Suchergebnisse

Údajné manželstvo medzi rímskym vojvodcom Marcom Antoniom a egyptskou kráľovnou Kleopatrou by mohlo predstavovať vynikajúci námet na prípadovú štúdiu zo starovekého manželského práva, ktorá by bola navyše spestrená o právne eventuality priamo zo života. Tento článok sa pokúsi aspoň čiastočne o rozpracovanie uvedenej myšlienky. Na základe historického a filologického výskumu predostrieme právnu a romanistickú analýzu ich vzájomného spolužitia, ktoré vykazovalo prvok medzinárodnosti, pričom zároveň poukážeme na zopár právnych inštitútov spojených s ich príbehom (napr. darovanie štátneho územia, právny režim bigamie a ďalšie otázky).

This paper analyses grading competition between instructors of elective courses when students shop for high course scores, the instructors maximize class size, and the school imposes a ceiling on mean course scores to limit grade inflation. We demonstrate that curriculum flexibility (more listed courses or fewer required courses) intensifies the competition: in particular, top scores increase. To tame incentives to provide large scores, we suppose that the school additionally introduces a top‐score grading policy. We consider three regimes. First, the school caps top scores. Then grading competition segregates students into a concentrated group of achievers and a dispersed group of laggards. This effect extends to constraints on scores at lower quantiles. Second, the school normalizes the range of scores by adjusting the mean‐score ceiling. On normalization, scores of a less flexible curriculum first‐order stochastically dominate scores of a more flexible curriculum. Hence all students prefer rigid curricula. Third, the school requires that the mean score is evaluated for enrolled students instead of a representative sample of students. Then the instructors stop competing for students, which introduces assortative inefficiencies. Overall, we show that addressing grade inflation through grading policies may generate inequalities, rigidities and inefficiencies.

Príspevok poukazuje na eventuálnu zodpovednosť žalobcu za dolózne konanie, ktorým by sa pokúšal negatívne ovplyvniť priebeh rímskeho trestného procesu s cieľom mariť výkon spravodlivosti. Bližšie analyzuje skutkové podstaty troch trestných činov, ktoré mali chrániť riadny priebeh trestného konania. Išlo jednak o zamedzenie krivého obvinenia, aby žalobami neboli zaťažovaní nevinní ľudia. Ak podaná žaloba vykazovala v tomto smere prvky adresnosti, žalobca bol povinný svoju úlohu zastávať svedomito a nenadržiavať z istých príčin obžalovanému, inak by sa dopustil trestného činu nepoctivej žaloby. Napokon by bol žalobca potrestaný za rozpačitosť, ak by svoju žalobu v priebehu procesu opustil tým, že by vo veci nevykonával žiadne procesné úkony.

We explain Tullock's puzzle of small payments from special interests to policy‐makers by the hold‐up problem between the two parties. We construct a simple lobbying environment where an uninformed policy‐maker is a price‐setter who sells access to two opposed and privately informed lobbyists. The key equilibrium property is "the curse of the ex ante favored lobbyist"; the lobbyist proposing a project with the higher expected public value ends up worse off than the lobbyist proposing a project with the lower expected public value. In the absence of contribution caps, the ex ante favored lobbyist strategically devalues her project, and the resulting competitive devaluations destroy private values, revenues, as well as correlated public values. Ex ante, the policy‐maker benefits from a binding contribution cap protects the ex ante favored lobbyist, eliminates competitive devaluations, and thus remedies the hold‐up problem.

AbstractWe study a game in which a lobby with verifiable private evidence discloses her evidence to a policy-maker if and only if she agrees to a transfer that is proposed by the policy-maker. This setting is motivated by the literature of pay-and-lobby politics, which finds that politicians schedule informative meetings with lobbyists on the basis of their campaign contributions. We admit both positive transfers (fees) and negative transfers (compensations), which implies not only that the policy-maker can commit to not listen but also that the lobby can commit to not talk. In a binary action space, we solve the game for all timings, prior beliefs, information structures, and valuation parameters. We identify the settings in which the policy-maker strategically discourages the lobby's participation by announcing an unacceptable transfer. Whether 'burying one's head in the sand' increases or decreases welfare depends on the degree of the policy-maker's benevolence.

We study a game in which a sender with verifiable private information has to pay an access fee that is announced by a receiver to be able to convey her message to the receiver. The setting is motivated by the literature of pay-and-lobby politics, which finds that politicians decide to schedule informative meetings with lobbyists on the basis of their campaign contributions. We solve the game for all timings, prior beliefs, and noise and valuation parameters. We identify the receiver's tradeoff between the amount of information and the amount of revenue. At the tradeoff, the receiver decides to not receive an informative signal from the sender. Whether 'burying one's head in the sand' increases or decreases welfare depends on the degree of the receiver's benevolence.

The Anglo-American double-member districts employing plurality-at-large are frequently criticized for giving a large majority premium to a winning party, since the large premium may decrease proportionality of the elected assembly relative to single-member districts. We demonstrate that the premium stems from a limited degree of voters' discrimination associated with only two positive votes on the ballot. To enhance voters' ability to discriminate, we consider alternative electoral rules that give voters more positive and negative votes. We identify strict voting equilibria of several alternative rules in a situation where candidates differ in binary ideology and binary quality, voters' ideology-types are binomially distributed, voters are strategic, and a candidate's policy is more salient than candidate's quality. The most generous rules such as approval voting and combined approval-disapproval voting only replicate the electoral outcomes of plurality-at-large. The best performance in a double-member district is achieved by a rule that assigns two positive votes and one negative vote to each voter (2+1 rule). Under a strict and sincere pure-strategy equilibrium of the 2+1 rule, the second largest group frequently wins the second seat and high-quality candidates gain seats more likely than low-quality candidates. The 2+1 rule increases the scope for a voter's discrimination while avoiding the underdog effects and overstating of preferences associated with an unrestricted number of negative votes.

This survey covers recent literature on lobbying, with particular focus on corporate lobbying. Three main research traditions – contests for policy rent, persuasion games, and multiple means models - are analyzed in detail. Various strategic aspects of lobbying are presented in the context of a single unified model that encompasses both strategic communication and monetary contributions. Next, the review investigates into three particular issues in the lobbying literature: (i) Incentive to lobby and the equilibrium amount of lobbying, both in the presence and absence of competitors, (ii) strategic substitution and complementarity of lobbying and contributions, and (iii) the role of intermediation in lobbying. Recent evidence from corporate lobbying is presented.