Law & Development Blog

Latin American Competition Law and Policy

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

In what is the most important book on the topic to date, Eleanor Fox (NYU - Law) and Daniel Sokol (University of Florida - Law) have edited the forthcoming Latin American Competition Law and Policy.  The book is an excellent collection of work from top academics and practitioners and covers many critical issues in the region.  You can download the table of contents here.

BOOK ABSTRACT: This book offers an unparalleled analysis of the emerging law and economics of competition policy in Latin America. Nearly all Latin American countries now have competition laws and agencies to enforce them. Yet these laws and agencies are relatively young. The relative youth of Latin American competition agencies and the institutional and political environment in which they operate limit the ability of agencies to address anti-competitive conduct effectively. Competition policy is a tool to overcome anti-market traditions in Latin America. Effective competition policy is critical to assisting in the growth of Latin American economies and their global competitiveness, and to improving the welfare of domestic consumers. This book provides new region-specific insights into how better to achieve these aims.  

Exporting Knowledge Through Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

I have a new working paper with Kyle Steigert (Wisconsin Agriculture and Applied Economics) titled Exporting Knowledge Through Technical Assistance and Capacity Building.  You can download it on SSRN.

ABSTRACT: With a significant increase in the number of countries with antitrust laws, technical assistance to improve the capacity of antitrust agencies has become a key priority for international antitrust aid efforts. Donors have assigned a significant amount of time and financial resources to technical assistance to raise the capacity and effectiveness of younger agencies. However, quantitative analysis of the impact of this technical assistance remains limited at best. In this article we focus on what appears to be a particularly important part of technical assistance and capacity building—the use of long term advisors (LTA) and short term interventions (STI).

In a year-long project, the International Competition Network surveyed its member antitrust agencies on antitrust technical assistance. The questionnaire contained over 1,000 questions on various aspects of technical assistance. We provide an analysis of the data using formal modeling. The most important findings from the model relate to two structural features of recipient antitrust agencies. First, recipient agencies absorb LTA and STI services best when the agency head has a rank of minister or higher and/or when agencies had prosecutorial discretion. At the heart of these agency features is the relative power position of the agency in the domestic political and economic structure of the country. Those agencies with a strong power base seem well positioned to receive the current formatted technical assistance involving LTAs and STIs. Second, bilateral donor relationships did remarkably better in helping the agencies with their strategic mission.

Update on Law and Development Blog Symposium

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

We have good news to announce regarding our Blog Symposium.  We are teaming with the Northwestern Law Review's online arm, the Northwestern Colloquy, to bring you our blog symposium.  What this means is that to work with the Law Review based on their production schedule, we will not post our symposium until September (after the work has appeared in the Northwestern Law Review).  However, we have already begun our internal discussions on Law and Development and the first set of posts have set up a discussion of really interesting topics to be discussed.

The Future of Law and Development

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

We are happy to announce a blog symposium on The Future of Law and Development coming soon.  There are many different conceptions of what "law" and "development" mean, let alone what "law and development" mean, and the current moment provides an opportunity to think about the directions the field is headed.  This online symposium will enable us to explore these themes in a cross-disciplinary context.
Our schedule for blog posts:

July 1 - Tom Ginsburg (Chicago) introduces the symposium and offers thoughts on the future of law and development.
July 2 - Salil Mehra (Temple)
July 3 - John Ohnesorge (Wisconsin)
July 5 - Katarina Pistor (Columbia)
July 6 - Anna Gelpern (American)
July 7 - Daniel Kauffmann (Brookings)
July 8 - Mariana Prado (Toronto)
July 9 - John Cioffi (UC Riverside)
July 10 - Susan Franck (Washington & Lee)
July 10 - Adam Feibelman (UNC)
July 11 - Kevin Davis (NYU)
July 11 - Brian Tamanaha (Wash U)
July 12 - Yuka Kaneko (Kobe U)
July 12 - Danny Sokol (Florida) provides thoughts and wraps up

Exporting Knowledge Through Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Let me plug my own recent work that I just uploaded onto SSRN - Exporting Knowledge Through Technical Assistance and Capacity Building.

ABSTRACT: With a significant increase in the number of countries with antitrust laws, technical assistance to improve the capacity of antitrust agencies has become a key priority for international antitrust aid efforts. Donors have assigned a significant amount of time and financial resources to technical assistance to raise the capacity and effectiveness of younger agencies. However, quantitative analysis of the impact of this technical assistance remains limited at best. In this article we focus on what appears to be a particularly important part of technical assistance and capacity building—the use of long term advisors (LTA) and short term interventions (STI).

In a year-long project, the International Competition Network surveyed its member antitrust agencies on antitrust technical assistance. The questionnaire contained over 1,000 questions on various aspects of technical assistance. We provide an analysis of the data using formal modeling. The most important findings from the model relate to two structural features of recipient antitrust agencies. First, recipient agencies absorb LTA and STI services best when the agency head has a rank of minister or higher and/or when agencies had prosecutorial discretion. At the heart of these agency features is the relative power position of the agency in the domestic political and economic structure of the country. Those agencies with a strong power base seem well positioned to receive the current formatted technical assistance involving LTAs and STIs. Second, bilateral donor relationships did remarkably better in helping the agencies with their strategic mission.

On the Limits of Legal Origins

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

One way to get at the limitations of the LLSV legal origins literature is to undertake a series of case studies that show the nuance of the different factors that affect economic growth.  The problem with case studies is that in political science, econ, finance and law literatures, case studies tend not to place so well even if they are very good.

Nevertheless, in spite of negative incentives on the part of at least some scholars to undertake this work, there is an emerging series of papers and articles that do the kind of deep digging that show the limitations of LLSV.  One recent such study is Institutions vs. Policies: A Tale of Two Islands by Peter Blair Henry (Stanford) and Conrad Miller (Stanford). 

ABSTRACT: Recent work emphasizes the primacy of differences in countries' colonially-bequeathed property rights and legal systems for explaining differences in their subsequent economic development. Barbados and Jamaica provide a striking counter example to this long-run view of income determination. Both countries inherited property rights and legal institutions from their English colonial masters yet experienced starkly different growth trajectories in the aftermath of independence. From 1960 to 2002, Barbados' GDP per capita grew roughly three times as fast as Jamaica's. Consequently, the income gap between Barbados and Jamaica is now almost five times larger than at the time of independence. Since their property rights and legal systems are virtually identical, recent theories of development cannot explain the divergence between Barbados and Jamaica. Differences in macroeconomic policy choices, not differences in institutions, account for the heterogeneous growth experiences of these two Caribbean nations.

Northeast Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) Conference on Development Economics

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

CALL FOR PAPERS
2009 NEUDC CONFERENCE
Tufts University, Medford, MA
November 7-8, 2009

The 2009 Northeast Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) Conference is a major forum in development economics. NEUDC has organized annual conferences in development economics since 1967. The location and sponsorship of the annual NEUDC conference usually rotates among the organizing institutions: Boston University, Brown University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Tufts University, Williams College and Yale University. The 2009 Conference will be hosted by Tufts University's Department of Economics and will be held entirely in the Cabot Intercultural Center at Tufts University. Cabot is located at 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155.

IMPORTANT DATES: August 3: Paper Submission Deadline Late September: Acceptance/Rejection Notification October 7: Early Registration Deadline October 16: Final Drafts Due October 30: Presentations Due

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Submissions can be processed electronically by registering through Tufts University NEUDC 2009 website at: http://ase.tufts.edu/econ/events/neudcConference.asp We welcome all papers that investigate topics in economic development. There will roughly be 26 sessions and we anticipate a total of 104 papers being presented. Only full drafts of papers will be considered. Please submit a paper with an abstract not exceeding 300 words for the August 3rd deadline. The abstract should include JEL codes. The final and complete version of all accepted papers must be received by October 16th. To ensure that all fonts, symbols, and equations appear the way they were originally typed, please submit your document in PDF format.

PAPERS ACCEPTED AS POSTERS: There will be space to display 20 posters during the conference dinner. In deciding whether to accept a submission as a conference paper or a poster, the selection committee will consider whether (i) the paper works well as a poster (its results that can be conveyed with a few striking graphs, figures, or tables) and (ii) the paper is too short for a full presentation. The committee will also reserve poster slots for papers that could not fit into conference sessions because of constraints of time.

PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS: Presenters should create presentations that can be displayed using a computer since other modes of presenting material, such as overhead projectors, will not be available. Again, to ensure that all fonts, symbols, and equations appear the way they were originally typed, please submit your document in PDF format. Although all conference computers will carry Microsoft's Power Point software, certain fonts may not be displayed as they were intended if the presentation was created using a different version of the software. Presenters and discussants must submit their presentations electronically before October 30th. Participants are strongly encouraged to bring a back up on a USB stick to the conference. Please use the following naming convention when submitting your presentations and discussions in advance: X_PRESENT_Y.pdf or X_DISCUSS_Y.pdf where X is your session number and Y is your last name.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Questions or for further information see our website at: http://ase.tufts.edu/econ/events/neudcConference.asp or contact us at: Email: MAILTO:neudc09@tufts.edu

Introduction

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Thank you Tom for the warm introduction.  I will blog in the coming weeks about the future of law and development and some emerging issues in law and development in my own field of antitrust.  Coming out soon is my book on Latin American antitrust, which is a great way to view the law and development process within the area of business regulation.  A number of features of antitrust have been transplanted from the EU and US to Latin America.  However, success of the transplants has varied due to local conditions.

Sokol on board...

We are pleased to have a new blogger join our ranks: Daniel Sokol of the University of Florida.  Daniel is one of the country’s leading young competition law scholar and is also very engaged in law and development issues, having both provided and studied technical assistance in several places.  I recommend his many papers available here. Of particular interest on this site may be the empirical study (with Kyle Steigert) of factors contributing to effective technical assistance, entitled An Empirical Evaluation of Long Term Advisors and Short Term Interventions in Technical Assistance and Capacity Building. Welcome, Daniel!

New paper by Greene

Norman L. Greene of Schoeman, Updike and Kaufman in New York has recently published an interesting article entitled Perspectives from the Study of International Development and the Rule of Law:  Are There Lessons for the Reform of Judicial Selection in the United States?  86 Denv. U L. Rev. 53 (2008).  The article makes the very interesting and important move of using the law and development lens to understand judicial selection processes in the United States, pointing out numerous problems with the system of judicial elections from a rule of law perspective.  This type of work suggests that the boundaries of law and development are by no means restricted to so-called developing countries.

Juries as an anti-corruption device

Brent White (Arizona) has a fascinating new paper here on the case for juries in emerging democracies.  His case study is Mongolia, one of my favorite countries.  The piece critically summarizes some of the latest approaches in rule of law work,and offers a novel suggestion. Highly recommended.

--TG

Abstract:

Scholars have theorized that rule-of-law reform in post-communist Central Asia and Eastern Europe has been thwarted by a Soviet legacy of disrespect for the law. These scholars argue that ingrained practices of nepotism, influence-peddling, and corruption have undermined formal institutions and left little room for the rule of law to grow. Thus, they argue, successful rule of law reform depends as much upon changing the beliefs that people have about the law as it does upon reforming legal institutions. This argument has resonated with rule-of-law aid practitioners, resulting in a proliferation of civic education programs in post-Soviet states designed to "foster a rule of law culture."

Using Mongolia as a primary case study, the article contests the assumptions underlying the civic education approach to rule-of-law reform. It also argues that, given the socio-political realities of many countries in which rule-of-law education programs have been implemented, they are not only likely to fail, but to lead to disillusionment, cynicism, and further disrespect for the law. In some cases, they also risk legitimating unjust laws and authoritarian regimes.

This article proposes an alternative to the rule-of-law project: Juries. Rule-of-law reformers have largely rejected jury systems on the ground that juries often disregard or cannot understand the law. Reformers have also feared that juries would discourage foreign investment by introducing just the type of uncertainty that "rule of law" is meant to prevent. This article responds that, in emerging democracies, certainty is less important than contextualized justice that reflects community values. It also argues that the deliberative process of jury decision-making promotes civic engagement, allows broader democratic participation in the law-making project, and may effectively check judicial corruption. Thus, juries may help restore faith in judicial institutions and lead emerging democracies closer to the rule of law ideal.

New work by La Porta and Shleifer on informal economy

Professors La Porta and Shleifer have a new paper on "The Unofficial Economy and Economic Development" available here. An abstract follows:

 

In developing countries, informal firms (those that are not registered with the government) account for about half of all economic activity. We consider three broad views of the role of such firms in economic development. According to the romantic view, these firms would become the engine of economic growth if not stopped by government regulation. According to the parasite view, informal firms, by avoiding taxes and regulations, unfairly compete with the more efficient formal firms and, by taking away their market share, undermine economic progress. According to the dual view, informal firms are highly inefficient, do not pose much threat to the formal firms, but also do not contribute to economic growth, which is driven by the efficient formal firms.

Using data from World Bank firm level surveys, we find that informal firms are small and extremely unproductive, compared even to the small formal firms, and especially relative to the larger formal firms. Compared to the informal firms, formal ones are run by much better educated managers. As a consequence, they use more capital, have different customers, market their products, and use more external finance. Hardly any formal firms had ever operated informally. This evidence is inconsistent with the romantic and parasite views, but supports the dual view. In this "Walmart" theory of economic development, growth comes from the creation of the highly productive formal firms. Informal firms keep millions of people alive, but disappear over time.

 

  

Asian Forum on Constitutional Law

This may be of interest to some blog readers...             Calling for Paper Abstract Submission Dear colleagues and friends, The Third Asian Forum for Constitutional Law 2009 is now calling for paper submissions. You are cordially invited to submit your paper abstracts to four call -for -paper sessions by May 15th, 2009. This forum has been a continuous effort for constitutional law scholars in the region to establish academic exchanges. This year, the third forum is organized by College of Law, National Taiwan University, to be held at our two grand new buildings located in main campus, Taipei, Taiwan on 25th and 26th of September. The conference theme of this year is on "Asian Constitutionalism at Crossroads: New Challenges and Opportunities." While constitutionalism already grew its roots in Asia; recent years have witnessed various degrees of incidents and crises that may threaten its firm grounds in Asian states. In addition to two plenary sessions with designated scholars, we include four other call-for-paper sessions to examine how judicial review functions with regard to today's new challenges. These sessions are: "Judicial Review and Social Cleavage" in exploring judicial complexity in social divisions, "Judicial Review and Political Crisis" in examining judicial involvement in political sensitive cases, "Judicial Review and Regional Human Flow" in investigating court (in)justice in human rights and "Politics of Judicial Appointments for Constitutional Courts" in understanding politics of judicial nominations and its impacts. Visit Paper Submission for further details on submission. This extraordinary event is a unique chance for scholars setting minds in Asian     Constitutionalism. We welcome all of you to submit your work on site. Notification will be emailed in early June upon acceptance. Sponsorship may be available on air flight or local accommodation based on needs, kindly refer to respective email for details.

Paper Submission While constitutionalism already grew its roots in Asia; recent years have witnessed various degrees of incidents and crises that may threaten its firm grounds in Asian states. Judicial review, in the meanwhile, requires extra care and attention while dealing with its people. This year, to examine how judicial review functions with regard to today's challenges, we openly invite devoted constitutional law scholars submit learned researches and papers on following sessions: "Judicial Review and Social Cleavage" in exploring judicial complexity in social divisions, "Judicial Review and Political Crisis" in examining judicial involvement in political sensitive cases, "Judicial Review and Regional Human Flow" in investigating court (in)justice in human rights and "Politics of Judicial Appointments for Constitutional Courts" in understanding politics of judicial nominations and its impacts. For complete descriptions please click on desired topic above. Guidelines for Abstract Submission. Deadline : May 15th, 2009 Submission method : online maximum words : Abstract/ 250 words keywords : not exceeding five Upon acceptance, notification will be emailed in early June. Sponsorship may be available on air flight or local accommodation based on needs, kindly refer to respective email for details. Please maintain a functional email address at all times.  Applicable to delegates whose abstracts have been accepted. Guidelines for Full Paper Submission Deadline                 : August 1, 2009 Submission method : email via admin@asianforum2009.tw Length                    : ca 8000words, including footnotes font                        : size 12, New Times Roman space                     : single format                    : Microsoft words document Cover page            : template available here Selected papers may be considered for publication in National Taiwan University NTU Law Review as symposium issues. Authors will be informed upon selection. Please see its website for reference http://www.law.ntu.edu.tw/ntulawreview/. Otherwise, authors retain copyrights in their papers and are free to submit them for publication elsewhere. No papers may be cited without prior permissions from the authors.

Registration Registration here is for non-presenters who wish to observe or participate in this forum. Registered participants are responsible for their own flight expenses and accommodation, and they should reserve so as early as possible to avoid any disappointment in space availability. For information regarding local hotels & inns please click here. For overseas participants, if you need a customized letter of invitation for visa applications, please state your passport details below; check Taiwan Immigration Department to see if an entry visa is required for you http://www.boca.gov.tw/mp?mp=2. In addition to personal information, please also list your dietary requirements if any, since lunch is served on the conference. For enquires on the forum, please contact the administrator in preparation to the third Asian Forum for Constitutional Law 2009 by email admin@asianforum2009.tw.

China in Africa redux

This morning's NY Times has an interesting piece on China's retrenchment in Africa.  Over the past few years, there has been a good deal of attention devoted to China's distinct resource diplomacy in Africa, purportedly free of the political strings attached by Western governments and banks.  Much of the trumpeted "guilt-free" Chinese investment took the form of loans to build infrastructure projects, secured against future revenues, but based on projections made when global commodity prices were high. Now that prices have dropped, some of the deals appear not to be so viable, and resentment is starting to build.  How quickly things change...

--TG

New paper on Brazil

"The Unseen Elephant: What Blocks Judicial System Improvement?" 

ROBERT M. SHERWOOD, Author - Consultant
Email: rmsherwood@attglobal.net

The contribution of judicial system performance to economic development has been actively probed in recent years. Yet efforts to improve judicial systems have faltered. This paper offers an explanation. It proposes that transacting within social networks has provided a seemingly workable substitute for reliance on judicial systems in Brazil and many countries. This prompts public indifference to judicial system improvement. At the same time, where social network transacting is widespread and dominant, it presents numerous obstacles to economic development.

Transactions costs economics provides tools for better understanding the characteristics, costs and extent of social network transacting. Relatively low costs are found for intra-network transacting, but trans-network transacting suffers. Constraints inherent in both social network transacting and in judicial dysfunction are reviewed for their negative impacts on both domestic activity and regional integration. Selected transactions costs economics literature is reviewed for a closer look at firm size and corporate governance in the context of countries like Brazil where judicial system dysfunction is found and where social network transacting is prominent.

A recently completed project inside the 400 state courthouses of the Sao Paulo regional tribunal is reported. It shows how close attention to administrative details can significantly improve judicial system performance.

The paper mixes real world observation with theoretical insights. It suggests that current explanations for sluggish economic development would be better served by increased awareness of social network transacting.

It suggests that research within courthouses at a deeper level of detail will advance understanding of the negative consequences of judicial system dysfunction on specific aspects of economic development.