Impacts of Private Prison Contracting on Inmate Time Served and Recidivism

This paper examines the impact of private prison contracting by exploiting staggered prison capacity shocks in Mississippi. Motivated by a model based on the typical private prison contract that pays a per diem for each occupied bed, the empirical analysis shows that private prison inmates serve 90 additional days. This is alternatively estimated as 4.8 percent of the average sentence. The delayed release erodes half of the cost savings offered by private contracting and is linked to the greater likelihood of conduct violations in private prisons. The additional days served do not lead to apparent changes in inmate recidivism. (JEL H76, K42)

Private Contracting and Citizen Attitudes Toward Local Government

Lawmakers use privatized service delivery to simultaneously maintain low taxes while also satisfying citizen demands for high-quality public goods and services. However, what effect does private contracting have on people’s attitudes toward local government? I design a survey experiment that tests how public–private collaborations alter how people attribute responsibility to government for the successes and failures of the delivery of goods and services. I show that private contracting makes it less likely that people will connect public services to government, which erodes their evaluations of government performance and the feeling that local government represents their interests. Moreover, I show that citizens are also more likely to blame local government for private service delivery failures than they are to praise it for private service delivery successes. This asymmetry in responsibility attribution makes it difficult for local governments to build support among its citizens when it relies on private contracting.

Navíos para un imperio global: la construcción naval y la matrícula de mar en España, América y Filipinas durante el largo Siglo XVIII (1670-1834) = Warships for a Global Empire: Shipbuidling and the Maritime Registry in Spain, America and the Philippines during the Long Eighteenth Century (1670-1834)

El presente estudio tiene el propósito de analizar la política industrial desarrollada por la monarquía hispánica para la producción de buques de guerra durante un largo siglo XVIII comprendido entre 1670 y 1834. Su hipótesis fundamental es que una de las claves para completar nuestro conocimiento sobre la naturaleza de los sistemas administrativos de la construcción naval es la relación del Estado y la iniciativa empresarial con la mano de obra especializada, encuadrada en el marco normativo de la Matrícula de Mar. Esta línea interpretativa intersecta con el debate historiográfico dedicado a la alternativa asiento/administración directa como clave para comprender la importancia de la construcción naval en el proceso de construcción del Estado moderno. La conexión se encuentra en que la tendencia legislativa de la corona consistió, primero, en militarizar la mano de obra especializada por medio de la inclusión en la matrícula y, posteriormente, en concentrar los contratos de construcción naval exclusivamente en individuos matriculados. Esto representa una diferencia estructural entre el contratista de principios del siglo XVIII, encargado de una multiplicidad de procesos productivos, y aquél de finales de la centuria, responsable únicamente de la movilización y administración de una mano de obra previamente militarizada. De manera paralela, este estudio busca integrar la dimensión asiática de la construcción naval española, no de manera tangencial, sino como un componente fundamental y prioritario del reformismo borbónico en las industrias estratégicas.AbstractThe purpose of the present article is to outline the industrial policies developed by the Spanish Monarchy for the production of warships during the long Eighteenth century (1670-1834), in Spain, America and the Philippines. Its main hypothesis is that an important element to complete our understanding of the administrative systems of Spanish naval shipbuilding is the relationship between the State, the entrepreneurs dedicated to this aspect of the armaments industry, and the specialised workforce recruited through the registry of maritime professions known as Matrícula de Mar. This line of argumentation intersects with the historiographical debate dedicated to understand the State-building process of imperial Spain through the two main administrative methods employed in its armaments industries (private contracting and direct state administration). The Matrícula de Mar allowed the Spanish crown to create new militarised corporations of shipbuilding workers and, from the last third of the Eighteenth century it followed a consistent policy of concentrating the shipbuilding contracts on small-scale entrepreneurs belonging to these corporations. This had important implications for the meaning of the alternative between private contracting and direct state administration. The article also details the peculiarities of shipbuilding administration in Spanish America and Asia, through the expansion of the Matrícula de Mar.

Private Contracting, Law and Finance

In the late nineteenth century Britain had almost no mandatory shareholder protections, but had very developed financial markets. We argue that private contracting between shareholders and corporations meant that the absence of statutory protections was immaterial. Using approximately 500 articles of association from before 1900, we code the protections offered to shareholders in these private contracts. We find that firms voluntarily offered shareholders many of the protections that were subsequently included in statutory corporate law. We also find that companies offering better protection to shareholders had less concentrated ownership. Received August 19, 2016; editorial decision October 24, 2018 by Editor David Denis. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

-Son Değişiklikler Kapsamında- Kamu Hizmeti İmtiyaz Sözleşmeleri Uyuşmazlıklarında “Tahkim” / -In the Context of the Recent Amendments- "Arbitration" In Public Service Concession Agreement Disputes

<p><strong>ABSTRACT </strong></p><p>Public law concession agreements, contracts between administrative and private law real or legal entities. Contracts aimed at ensuring the provision of services without undergoing high financial "burdens". In the case of disputes concerning public service concession agreements, preference is given to the settlement disputes with arbitral jurisdiction rather than settlement of court disputes, usually by private contracting parties. In our work, firstly we will give information about the concept of public service concession agreement and arbitration, then, in the Turkish administrative law, the "obstruction of arbitration", which will rule until 1999, and the elimination of the ban will be discussed. Later, the elements and procedure of the arbitration will be examined in detail in the context of "recent changes", followed by the determination of the substantive rules of law to be applied to the merits of the dispute in the arbitration proceedings, and finally, to be given information about the decisions to be made on the basis of the arbitration proceedings.</p><p><strong>ÖZ</strong></p><p>Kamu hukuku imtiyaz sözleşmeleri, idare ve özel hukuk gerçek ya da tüzel kişileri arasında akdedilen ve idarenin, teknoloji, iş gücü vb. konularda, yüksek mali “yük”ler altına girmeksizin, hizmet sağlanmasını amaçlayan sözleşmelerdir. Kamu hizmeti imtiyaz sözleşmeleri ile ilgili söz konusu olabilecek uyuşmazlıklarda ise, sözleşmeye taraf özel hukuk kişilerince, genellikle, mahkemelerce uyuşmazlığın çözümü yerine, tahkim yargılaması ile uyuşmazlığın çözümü tercih edilmektedir. Çalışmamızda, öncelikle, kamu hizmeti imtiyaz sözleşmesi ve tahkim kavramları hakkında bilgi verilecek, ardından, Türk idare hukukunda, 1999 yılına kadar egemen olan “tahkim yasağı” ve yasağın bertaraf edilmesi hususları ele alınacaktır. Sonrasında ise, tahkim yargılamasının unsurları ve usulü detaylı olarak, “son değişiklikler kapsamında” incelenecek, ardından, tahkim yargılamasında ihtilafın esasına uygulanacak maddi hukuk kurallarının tespiti ve son olarak da, tahkim yargılaması neticesinde hükmolunacak kararların icrası hakkında bilgi verilecektir.</p>

Using Private Contracts for Climate Change Mitigation

Regulation of climate change is caught up in a stalemate. Differences between developed and developing countries prevent reaching an international agreement. Transnational private regulation has unclear legitimacy, effectiveness and enforcement. National efforts are valuable, but their limited geographical reach creates incentives for companies to outsource environmentally heavy activities to countries with weaker regimes, the socalled “carbon leakage” effect. As a result the carbon emissions among international supply chains amount to multiple yearly emissions of some developed countries. This gap needs to be closed if we aim for effective global solutions to climate change. The majority of scholars agree that no single regulatory tool alone can remedy the situation, but that a combination of public and private, mandatory and voluntary regimes is necessary. The author proposes that supply chain contracts are the missing piece in the international climate change regulatory matrix. The article discusses why, despite their potential, supply chain contracts have hitherto experienced only little attention and why they can be successful where other regulation fails. It concludes that the potential of private contracting should be triggered by adequate regulation.