Slavery versus Labor

Slavery has been a long-lasting and often endemic problem across time and space, and has commonly coexisted with a free-labor market. To understand (and possibly eradicate) slavery, one needs to unpack its relationship with free labor. Under what conditions would a principal choose to buy a slave rather than to hire a free worker? First, slaves cannot leave at will, which reduces turnover costs; second, slaves can be subjected to physical punishments, which reduces enforcement costs. In complex tasks, relation-specific investments are responsible for high turnover costs, which makes principals prefer slaves over workers. At the other end of the spectrum, in simple tasks, the threat of physical punishment is a relatively cheap way to produce incentives as compared to rewards, because effort is easy to monitor, which again makes slaves the cheaper alternative. The resulting equilibrium price in the market for slaves affects demand in the labor market and induces principals to hire workers for tasks of intermediate complexity. The available historical evidence is consistent with this pattern. Our analysis sheds light on cross-society differences in the use of slaves, on diachronic trends, and on the effects of current anti-slavery policies.

How do Fines and Their Enforcement on Counterfeit Products Affect Social Welfare?

We consider a differential game which models the competition between a genuine and a counterfeit producer. The genuine manufacturer acts as a leader, first announcing the price of the product and the investments in advertising. After observing the leader’s decisions, the counterfeiter sets the selling price of the fakes. We assume that the demand of the good is driven by the brand-name goodwill. We calculate the Stackelberg feedback equilibria and the social welfare, defined by the unweighted sum of the genuine and fakes consumers, the profit of the genuine firm, minus the enforcement costs borne by the social planner. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly we study the dependence of social welfare on the amount of the fines established in the IPR law and monitoring efforts. Then, we compare prices, profits and social welfare under Nash and Stackelberg framework.

The Impact of Contract Enforcement Costs on Value Chains and Aggregate Productivity

I study how supplier contracting frictions shape the patterns of intermediate input use and quantify the impact of these distortions on aggregate productivity. Using the frequency of litigation between US firms as a novel measure to capture the need for formal enforcement, I find a robust relationship between countries' input-output structure and their quality of legal institutions: in countries with high enforcement costs, firms have lower expenditure shares on intermediate inputs in sector pairs where US firms litigate frequently for breach of contract. A quantitative model shows that improvement of contract enforcement institutions would lead to sizeable welfare gains.

Najnowsze zmiany ustawy o postępowaniu egzekucyjnym w administracji

The Act on Administrative Enforcement Proceedings was adopted on 17 June 1966. The Act constitutes the basis of enforcement proceedings in administration and has been in force for the last fifty years. Despite many political and socio-economic changes during that period, the national legislature decided not to introduce any new legislation but simply modify the existing regulations. This study aims to describe and explain the amendments to the law on administrative proceedings which came into force on 1 January 2016. These amendments are connected with the solutions worked out in the model structures of tax administration organisations resulting from the enactment of the Act on Tax Administration of 10 July 2015 and require extensive discussion as they change the essential components of the procedure i.e. initiation of enforcement proceedings by creditors, exclusion of the Minister of Finance from the jurisdiction in the second instance in individual cases of enforcement procedure, the possibility of authorising local governments own organisational units to exercise the rights and obligations of the creditor and the enforcement authority, postponement of enforcement proceedings or enforcement actions, mandatory elements of an administrative enforcement title, the procedure adopted by an enforcement authority at the stage of examining the admissibility of an enforcement order, information rights of the enforcement authority, recognition of complaints regarding enforcement actions (general and connected with applying a specific enforcement measure) as well as the excessive length of proceedings and elimination of enforcement costs if creditors are tax offices or customs chambers.

Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Entrepreneurial Collaboration in Maritime Supply Chains

Smart contracts are scripts on the top of the blockchain technology. They represent a form of automation by what the layers of intermediaries can be reduced or even completely replaced. Accordingly, blockchain smart contracting systems decrease transaction and enforcement costs as well as process time. Moreover, we argue, blockchain and smart contracts can facilitate cross-organisational collaboration and their underlying business processes. Hence, they are able to support the integration of entrepreneurs and SMEs into trans-national supply chains by reducing high entry barriers and weakening the dominating position of big players. This paper discusses the research questions how blockchain smart contracting can facilitate the implementation of collaborative logistics structures and how the integration of SMEs into sustainable maritime supply chains can be safeguarded. The research bases on expert interviews and case studies. The results showcase the potentials of using blockchain smart contracting in the environment of trans-national and multimodal supply chains.

Civic Order and Contract Enforcement

This chapter looks at contract enforcement and transaction costs under the Roman Empire. The unification of the Mediterranean Basin by a single state ameliorated economic conditions in practical ways: monetary and metrological systems were standardized, removing costly barriers to trade. Legal rules were standardized as well, which held the potential for an even greater transaction-cost-reducing effect. However, without third-party enforcement, private means still had to be employed to enforce contracts. It is therefore not immediately clear why transacting parties would adopt the Roman legal system. The chapter then argues that contracts drawn up in accordance with imperial law and in the presence of witnesses were “publicly embedded,” which increased their enforceability and reduced enforcement costs. Indeed, this enforcement-enhancing effect was an “emergent property,” the result of legal, social, and ideological factors interacting in an undesigned and unintended fashion.

Najnowsze zmiany ustawy o postępowaniu egzekucyjnym w administracji

The Act on Administrative Enforcement Proceedings was adopted on 17 June 1966. The Act constitutes the basis of enforcement proceedings in administration and has been in force for the last fifty years. Despite many political and socio-economic changes during that period, the national legislature decided not to introduce any new legislation but simply modify the existing regulations. This study aims to describe and explain the amendments to the law on administrative proceedings which came into force on 1 January 2016. These amendments are connected with the solutions worked out in the model structures of tax administration organisations resulting from the enactment of the Act on Tax Administration of 10 July 2015 and require extensive discussion as they change the essential components of the procedure i.e. initiation of enforcement proceedings by creditors, exclusion of the Minister of Finance from the jurisdiction in the second instance in individual cases of enforcement procedure, the possibility of authorising local governments own organisational units to exercise the rights and obligations of the creditor and the enforcement authority, postponement of enforcement proceedings or enforcement actions, mandatory elements of an administrative enforcement title, the procedure adopted by an enforcement authority at the stage of examining the admissibility of an enforcement order, information rights of the enforcement authority, recognition of complaints regarding enforcement actions (general and connected with applying a specific enforcement measure) as well as the excessive length of proceedings and elimination of enforcement costs if creditors are tax offices or customs chambers.

A Quick and Inexpensive System for Resolving Digital Copyright Disputes

We have argued elsewhere that peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing posessignificant new challenges to the enforcement of copyright law. Copyrightowners' initial response to these challenges - to try to shut down thetechnologies that facilitate file sharing - is bad for society. Wesuggested that it would be preferable to lower enforcement costs forcopyright owners by making dispute resolution by copyright owners againstdirect infringers quick and cheap, so that copyright owners would be moreinclined to pursue such direct infringers instead of suing innovators.While enforcement costs are likely always to be too great to allow pursuitof every infringer, lower costs would allow for enforcement against moreinfringers, increasing any given infringer's chance of being sued. In thisarticle, we explain how such a dispute resolution system might work, andpropose a draft amendment to the copyright act to implement the system.