This paper brings about a conversation between Schumpeterian and Polanyian perspectives on markets and their central role in the capitalist economy. For Schumpeter, markets were critical to the process of selftransformation of economic activity, but in his vision, markets as such were largely taken for granted. Markets enabled the introduction of new processes and products equally as well as rendering economic activities obsolete, with the entrepreneur and firm as agents of change, generating new combinations of activities and driven by the (...) creative power of knowledge. Innovation and markets are jointly the engines of endogenous growth. For Karl Polanyi, by contrast, although markets were the central feature of the capitalist economy from the beginning of the nineteenth century, his main interest is the constant impulse for markets as institutions to expand into every aspect of social life and the countermovement of regulation to restrain what he sees as their essentially destructive nature. His focus is therefore on markets as instituted economic processes, driven by the double movement of regulation and de-regulation. He scarcely considers innovation in production or consumption, concentrating on institutions of exchange and distribution. The paper explores the two perspectives in order to ask the question that their confrontation raises: What is the relation between intra-market endogenous change and marketframework institutional change? To test out each perspective, a schematic “long-duration” empirical account of the United Kingdom food distribution markets is subjected to a Schumpeterian and Polanyian reading, and each is exposed for complementary deficits. A broader explanatory framework is sketched that proposes analysis of innovation in market institutions--especially processes exchange and distribution-- in combination with innovation in production and consumption. It is suggested that to explore the constant change of capitalist economies, these four economic domains each involve different orders of innovation and transformation that have complex feedbacks and interactions with each other. Rather than according primacy to one or other order of change, we require a complex causal account embracing multiple instituted economic processes.Cet article discute de la vision des marchés et de leur rôle central dans l’économie capitaliste selon Schumpeter et Polanyi. Pour Schumpeter, les marchés sont essentiels au processus d’auto transformation de l’activité économique, mais dans son approche il présuppose l’existence des marchés. Les marchés permettent l’introduction de nouveaux processus et produits et rendent en même temps les activités économiques obsolètes. Les marchés, avec l’entrepreneur et la firme comme agents du changement, créent de nouvelles combinaisons d’activités et sont dynamisés par le pouvoir créatif de la connaissance. L’innovation et les marchés sont conjointement les moteurs de la croissance endogène. Chez Karl Polanyi, en revanche, bien que les marchés soient un élément central de l’économie capitaliste dès le début du 19ème siècle, l’attention se porte sur le mouvement permament des marchés-institutions à s’étendre à tous les domaines de la vie sociale ainsi que sur le contre-mouvement de la régulation à limiter ce que Polanyi considère comme la nature destructrice des marchés. Son interêt se porte ainsi aux marchés comme des processus économiques établis, conduits par un double mouvement de régulation et de dérégulation. Il ne considère que rarement l’innovation de production ou de consommation, et se concentre sur les institutions de l’échange et de la distribution.L’article explore les deux visions afin de sinterroger sur ce que la confrontation des approches soulève comme question: Quelle est la relation entre les changements endogènes intra marché et les changements institutionnels de la structure de marché? Pour tester chacune des visions, un compte-rendu empirique sur longue période de la distribution alimentaire au Royaume-Uni est soumis à une lecture Schumpeterienne et Polanyienne.Un cadre explicatif plus large est esquissé et suggère une analyse de l’innovation des institutions de marché - particulièrement des processus d’échange et de distribution - conjointement à l’innovation de production et de consommation. Il est suggéré que pour analyser le changement permanent des économies capitalistes, il faut considérer les ordres d’innovation et de transformation de ces quatres domaines économiques qui connaissent des “effets de retour” ainsi des interactions. Au lieu d’accorder la primauté à un des ordres de changement, il est nécessaire de rendre compte d’une causalité complexe qui prend en compte des processus économiques multiples. (shrink)

This chapter argues for deregulation of the credit-rating market. Credit-rating agencies are supposed to contribute to the informational needs of investors trading bonds. They provide ratings of debt issued by corporations and governments, as well as of structured debt instruments (e.g. mortgage-backed securities). As many academics, regulators, and commentators have pointed out, the ratings of structured instruments turned out to be highly inaccurate, and, as a result, they have argued for tighter regulation of the industry. This chapter shows, (...) however, that the role of credit-rating agencies in achieving justice in finance is not as great as these commentators believe. It therefore argues instead for deregulation. Since the 1930s, lawgivers have unjustifiably elevated the rating agencies into official, legally binding sources of information concerning credit risk, thereby unjustifiably causing many institutional investors to outsource their epistemic responsibilities, that is, their responsibility to investigate credit risk themselves. (shrink)

The recent global increase in environmental regulation does not necessarily signal improvement in firms’ ecological imprints. Like many markets, the Arab world is struggling to implement environmental compliance measures among local firms. For Arab countries, the reliance solely on formal policies to improve local firms’ ecological footprints may be risky given the evident institutional challenges to enforce environmental regulations, specially post the Arab Spring. Drawing from the literature highlighting the merits of combining formal and informal controls to ensure successful (...) implementation of a strategy, we argue that the emphasis for regulation must be accompanied by an emphasis for developing environmental ethics of individuals, who are the expected implementers of any environmental policy. In that light, we propose that the Eco-Islam phenomenon can serve as an influential and effective foundation for building organizational cultures with stronger environmental ethics among local small and medium enterprises. We explain the underlying maxims of Eco-Islam then conduct qualitative research among experts preaching or practicing the concept to gain better insights into the potential of leveraging it in Muslim-majority Arab countries. Finally, we conclude with insightful implications for local SMEs in the region. (shrink)

Liberal market states promote the responsible consumption of potentially dangerous commodities. But the work of enforcing sumptuary law is in fact delegated to service employees in the private sector. In this article such work is termed sumptuary labor. Although the ability of states to privatize sumptuary enforcement is a remarkable accomplishment, it is by no means a seamless one. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among bartenders and casino dealers, the article elaborates patterned conflicts of interest that arise during the performance (...) of sumptuary labor. Both firms and workers may fail to ensure eligibility for consumption, prevent overindulgence, or guarantee the purity of the problematic commodity. The article concludes by theorizing how liberal market states manage the potential decoupling of sumptuary policy and practice. (shrink)

This essay provides a rationale for a regulated market for human oocytes. Although the commodification of human oocytes raises important moral concerns, these concerns do not justify laws banning commerce in human eggs. Given the burgeoning ART industry and the growing oocyte market, the most prudent course of action is to develop regulations for the human oocyte market that are designed to protect and promote important social values, such as health, safety, liberty, and respect for human life. (...) Other responses, such as banning the sale of eggs altogether or allowing donors to be compensated only for their services, would either create a black market or would lead to corruption and abuse. Society still needs to debate specific rules and policies that should govern the human egg market, but further discussion of that important task is best left to legislative bodies and other commentators. (shrink)

The view from inside improves our understanding on market failure and regulation failure in financial market. The EMH fails to understand the causes of financial bubbles and crashes. Behavioral finance introduces insight from psychology. The heuristic and biases approach studied behavioral asymmetry in static environment that leads to market irrationality and information distortion. The fast and frugal thinking in decision-making further explore more complex situation under changing environment. They argue that soft-paternalistic regulation is needed under (...) information overload. The most critical issue is information uncertainty and complexity. Lacking information in frequency domain is the main barrier in managing business cycles. Data form inside reveals current limitations of financial data mainly in the short-term price changes. Microstructure studies show that pricing process is shaped by trading rules. Quantitative analysis reveals severe instability in high frequency trading and derivative market. Feasible regulation should aim to encourage new technology and sustainable growth, rather than protect obsolete technology and short-term speculation. The most fundamental challenge to sustainable economic order is the excessive size of the derivative markets that crowding out investment in real economy. This is a more severe issue than the climate change. (shrink)

It is unclear what proper remuneration for surrogacy is, since countries disagree and both commercial and altruistic surrogacy have ethical drawbacks. In the presence of cross-border surrogacy, these ethical drawbacks are exacerbated. In this article, we explore what would be ethical remuneration for surrogacy, and suggest regulations for how to ensure this in the international context. A normative ethical analysis of commercial surrogacy is conducted. Various arguments against commercial surrogacy are explored, such as exploitation and commodification of surrogates, reproductive capacities, (...) and the child. We argue that, although commodification and exploitation can occur, these problems are not specific to surrogacy but should be understood in the broader context of an unequal world. Moreover, at least some of these arguments are based on symbolic rhetoric or they lack knowledge of real-world experiences. In line with this critique we argue that commercial surrogacy can be justified, but how and under what circumstances depends on the context. Surrogates should be paid a sufficient amount and regulations should be in order. In this article, the Netherlands and India are case examples of contexts that differ in many respects. In both contexts, surrogacy can be seen as a legitimate form of work, which requires the same wage and safety standards as other forms of labor. Payments for surrogacy need to be high enough to avoid exploitation by underpayment, which can be established by the mechanisms of either minimum wage, or Fair-Trade guidelines. An international treaty governing commercial surrogacy should be in place, and local professional bodies to protect the interests of surrogates should be required. Commercial surrogacy should be permitted across the globe, which would also reduce the need for intended parents to seek surrogacy services abroad. (shrink)

As countries around the world work to restrict unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children, the U.S. remains reliant on industry-self regulation. The First Amendment’s protection for commercial speech and previous gutting of the Federal Trade Commission’s authority pose barriers to restricting food marketing to children. However, false, unfair, and deceptive acts and practices remain subject to regulation and provide an avenue to address marketing to young children, modern practices that have evaded regulation, and gaps in the (...) food and beverage industry’s self-regulatory approach. (shrink)

Whilst India has been debating how to regulate 'surrogacy' the UK has undergone a major consultation on increasing the amount of 'expenses'paid to egg 'donors', while France has recently finished debating its entire package of bioethics regulation and the role of its Biomedicine Agency. Although it is often claimed that there is no alternative to the neo-liberal, market-based approach in regulating (or not) reproductive medicine--the ideology prevalent in both India and the UK--advocates of that position ignore the alternative (...) model offered by France's tighter regulation, as well as its overarching concern with protecting the vulnerable and ensuring social justice. Whilst the concepts underpinning the French model of regulation also have their provenance in Western political philosophy and not in the developed world, they embody a very different attitude and suggest that there is indeed an alternative to letting the market decide. However, even in France that alternative is highly contested. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to address the regulatory framework as one of the key factors determining the success of creation of single market for renewable energy. No one could possibly argue that non-discriminative and consistent legal regulation plays a big role in the creation of a single market. Therefore, the question of legal capability to create the single market for renewable energy and the overall quality of present regulatory framework is at the centre of (...) this article. Our objective is to analyse whether the single market for energy produced from renewable sources can be created under current legal regulation of the European Union Therefore, the first part of the article analyses the competence of the European Union to regulate the renewable energy sector and division of legislative powers between the Member States and the European Union. The goal of the first part is to answer the question whether the European Union has the competence to regulate renewable energy market. The second part of the article analyses the legal framework of measures for the promotion of renewable energy production used in each Member State. The goal of the second part of this article is to answer the question – whether all renewable energy producers are in equal competitive position, notwithstanding different legal frameworks of the Member States. (shrink)

In response to Eric Aarons' `Why Communism failed' (Dissent no. 4, 2001) it is argued that the present "capitalist" system is in fact so regulated as to be a hybrid of capitalist and socialist principles. It has some success in putting economic power into the hands of most people, though it needs restraint to cope with market failures.

When adopted in 1991, the French Loi Evin was pioneering as one of the first in the world to regulate alcohol marketing as extensively. This short contribution assesses whether it remains fit for purpose over 30 years later. To this effect, it assesses its main provisions, considers the legislative amendments that have ensued as well as the extensive interpretation French courts have given of its scope, before concluding that the prospects for its revisions are limited in the near future.

The article analyses the legal regulation of electronic marketing in the European context. The historical and teleological perspective on past and present regulations of electronic marketing is provided. Emphasis is given on the ability of the legal rules to preserve the balance of private and entrepreneurial interests, and the desirable principles of the regulation of the socially beneficial electronic marketing. The paper concludes that the harmonization of legal regulation of electronic marketing at the European Union level is (...) limited, which causes numerous negative consequences, such as jurisdiction shopping. Some countries (e.g. Finland) follow opt-out regimes for at least some types of electronic marketing, while other countries (including Lithuania) prohibit most forms of electronic marketing without the prior consent of the customer (opt-in). Thus, further regulation and harmonization of the electronic marketing law is suggested at the regional (the EU) and national level, along with more self-regulation and a balanced approach towards future regulation. (shrink)

The dominant understanding of political corporate social responsibility suggests new, broader political roles for businesses in the globalized economy, challenging the classical liberal social order. In this paper, we show how the major framing of the political CSR discussion not only challenges the classical liberal social order but also goes against the more general political economic perspective of the regulated market economy. We argue that this latter tendency of the political CSR discussion is its main weakness. We introduce a (...) Rawlsian reframing of political CSR that is in line with the idea of a global-regulated market economy and compatible with some of the basic global ethical aims of the political CSR movement. (shrink)

After two generations of emphasis on governmental inefficiency and the need for deregulation, we now see growing interest in the possibility of constructive governance, alongside public calls for new, smarter regulation. Yet there is a real danger that regulatory reforms will be rooted in outdated ideas. As the financial crisis has shown, neither traditional market failure models nor public choice theory, by themselves, sufficiently inform or explain our current regulatory challenges. Regulatory studies, long neglected in an atmosphere focused (...) on deregulatory work, is in critical need of new models and theories that can guide effective policy-making. This interdisciplinary volume points the way toward the modernization of regulatory theory. Its essays by leading scholars move past predominant approaches, integrating the latest research about the interplay between human behavior, societal needs and regulatory institutions. The book concludes by setting out a potential research agenda for the social sciences. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. Food production and farming are a key if troubling component of that challenge. Livestock production accounts for well over half of annual global consumption of antimicrobials, though the contribution of the sector to drug resistance is less clear. As a result, there is an injunction to act in advance of incontrovertible evidence for change. In this paper we engage with the role of market actors in (...) the precautionary regulation of farming practices and AMR threats. The paper takes the UK poultry sector as exemplary of an audit-led process that has, in recent years, achieved impressive reductions in antimicrobial use. Using qualitative interview data with farmers and veterinarians we chart the changing practices that have accompanied this reduction in treatments. We use this analysis to raise some cautions around audit-led systems of regulation. Audits can lock farms and animals into particular versions of farming and animal health; they can elevate harmful compensatory practices (including disinfectant uses); and they can reproduce an actuarial approach to an issue that does not fit the conventions of risk management. The paper presents the considerable successes that have been achieved over a short period of time in a livestock sector, while generating notes of caution concerning the audit-led management of livestock-related AMR threats. (shrink)

In this paper we examine some of the economic and ethical consequences of different credit market regulations, including usury laws, complete prohibition of interest and providing ease to the borrower upon default. The references to these credit market regulations can be found in many religious and moral philosophy texts. We first examine the effectiveness of these regulations in deterring exploitative lending by developing a model that shows lending can be regulated through either act-based or harm-based regulations. We show (...) that act-based regulations which comprise usury laws and complete prohibition of interest deter lenders more than harm-based regulations which constitute bankruptcy laws. We then analyze that while the regulations may deter certain forms of lending behavior, they may also create certain externalities by contributing towards inequity and societal risk. We propose that a regulator’s choice of implementing credit market regulations maybe dependent on her ethical commitment towards growth and reduction of inequity. We suggest the usury laws are more ethical than bankruptcy laws; however, discouraging the use of debt contracts through prohibition of interest and encouraging the use of risk sharing contracts maybe the most ethical way to regulate the credit markets. (shrink)

The proposed European Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) is the first attempt to elaborate a general legal framework for AI carried out by any major global economy. As such, the AIA is likely to become a point of reference in the larger discourse on how AI systems can (and should) be regulated. In this article, we describe and discuss the two primary enforcement mechanisms proposed in the AIA: the _conformity assessments_ that providers of high-risk AI systems are expected to conduct, and (...) the _post-market monitoring plans_ that providers must establish to document the performance of high-risk AI systems throughout their lifetimes. We argue that the AIA can be interpreted as a proposal to establish a Europe-wide ecosystem for conducting AI auditing, albeit in other words. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, by describing the enforcement mechanisms included in the AIA in terminology borrowed from existing literature on AI auditing, we help providers of AI systems understand how they can prove adherence to the requirements set out in the AIA in practice. Second, by examining the AIA from an auditing perspective, we seek to provide transferable lessons from previous research about how to refine further the regulatory approach outlined in the AIA. We conclude by highlighting seven aspects of the AIA where amendments (or simply clarifications) would be helpful. These include, above all, the need to translate vague concepts into verifiable criteria and to strengthen the institutional safeguards concerning conformity assessments based on internal checks. (shrink)

The Philippines is a global leader in deploying microcredit to address poverty. These programmes are usually directed at women. Research on these programmes focuses on traditional economic indicators such as loan repayment rates but neglects impacts on women’s agency and well-being, or their position in the household and relationships with their partners and children. It is taken for granted that access to microcredit leads to enhanced gender freedoms. In line with the growing body of work in feminist scholarship that critiques (...) the instrumentalist logic of microfinance institutions in relation to women, this research foregrounds stories from interviews with female borrowers in Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines to provide grounded illustrations of how microcredit is reshaping relationships between women and their families, women and poverty and women and the state. Borrowers used loans to meet their family’s needs even at the cost of harassment from creditors, indebtedness, increased workloads and conflict with partners. These narratives challenge the dominant neoliberal discourse of female empowerment through access to credit by exposing how microcredit is part of a complex set of regulations around ‘good motherhood’ and consumption, where women’s moral worth is based on their willingness and ability to lift their families out of poverty. (shrink)

The current system of organ procurement which relies on donation is inadequate to the current and future need for transplantable kidneys. The growing disparity between demand and supply is accompanied by a steep human cost. I argue that a regulated market in organs from living vendors is the only plausible solution, and that objections common to opponents of organ markets are defeasible. I argue that a morally defensible market in kidneys from living vendors includes four characteristics: (1) the (...) priority of safety for both vendors and recipients, (2) transparency regarding the risks to vendors and recipients, (3) institutional integrity regarding guidelines for cooperating with kidney vendors, and (4) operation under a rule of law. I conclude with some remarks on remaining problems with this account, and offer some suggestions as to how these problems might be addressed. (shrink)

The evidence reveals that young children are targeted by food and beverage advertisers but are unable to comprehend the commercial context and persuasive intent of marketing. Although the First Amendment protects commercial speech, it does not protect deceptive and misleading speech for profit. Marketing directed at children may fall into this category of unprotected speech. Further, children do not have the same First Amendment right to receive speech as adults. For the first time since the Federal Trade Commission's original attempt (...) to regulate marketing to children in the 1970s , the political, scientific, and legal climate coalesce to make the time well-suited to reevaluate the FTC's authority for action. This paper analyzes the constitutional authority for the FTC to regulate television food marketing directed at children as deceptive in light of the most robust public health evidence on the subject. (shrink)

In response to the obesity epidemic, much discussion in the public health and child advocacy communities has centered on restricting food and beverage marketing practices directed at children. A common retort to appeals for government regulation is that such advertising and marketing constitutes protected commercial speech under the First Amendment. This perception has allowed the industry to function largely unregulated since the Federal Trade Commission 's foray into the topic, termed KidVid, was terminated by an act of Congress in (...) 1981. The FTC has since focused on self-regulation as a potential solution to such concerns. However, this method of control has proven ineffective to protect children, and has led to growing recognition that federal regulation may be necessary.Since KidVid, the evidence has only mounted that children are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of advertising. Over the same time period, the exposition of commercial speech jurisprudence has plateaued, as the Supreme Court has not decided a pure commercial speech case since 2002. (shrink)

Democratic theorists, especially since the advent of the deliberative democracy paradigm in the 1980s, have focused primarily on relationships involving citizens and their political representatives, and have thus paid scant attention to the bureaucratic agencies within the modern state that are presumed merely to “flesh out,” implement, and enforce the decisions made by elected officials. This undertheorized space between markets and democratic decision making, in brief, is where corporations and other interested parties inter- act with regulatory agencies, their bureaucrats, and (...) the elected officials who are accountable for what governments do on their watch. How and why ought democratic governments to facilitate, regulate, or get out of the way of, markets and corporations in a so-called market democracy? We cannot possibly provide or defend a detailed answer to this question here. What we will attempt to do, however, is to make the case for why the question is too normatively and conceptually rich for political philosophers to continue to outsource it almost entirely to scholars in law and the social sciences. Although the tensions between lawmaking by bureaucrats and the ideals of representative democracy rarely merit more than a few sentences of abstract reflection by democratic theorists, we have tried to reconstruct the implicit assumptions that might explain this neglect. (shrink)

The article analyzes the changes of legal regulation on natural gas market in the context of the third European Union (EU) energy package. The paper consists of the introduction, two parts and conclusions. The first part analyses the main provisions on the natural gas market of the Third EU energy package. The second part of the paper focuses on the effect of the Third EU energy package on legal regulation of natural gas market in Lithuania. (...) For this purpose, the author analyzes the relevant provisions of the future legal regulation that are laid out in the Conception on draft amendment of the Lithuanian law on natural gas (the Conception) that was adopted by the Resolution of 19 May 2010 No. 585 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania (the Government). The author analyses the chosen model of implementation of the Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas of 13 July 2009 and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC (Directive 2009/73/EC), and the possible negative and positive consequences of the implementation of the model chosen by the drafters of the Conception. The paper is ended with motivated conclusions. (shrink)

Luke Semrau argues that the documented harms of existing organ markets do not undermine the case for establishing regulated systems of paid kidney donation. He offers two arguments in support of this conclusion. First, Semrau argues that the harms of kidney selling are straightforwardly amenable to regulatory solution. Second, Semrau argues that even in existing black markets, sellers would likely have experienced greater harm if the option of selling a kidney were not available. This commentary challenges both of Semrau’s claims. (...) I argue that there is no reason to believe that kidney sellers benefit from the current black market trade in organs, and highlight a number of potential issues regarding the effectiveness and feasibility of Semrau’s proposed market regulations. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emerging effect of mutual fund involvement on the agency problem between majority and minority shareholders during the pre-IFRS period in China indicated by earnings informativeness from an ethical perspective. We find that the presence of mutual fund hampers earnings informativeness implying that mutual funds in general, at their early stage in China, are not yet capable of serving as an effective monitor. This finding is in sharp contrast to the role of institutional investors in mature markets (...) as documented in the literature. However, mutual funds affiliated with banks have been found to be effective to improve earnings informativeness of Chinese listed companies, and the impact is more pronounced among those affiliated with joint-equity banks compared to their counterparts affiliated with state-owned banks. (shrink)

This article examines regulation’s understanding of technology in American financial markets as means for rethinking the contours and institutional limits of governance in the age of financialization. The article identifies how the Securities and Exchange Commission perceived markets and their conceptual relation to technology throughout much of the long twentieth century by distilling the “ontologies” expressed by the agency’s leadership. Despite the fact that SEC’s commissioners recognized technologies as playing a central role in the market’s current and future (...) operations, these were never effectively brought under regulatory scrutiny even when such action fell under the commission's jurisdictional remit. Rather than regulating technologies as constitutive of markets, the governance of the material devices of finance was discursively kept at arm's-length by presenting them as intractable objects that were external to financial innovation. Triangulating across several techniques of computational text analysis, this article shows how this interpretation of technology mirrored distinct shifts in how regulators understood markets, from being physical trading sites populated by agents that required vetting and certification to a distributed, multi-sited system surveilled through transparency and disclosure. Throughout these ontological transitions, technology’s inscrutability remained, limiting the capacity of the state and its regulatory agencies to shape the evolution of finance and its underlying infrastructures. (shrink)

An instrument of wealth accumulation and racial segregation in housing markets, the intersections between zoning and labor are often overlooked. Extending theories of space, race, and class, and drawing on historical and archival evidence, I elaborate three ways that American land-use zoning emerged to shape labor markets in the early 20th century: (1) zoning constrained households from engaging in subsistence and direct market activity, acting as a regulatory source of labor commodification; (2) zoning first emerged as a xenophobic tool (...) for regulating labor competition; and (3) zoning introduced racialized boundaries distinguishing formal work from a sphere of economic informality. I illustrate these theoretical-historical propositions with a study of the frontier origins of American land-use zoning laws in late-19th -century Los Angeles. This first and influential approach to residential zoning emerged amid racial dynamics of western settlement and the class politics of a national “free” labor market. I demonstrate how efforts to regulate the settlement and labor practices of poor urban households and Chinese immigrants on in Los Angeles became the direct legal basis for the dichotomous categories of “residential” and “industrial” districts that the city first defended before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915. By theorizing the intersections of land-use zoning and labor markets, this paper provides a theoretical framework and historical genealogy for future work to consider entanglements of housing and labor politics amid the concurrent flexibilization of work and land use in the present. (shrink)

This article contains an abstract of Dr. Sanjay Patnaik’s dissertation as well as a commentary essay on the research process in the appendix. In his dissertation, Dr. Patnaik examines the importance of the non-market environment for firm strategy and performance within the context of newly introduced regulations for greenhouse gases in Europe. The dissertation abstract contains a description of each dissertation chapter, including research questions, methodologies, and results. The commentary essay describes the author’s perspective on conducting research as an (...) emerging scholar. (shrink)

Public policy in post-apartheid South Africa has been characterized by a mix of state regulation and ‘neo-liberalism’. This article argues that this mix is rooted in the model of economic modernity adopted in South Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, and underpinned by the institutions of a modern state. In an economy transformed by mining and subsequent secondary industrialization, the state played a central role in facilitating capitalist growth, including through the regulation of labour. I argue that, contrary (...) to the conventional understanding, the enduring characteristic of the political economy of modernization in South Africa was not so much the mobilization of cheap African labour, mostly migrants from across Southern Africa, but was rather the institutionalization of high wages and protected incomes for economic, social and political insiders. Anglo-centric institutions and conceptions of industrial and social citizenship were adapted to the colonial context in South Africa. The imperatives of both gold-led capitalist industrialization and the governance of a society in which the settler or immigrant population remained a minority required that the African population was excluded from most dimensions of this citizenship. But the institutions, discourses and ideologies associated with high wages (for citizens) continued to structure economic life in South Africa through and after the apartheid period. South Africa’s mode of economic modernization thus reflects the possibly unique interaction of a British model of economic modernization with the social, economic and political realities of a colonial society. (shrink)

“Medical Tourism” is the travel of residents of one country to another country for treatment. In this article I focus on travel abroad to purchase organs for transplant, what I will call “Transplant Tourism.” With the exception of Iran, organ sale is illegal across the globe, but many destination countries have thriving black markets, either due to their willful failure to police the practice or more good faith lack of resources to detect it. I focus on the sale of kidneys, (...) the most common subject of transplant tourism, though much of what I say could be applied to other organs as well. Part I briefly reviews some data on sellers, recipients, and brokers. Part II discusses the bioethical issues posed by the trade, and Part III focuses on potential regulation to deal with these issues. (shrink)

“Medical Tourism” is the travel of residents of one country to another country for treatment. In this article I focus on travel abroad to purchase organs for transplant, what I will call “Transplant Tourism.” With the exception of Iran, organ sale is illegal across the globe, but many destination countries have thriving black markets, either due to their willful failure to police the practice or more good faith lack of resources to detect it. I focus on the sale of kidneys, (...) the most common subject of transplant tourism, though much of what I say could be applied to other organs as well. Part I briefly reviews some data on sellers, recipients, and brokers. Part II discusses the bioethical issues posed by the trade, and Part III focuses on potential regulation to deal with these issues. (shrink)

Present, as Manuel Castells (1996) notes, we live in the information age. Knowledge and the way it is acquired and processed are the driving forces of the economy, and information processing systems are the strength of economies. The aim of this article is to identify the key role of the information supply phenomenon in contemporary socio-economic processes. The initial part of the article will define such concepts as: information, infodemia, information market, in the further part examples of the use (...) of information in the process of forming social behaviour in the market context will be presented. For this purpose, three major economic crises from the turn of the 20th and 21st century will be used cross-sectionally. The first will be described as the dot-com crisis, i.e. the first global Internet players, which led to the collapse or loss of value of many global Internet platforms through the creation and bursting of a speculative bubble. The second crisis described below was related to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a leading US bank, and the US housing crisis. In the above case, both supply and concealment of information in the public sphere could be observed. The last crisis described is the crisis related to the SARS-COV2 pandemic, in which dis- and mis- information activities proved to be crucial. (shrink)

Background: It is often claimed that a regulated kidney market would significantly reduce the kidney shortage, thus saving or improving many lives. Data are lacking, however, on how many people would consider selling a kidney in such a market. Methods: A survey instrument, developed to assess behavioural dispositions to and attitudes about a hypothetical regulated kidney market, was given to Swiss third-year medical students. Results: Respondents’ median age was 23 years. Their socioeconomic status was high or middle. (...) 48 considered selling a kidney in a regulated kidney market, of whom 31 would sell only to overcome a particularly difficult financial situation. High social status and male gender was the strongest predictor of a disposition to sell. 32 of all respondents supported legalising a regulated kidney market. This attitude was not associated with a disposition to sell a kidney. 5 respondents endorsed a market and considered providing a kidney to a stranger if and only if paid. 4 of those 5 would sell only under financial duress. Conclusions: Current understanding of a regulated kidney market is insufficient. It is unclear whether a regulated market would result in a net gain of kidneys. Most possible kidney vendors would only sell in a particularly difficult financial situation, raising concerns about the validity of consent and inequities in the provision of organs. Further empirical and normative analysis of these issues is required. Any calls to implement and evaluate a regulated kidney market in pilot studies are therefore premature. (shrink)

Joseph Heath lumps in quotas and protectionist measures with cartelization, taking advantage of information asymmetries, seeking a monopoly position, and so on, as all instances of behavior that can lead to market failures in his market failures approach to business ethics. The problem is that this kind of rent and rent seeking, when they fail to deliver desirable outcomes, are better described as government failure. I suggest that this means we will have to expand Heath’s framework to a (...) market and government failures approach. I then try to defuse objections that as a government failure, rent seeking may not appear relevant to what managers ought to do. Solving this conceptual issue will also give us an excuse to revisit a separate conceptual issue: the normatively thick conception of “rent” and rent seeking behavior that some use. This normatively thick conception is problematic, I argue, and I offer the beginnings of a novel, normatively neutral conception that is useful for our purposes in making the ethics of rent and rent seeking behavior more than a merely trivial exercise. (shrink)

Advocates of paid living kidney donation frequently argue that kidney sellers would benefit from paid donation under a properly regulated kidney market. The poor outcomes experienced by participants in existing markets are often entirely attributed to harmful black-market practices. This article reviews the medical and anthropological literature on the physical, psychological, social, and financial harms experienced by vendors under Iran's regulated system of donor compensation and black markets throughout the world and argues that this body of research not (...) only documents significant harms to vendors, but also provides reasons to believe that such harms would persist under a regulated system. This does not settle the question of whether or not a regulated market should be introduced, but it does strengthen the case against markets in kidneys while suggesting that those advocating such a system cannot appeal to the purported benefits to vendors to support their case. (shrink)