The Economic Role and Emergence of Professional Valuers in Real Estate Markets

Land is a scarce resource. It is usually traded as real estate, an economic good with a market value. Often, this market value is not negotiated simply between the seller and the potential buyer, but is based on an assessment performed by a professional valuer, known as a surveyor or appraiser. This article questions the economic role and the emergence of valuers in real estate markets. An institutionally embedded framework for valuation intermediation is developed that elucidates a multi-tiered imperfect information cascade. First, valuers are understood as middlemen, counteracting information uncertainties regarding product quality, namely real estate herein. An additional constraint is constituted by information asymmetries between the valuer and the contractor. The contribution presents a conceptual integration of theories of price formation (and regulation) and theories of intermediation. Investigating new institutional economics concepts considering the emergence of professional associations and the specific formal and informal regulation of nature-related transactions, the contribution then discusses how the valuation professional with regularizations evolves as a superior institutional response to this cascade of information imperfections.

Examining the Legal Legitimacy of Informal Economic Activities

This article explains the disjuncture between formal parliamentary laws and norms of informal economic activities on the basis of a contextual and layered idea of legitimacy. This explanation clarifies a misunderstanding in certain scholarly and policy circles characterising informal economic activities as extra-legal or illegal. The idea of legal legitimacy helps explain divergent normative logics of formal and informal spaces while indicating that informal activities are not performed in a regulatory void. In addition to helping redefine the informal space, the idea also helps clarify the interaction between formal and informal regulation. By employing Jürgen Habermas’ analytical characterisation of society as constitutive of lifeworld(s) and system, and drawing on the empirical literature, the article argues that a cautious interpretation of Habermas’ analytical categorization helps explain the legality of the informal space. If formal laws need to become legitimate for the informal context, they must integrate the contextual standards of legitimacy recognized in the informal space.

Working Less, Not More in a Workfare Programme: Group Solidarity, Informal Norms and Alternative Value Systems Amongst Activated Participants

This article uses extensive ethnographic methods to explore the lived reality of a Danish workfare programme. The programme requires social assistance recipients to perform manual labour for their benefits at municipal work sites. The contrast between the political rhetoric that justifies the workfare programme and the lived reality of it is striking. While the programme is justified as a means to put the passive unemployed to work, there is a norm of working less, not more at the site. The participants spend most of their time waiting or conducting seemingly meaningless work assignments. However, over time, the majority of the participants begin to embrace this modus operandi at the site. This article answers this apparent paradox by turning to concepts from the anthropology of industrial work. Such concepts allow us to analyse how camaraderie exists amongst participants as well as work supervisors at the site. Particularly, the camaraderie is based on group solidarity, an informal regulation of work efficiency and an alternative system of value. Hereby, the article adds to previous findings on the ‘lived experiences’ of welfare recipients.

Part I The Conceptual Framework, 3 Regulating Multinationals

This chapter examines the interaction of multinational enterprises (MNEs) with the political communities in which they operate. It first maps the actors involved and identifies their respective roles and interests. The chapter then considers the effects of MNEs on home and host communities and economies. This involves ideological themes that have influenced the regulatory debate not only historically, but also for the present and future. The chapter also explores the principal levels and methods of regulation, discussing the relationship between formal regulation by state bodies and informal regulation by non-state actors; outlining the available sources of regulatory rules and practices; and assessing the choices of legal jurisdiction between the national, bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. Integrated global production, dominated by MNEs, has led to changes in international and national regulatory environments away from ‘investor control’ towards ‘investor promotion and protection’. At the same time, with the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the socialist system, there appears to be no serious alternative to the corporate capitalism espoused by MNEs, backed up by the ‘neoliberal’ system of market-led globalization. However, recent challenges to the ‘neoliberal’ ascendancy come from economic nationalism and protectionism as well as greater concern for corporate social responsibility and accountability.

The regulation of midwives in England, c.1500–1902

Throughout the 19th century, midwives were depicted as incompetent slatterns in both popular imagery and medical literature. We examine how, between 1500 and 1800, midwifery was regulated by a combination of formal licensing by the Church and informal oversight within the community. We argue that episcopal licensing demanded that midwives demonstrate knowledge and competence in midwifery, not only that they were spiritually fit to baptise dying infants. Although episcopal licensing lacked statutory authority, the symbiosis of formal and informal systems of regulation ensured good midwifery practice and midwives were regarded as experts in all matters relating to childbirth. The Midwives Act 1902 introduced statutory regulation of midwives, restoring their ‘professional status’ if in a subordinate role. We show that the history of the regulation of midwives across four centuries casts light on the interplay between formal and informal regulation and matters of gender and professional status.

Philosophical Approach to the Statutory Drafting

This article traces the relationship between the law-making process and narratives. Undoubtedly, how statutes are created is a constitutional question, yet the Constitution regulates only part of this process. Constitution or any statute does not regulate parts of the legislative process implemented by the government (mostly preliminary phases). However, they are important and influence the remaining parts of the law-making process. This government’s activity is the sphere of informal regulation hidden from the primary control of the public. This article explores the importance of the bureaucratic elements of the law-making process with emphasis on a narrative approach: narratives justify legislature. How can we overcome the two lines of narratives – one produced by global capital and the other represented by national experience?

Familie und Beruf: Vereinbarkeit durch Homeoffice? Soziologische und rechtwissenschaftliche Perspektiven

Zusammenfassung Arbeit im Homeoffice verspricht, berufliche und familiale Pflichten besser vereinbaren zu können. Die rechtspolitische Debatte um einen Rechtsanspruch auf Homeoffice wurde von der gegenwärtigen pandemiebedingten Ausnahmesituation nahezu überholt. Für viele Dienststellen und Unternehmen ist die Weiterarbeit der Beschäftigten im Homeoffice unverzichtbar. Trotz aller Chancen zeigen Untersuchungen, dass Homeoffice oft misslingt und als Flexibilisierungsstrategie auf vier Dilemmata trifft: (1) Anordnung vs. Freiwilligkeit; (2) Kontrolle der Arbeitsleistung vs. Privatheit, (3) reine Output-Orientierung vs. betriebliche Sozialintegration und (4) Arbeitsunterstützung vs. bloßes Zugeständnis. Unter Verweis auf empirische Untersuchungen wird aufgezeigt, unter welchen tatsächlichen Bedingungen sich welche Dilemmata verwirklichen bzw. wie diese verhindert oder positiv gewendet werden können. Im Anschluss werden der rechtliche Hintergrund umrissen und bestehende Regulierungslücken aufgezeigt. Der Beitrag schließt mit konkreten Vorschlägen für den weiteren empirischen Forschungs- und regulatorischen Handlungsbedarf. Abstract: Homeoffice As Solution For Reconciling Work And Family Life? Sociological And Jurisprudential Perspectives Home-based telework promises to reconcile work and family duties better than less flexible work arrangements. However, implementing home-based telework faces four dilemmas that have to be solved in one or the other direction: (1) unsolicited telework versus employer’s latitude to enact it; (2) the right of the employer to observe and control telework at home versus protection of privacy; (3) focus solely on results versus social integration through physical presence at the workplace; and (4) home-based telework as compensating differential versus career support. We give an overview of existing studies to highlight supportive conditions as well as pitfalls to implement home-based telework in ways that avoid negative consequences when solving these dilemmas. A specific focus is on the role of law and jurisdiction. Finally, we discuss solutions for a successful implementation and point to existing gaps at the levels of the legal, institutional and informal regulation of home-based telework.

The platform governance triangle: conceptualising the informal regulation of online content

From the new Facebook ‘Oversight Body’ for content moderation to the ‘Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorism and violent extremism online,’ a growing number of voluntary and non-binding informal governance initiatives have recently been proposed as attractive ways to rein in Facebook, Google, and other platform companies hosting user-generated content. Drawing on the literature on transnational corporate governance, this article reviews a number of informal arrangements governing online content on platforms in Europe, mapping them onto Abbott and Snidal’s (2009) ‘governance triangle’ model. I discuss three key dynamics shaping the success of informal governance arrangements: actor competencies, ‘legitimation politics,’ and inter-actor relationships of power and coercion.

How Can Regulation Help?

Chapter 2 explores how regulation might help to alleviate the burden on poor workers and reduce the incidence of informal work. Informal work is understood in this study as a regulatory problem or conundrum. The chapter explores insights and concepts from the regulatory literature in order reflect upon the reason why labour regulation is failing so many workers around the world, leaving them stranded in a state of informality. The chapter proposes, first, that traditional state-based labour law is not responding to the various forms of work that have proliferated in recent years. Second, it is not responding to advances in the structures of production and relations of distribution that work occurs within. Third, it is not employing tools that are appropriate to or effective in regulating new working relationships. And fourth, it is not creating incentives for compliance which overcome the countervailing disincentives which arise from private and informal regulation, culture, and informal institutions. Having established the problem, it then draws on various literatures to set up the conceptual framework for examining how institutional change could occur so that a more responsive labour regulation could be generated.