法律翻译|《法与经济学杂志》第59卷第1期
作者 | 邹依佳 中国政法大学
一审 | 孙济民 中国人民大学
二审 | 张亦衡 杜克大学
编辑 | 余卓妍 西安交通大学
责编 | 李 薇 浙江工商大学
《法与经济学杂志》第59卷第1期 The Journal of Law and Economics Volume 59, Number 1 | 2016
The Business of American Democracy: Citizens United, Independent Spending, and Elections
美国民主的事业:公民联盟、独立支出和选举
Tilman Klumpp, Hugo M. Mialon, and Michael A. Williams
In Citizens United v. FEC, the US Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions are unconstitutional. We analyze the effects of Citizens United on state election outcomes. We find that Citizens United is associated with an increase in Republicans’ election probabilities in state house races of approximately 4 percentage points overall and 10 or more percentage points in several states. We link these estimates to on-the-ground evidence of significant spending by corporations through channels enabled by Citizens United. We also explore the effects of Citizens United on reelection rates, candidates’ entry, and direct contributions and discuss implications for national elections and economic policy.
在Citizens诉United 诉 FEC案中,美国最高法院最终判决对公司和工会独立政治支出的限制违宪。我们分析了公民联盟对州选举结果的影响,发现公民联盟帮助共和党人在州众议院中的选举概率总体增加了约4%,甚至在特定数州增加超过了10%。
我们认为这与部分公司通过公民联盟案所促使的渠道支出大量资金的实物证据有关。我们还研究了公民联盟案如何影响连任率、候选人资格和直接政治献金,并讨论了该案如何影响国家选举和经济政策。
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The Optimal Scope of the Royalty Base in Patent Licensing
专利许可中特许权使用费的提成基础的最佳范围
Gerard Llobet and Jorge Padilla
Legal scholars debate the merits of using the total value of the product, as opposed to the value of the component to which the technology contributes, as the base for a royalty in licensing contracts. In this paper we make use of the fact that these two royalty bases are equivalent to using ad valorem and per-unit royalties, respectively. We abstract from implementation and practicability considerations to analyze the welfare implications of the two rules. Ad valorem royalties tend to lead to lower prices, particularly in the context of successive monopolies. They benefit upstream innovators and do not necessarily hurt downstream producers. This benefit increases when there are multiple innovators contributing complementary technologies, as is typical of standard-setting organizations. Ad valorem royalties are even more desirable when enticing upstream investment is optimal. Our findings explain why most licensing contracts include royalties based on the value of the product.
法律学者围绕特许权使用费的提成基础,从以下两个维度展开讨论:许可产品的总价值,和许可产品中技术成分的价值。本文的讨论基于这两种特许权使用费的提成基础分别相当于使用从价版税和每单位特许权使用费。我们从执行和可行性这两个角度着手,分析了这两种选择的福利意义。从价特许权使用费往往能降低价格,特别在连续垄断的情形下;此种使用费对上游创新有好处,同时未必会损害下游生产者的利益。且该优势在有多个创新者提供互补性技术时更加明显,而该情况在标准制定组织中十分常见。从价特许权使用费的优点在吸引上游投资时更加突出。我们的研究结果证实为什么大多数许可合同都选择了基于产品价值的特许权使用费。
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Designing Corporate Bailouts
设计企业救助
Antonio E. Bernardo, Eric L. Talley, and Ivo Welch
Although common economic wisdom suggests that government bailouts are inefficient because they reduce incentives to avoid failure and induce excessive entry by marginal firms, in practice bailouts are difficult to avoid for systemically significant enterprises. Recent experience suggests that bailouts also induce litigation from shareholders and managers complaining about expropriation and wrongful termination by the government. Our model shows how governments can design tax-financed corporate bailouts to reduce these distortions and points to the causes of inefficiencies in real-world implementations such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Bailouts with minimal distortion depend critically on the government’s ability to expropriate shareholders and terminate managers.
尽管经济学通说表明,政府救助效率低下,因为它们不仅减少了避免倒闭的激励措施,还引入过多行业边缘的企业。但实际上,对于具有系统重要性的企业来说,救助是难以避免的。从近期案例来看,纾困还会引起股东和经理针对政府征用和不当解雇提起诉讼。我们的模型展示了政府如何设计税收资助的企业救助计划以矫正这些问题,并指出了现实中实施效率低下的原因,例如不良资产处置中的问题。最小限度干预的纾困措施主要取决于政府征用股东和解雇经理的能力。
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The Effects of Platform Most-Favored-Nation Clauses on Competition and Entry
平台最惠国条款对竞争和进入的影响
Andre Boik and Kenneth S. Corts
In the context of sellers who sell their products through intermediary platforms, a platform most-favored-nation (PMFN) clause is a contractual restriction requiring that a particular seller will not sell at a lower price through a platform other than the one with which it has the PMFN agreement. Contractual restrictions observed in markets for e-books and travel services, among other settings, can be viewed as examples of this phenomenon. We show that PMFN clauses typically raise platform fees and retail prices and curtail entry or skew positioning decisions by potential entrants pursuing low-end business models.
对于通过中介平台销售产品的卖家而言,平台最惠国(PMFN)条款是一种合同限制,卖家签订后承诺给予其他平台的定价不低于给予签订PMFN的平台的定价。这种合同限制条款在电子书和旅游服务市场有所体现。我们发现,PMFN条款通常会提高平台入驻费用和零售价格,并可能阻碍潜在的、追求低端商业模式的企业进入市场,或影响其定位决策。
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Corruption in Russia
俄罗斯的腐败
Günther G. Schulze, Bambang, Suharnoko Sjahrir, and Nikita Zakharov
We analyze the determinants of corruption in Russia using law enforcement data on corruption incidents for a panel of 79 Russian regions for the period 2004–13. We find that the relative salaries of bureaucrats determine corruption levels: corruption declines as relative salaries rise, yet at strongly diminishing rates. Furthermore, we show that even very limited media freedom helps to curtail corruption. Other important determinants are the strength of law enforcement, education levels, and unemployment rates.
我们基于2004至2013年期间俄罗斯79个区域中腐败案件的司法数据,分析了俄罗斯腐败的决定因素。我们发现,官僚的相对薪酬决定了腐败程度:腐败程度随着相对薪酬的增加而削减,但此种下降的速度却逐渐减缓。此外,我们也证明,即使是非常有限的媒体自由也有助于遏制腐败。其余的决定因素还包括执法力度、教育水平和失业率。
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Reducing False Guilty Pleas and Wrongful Convictions through Exoneree Compensation
通过无罪赔偿减少虚假认罪和错误定罪
Murat C. Mungan and Jonathan Klick
A great concern with plea bargains is that they may induce innocent individuals to plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. In this article, we identify schemes that reduce the number of innocent pleas without affecting guilty individuals’ plea-bargaining incentives. Large compensations for exonerees reduce expected costs associated with wrongful determinations of guilt in trial and thereby reduce the number of innocent pleas. Any distortion in guilty individuals’ incentives to take plea bargains caused by these compensations can be offset by a small increase in the discounts offered for pleading guilty. Although there are many statutory-reform proposals for increasing exoneree compensation, no one has yet noted this desirable separating effect of compensations. We argue that such reforms are likely to achieve this result without causing losses in deterrence.
辩诉交易的一个很大问题在于,它可能诱使无辜者对未犯下的罪行认罪。本文中我们确定了一些方案,可以在不影响有罪者认罪协商动机的情况下减少无辜者认罪的数量。对无罪释放者的巨额赔偿降低了与审判中错判有罪相关的预期成本,从而减少了无罪辩护的数量。这些补偿对有罪者接受认罪协议的激励所造成的任何错位,都可以通过少量增加认罪交易中的优待来抵消。尽管有许多关于增加被改判无罪者补偿的制定法改革建议,但这种分离效应却尚未得到关注。我们认为,这种增加补偿的法律改革很可能在不减损威慑的情况下实现这种结果。
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Economic Development and the Demographics of Criminals in Victorian England
维多利亚时代英格兰的经济发展和罪犯的人口统计
Chris Vickers and Nicolas L. Ziebarth
We use a data set consisting of felony trials in London from 1835 to 1913 to analyze changing demographic patterns in the commission of crimes. We find that the average age of offenders in London increased substantially more than can be explained through increases in longevity or jurisdictional changes. Moreover, this increase is larger for crimes committed for economic gain than for crimes of violence. We build a model to explain the increase in the number of older offenders. As industrialization proceeded, older workers increasingly found their human capital unsuitable to the technology level, which forced some into crime. We then complement this time-series analysis with cross-sectional data from England and Wales from 1870, 1883, and 1910. In the cross sections, areas with higher rates of urbanization and industrialization had higher average ages of criminals and disproportionately more criminals from medium-skilled, artisan occupations.
我们利用一个集合了1835年至1913年伦敦重罪审判的数据库来分析犯罪中不断变化的人口统计模式。我们发现,伦敦罪犯平均年龄提高,远远超出通过寿命延长或司法变革所能解释的范围。此外,为谋取经济利益而实施的犯罪比暴力犯罪的增幅更大。我们搭建了一个模型来解释老年罪犯数量的增加。随着工业化进程的推进,老年工人发现他们的人力资本越来越跟不上技术水平,这迫使一些人犯罪。随后,我们用英格兰和威尔士在1870年、1883年和1910年的截面数据来补充该基于时间序列的分析。城市化率和工业化率较高的地区,罪犯的平均年龄较高,中等技能劳动者、手工业的罪犯则不成比例地增多。
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Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan Bans
发薪日贷款禁令后的消费者借款
Neil Bhutta, Jacob Goldin, and Tatiana Homonoff
High-interest payday loans have proliferated in recent years; so too have efforts to regulate them. Yet how borrowers respond to such regulations remains largely unknown. Drawing on both administrative and survey data, we exploit variation in payday-lending laws to study the effect of payday loan restrictions on consumer borrowing. We find that although such policies are effective at reducing payday lending, consumers respond by shifting to other forms of high-interest credit (for example, pawnshop loans) rather than traditional credit instruments (for example, credit cards). Such shifting is present, but less pronounced, for the lowest-income payday loan users. Our results suggest that policies that target payday lending in isolation may be ineffective at reducing consumers’ reliance on high-interest credit.
近年来,高息发薪日贷款激增,也带动了对其监管的加强。然而,借款人如何应对这些规定在很大程度上仍然未知。基于行政和问卷的数据,我们从发薪日贷款有关法律的变迁来研究发薪日贷款限制对消费者借贷的影响。我们发现,尽管这些政策有效减少了发薪日贷款,但消费者却转向其他形式的高息信贷(例如典当行贷款),而非传统的信贷工具(例如信用卡)。这种转变在低收入的发薪日贷款用户群体中仍然存在,只是不太明显。我们的研究结果表明,仅仅修改发薪日贷款政策可能无法有效减少消费者对高息信贷的依赖
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原文链接:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jle/2016/59/1
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