin","doi":"10.3386/W13831","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W13831","url":null,"abstract":"While many political scientists and diplomatic historians see the Bush presidency as a distinctive epoch in American foreign policy, we argue that there was no Bush Doctrine in foreign economic policy. The Bush administration sought to advance a free trade agenda but could not avoid the use of protectionist measures at home -- just like its predecessors. It foreswore bailouts of financially-distressed developing countries yet ultimately yielded to the perceived necessity of lending assistance -- just like its predecessors. Not unlike previous presidents, President Bush also maintained a stance of benign neglect toward the country's current account deficit. These continuities reflect long-standing structures and deeply embedded interests that the administration found impossible to resist. We see the next administration as having to address many of the same problems subject to the same constraints. The trade policy agenda will evolve slowly, with questions about the viability of multilateral liberalization under the WTO and the degree to which labor and environmental conditions can be included in trade agreements. Policy toward China will continue to confront difficult choices: even if it succeeds in pressuring the country to reduce its accumulation of dollar reserves, thereby easing the current account imbalance with the United States, this may only imply a more difficult market for U.S. Treasury debt and higher interest rates at home. Continuity will therefore remain the rule.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128435010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Balas, R. La Porta, Florencio López de Silanes, Andrei Shleifer
{"title":"The Divergence of Legal Procedures","authors":"A. Balas, R. La Porta, Florencio López de Silanes, Andrei Shleifer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1091232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1091232","url":null,"abstract":"Djankov et al. (2003a) propose and measure for 109 countries in the year 2000 an index of formalism of legal procedure for two simple disputes: eviction of a non-paying tenant and collection of a bounced check. For a sub-sample of 40 countries, we compute this index every year starting in 1950, which allows us to study the evolution of legal rules. We find that between 1950 and 2000, the formalism of legal procedure did not converge, and possibly diverged, between common law and French civil law countries. At least in this specific area of law, the results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that national legal systems are converging, and support the view that legal origins exert long lasting influence on legal rules.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"71 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132891026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decentralization as a Disincentive for Transnational Terror? An Empirical Test","authors":"A. Dreher, J. Fischer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1081623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1081623","url":null,"abstract":"Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Taking account of the potential simultaneity between terror and decentralization, our results show that expenditure decentralization robustly reduces the number of terror events in a country, while political decentralization has no impact.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131950969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Freedom in Slovenia","authors":"M. Steinbacher","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1144582","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1144582","url":null,"abstract":"No abstract available. Matej Steinbacher Free Society Institute Department of Economics Prvomajska ul. 7 SI – 2310 Slovenska Bistrica, Slovenia matej.steinbacher@fsi-institute.si","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133282756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Can (Macro-) Prudential Policy do to Support Monetary Policy?","authors":"C. Borio, Ilhyock Shim","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1120287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1120287","url":null,"abstract":"In the economic environment that has been emerging over the last couple of decades, it is more likely that the occasional build-up of financial imbalances, typically in the form of unsustainable credit and asset price booms, will occur against the background of low and stable inflation, posing a potential threat to financial and macroeconomic stability. This means that the scope for monetary policy to lean against the build-up may be more constrained than in the past, when those imbalances would normally develop alongside rising inflation. This puts a premium on a strengthening of the macroprudential orientation of prudential frameworks, designed to restrain the build up of the imbalances and to make the financial system better able to withstand their unwinding. In this paper, we review the progress made in this direction in recent years. We conclude that there is now a much keener awareness of the importance of a macroprudential orientation but that progress in making it operational, while considerable, has been slower. The main obstacles are of an analytical and, above all, institutional/political economy nature. We suggest ways in which these obstacles could be addressed and underline the potential complementary role that adjustments in monetary policy frameworks could play.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123028817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Participation, Competition and Political Regimes","authors":"J. Noguera","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1139423","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1139423","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a classification of the political regimes based on their level of participation/inclusion and competition in the collective decision-making. We use the criteria developed to build a dataset for every currently independent country in the world for the period 1800-2006.","PeriodicalId":367470,"journal":{"name":"Political Economy (Topic)","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126100901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}