Consistency in Organization (updated)

Internal organization relies heavily on psychological consistency requirements. This thought has been emphasized in modern compensation theory, but has not been extended to organization theory. The perspective sheds new light on several topics in the theory of the firm, like the boundaries of the firm, the importance of fairness concerns within firms, the attenuation of incentives, or the role of routines and incentives. It implies a perceptional theory of the firm that is realistic in the sense advocated by Ronald Coase (1937).disruptive technologies, skunkworks, ownership effect, fairness, employment relationship, Simon, theory of the firm, hierarchy, evolutionary theory of the firm, perceptional theory of the firm, consistency, small numbers, Williamson’s puzzle, centralization paradox, compensation, boundaries of the firm, fairness, idiosyncratic exchange, entitlements, obligations, routines, framing, Tayloristic organization, holistic organization

The Customary International Law Supergame: Order and Law

Customary international law is an enigma. It is produced by the decentralized actions of states, and it generally lacks centralized enforcement mechanisms. Political science realists and some rationalist legal scholars argue that customary international law cannot affect state behavior: that it is “epiphenomenal.” This article develops a model of an n-player prisoner’s dilemma in the customary international law context that shows that it is plausible that states would comply with customary international law under certain circumstances. These circumstances relate to: (i) the relative value of cooperation versus defection, (ii) the number of states effectively involved, (iii) the extent to which increasing the number of states involved increases the value of cooperation or the detriments of defection, including whether the particular issue has characteristics of a commons problem, a public good, or a network, (iv) the information available to the states involved regarding compliance and defection, (v) the relative patience of states in valuing the benefits of long-term cooperation compared to short-term defection, (vi) the expected duration of interaction, (vii) the frequency of interaction, and (viii) whether there are also bilateral relationships or other multilateral relationships between the involved states. One implication of this model is to lend credence to customary international law. From a research standpoint, this model identifies a number of parameters for which data may be developed in order to test the model. From a policy standpoint, this model shows what types of contexts, including malleable institutional features, may affect the ability of states to reach stable and efficient equilibria in their customary international law relations.

COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe

A Global Labour Constitution?

This article explores the argument that the idea of the labour constitution, as developed by Hugo Sinzheimer, offers a useful perspective for thinking about labour law today. With reference to the work of Wolfgang Streeck and Karl Polanyi, it highlights the potential benefits of the labour constitution as a framework for analysis. With a view to developing and updating Sinzheimer’s blueprint for a – national – labour constitution, it then engages with two lines of theoretical enquiry into the nature of constitutionalism under conditions of advanced economic globalisation. It concludes by outlining an agenda for further research, informed and inspired by the idea of a global labour constitution

Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach

Cooperation is of utmost importance to society as a whole, but is often challenged by individual self-interests. While game theory has studied this problem extensively, there is little work on interactions within and across groups with different preferences or beliefs. Yet, people from different social or cultural backgrounds often meet and interact. This can yield conflict, since behavior that is considered cooperative by one population might be perceived as non-cooperative from the viewpoint of another. To understand the dynamics and outcome of the competitive interactions within and between groups, we study game-dynamical replicator equations for multiple populations with incompatible interests and different power (be this due to different population sizes, material resources, social capital, or other factors). These equations allow us to address various important questions: For example, can cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma be promoted, when two interacting groups have different preferences? Under what conditions can costly punishment, or other mechanisms, foster the evolution of norms? When does cooperation fail, leading to antagonistic behavior, conflict, or even revolutions? And what incentives are needed to reach peaceful agreements between groups with conflicting interests? Our detailed quantitative analysis reveals a large variety of interesting results, which are relevant for society, law and economics, and have implications for the evolution of language and culture as well

Delegation and efficiency: comparison of Telecom Single Market negotiations under the Italian and Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU

This thesis aims to study why some Member States are more efficient in mediating the negotiations during the Presidency of the Council of the European Union than others. To fill the gap in current academic research, the emphasis is put on how the model of coordination between the presiding country’s capital and Permanent Representation in Brussels affects the performance of the Presidency. Rational choice institutionalism provides the opportunity to conceptualise efficiency of the Presidency as the advancement of the negotiations on a priority initiative, rather than protection of national preferences as defined conventionally. The principal-agent model offers the necessary analytical tools to examine different models of coordination for European Union policies. This theoretical approach provides also the adequate analytical tools to study the link between model of coordination and efficiency of the Presidency, leading to the hypothesis that Brusselsbased Presidencies are more efficient in leading the negotiations on a priority initiative than the Presidencies that have adopted capital-based models. In the empirical part of the study qualitative comparative method is used to compare the performance of Italian and Latvian Presidencies in advancing the negotiations on Telecom Single Market proposal. The analysis of written documents and input from interviews indicate quite clearly that Latvian Presidency was much more efficient in its role as the mediator of the negotiations on this dossier. The findings also demonstrate that there is significant variation in the adopted model of coordination. Whereas Italy opted for a capital-based Presidency, Latvian Presidency was Brussels-based. To large extent the assumptions presented in the theoretical part of the thesis were confirmed. The Latvian Brussels-based Presidency was able to make decisions much faster and on spot, whereas Italian Permanent Representation had to endure extensive interventions from the capital, which made the progress slower. The findings also indicate that Latvian Presidency was able to act as an “honest broker” and go beyond its national preferences in order to reach a compromise. Additionally, it was confirmed that Brussels-based model enables better cooperation with other actors due to higher level of trust. However, the premise that the Brussels-based Presidency is more efficient due to better cooperation with the Council Secretariat was not proven. All in all the findings of the study show that the main hypothesis is correct and Brussels-based Presidencies are more efficient in advancing the negotiations on priority initiative.http://www.ester.ee/record=b4684733*es

Coordination, Property & Intellectual Property: An Unconventional Approach to Anticompetitive Effects & Downstream Access

Countless high profile cases like the recent patent litigation threatening to shut down the BlackBerry® service have long drawn sharp criticism; and in response, most of the intellectual property (IP) literature argues for the use of weaker, or liability rule, enforcement as a tool for solving the problems of anticompetitive effects and downstream access while still providing sufficient rewards to IP creators. This paper takes an unconventional approach under which rewards don\u27t matter much, but coordination does matter a great deal. The paper shows how stronger, or property rule, enforcement facilitates the good type of coordination that increases competition and access. The paper further shows how, paradoxically, the reforms urged by IP critics end up facilitating the different, bad type of coordination that decreases competition and access. Simply put, the paper shows how policy debates would be radically improved by consideration of these two different coordination effects. The paper follows the general approach of the field called New Institutional Economics ( NIE ), which has explored many problems that are triggered by different institutions of laws and norms. Because no institution is perfect, the NIE approach suggests that our choices among institutions must be informed by our views of the solutions we most want and the problems we can best mitigate or bear. The paper explores a theory of the institution of property rights backed up by property rules as playing a particular, good role in facilitating coordination among many diverse complementary users of an asset in a way that increases competition and access. Under this view, coordination is offered as an alternative to other goals that have been suggested including internalizing externalities, mitigating rent dissipation, or providing direct incentives, and property is offered as an alternative to other institutions or organizations that also can facilitate this coordination goal, including, norm communities such as open source projects, firms, and government. The paper also shows how property rights backed up by weaker, or liability rule, enforcement can play a particular, bad role in facilitating the kind of coordination among large, established players that decreases competition and access. The shift in focus towards the link between property rule treatment and coordination has several practical effects. First, it explains why many of reform proposals of yesterday and today that do not use the coordination approach should be expected to exacerbate the two key persistent problems of anticompetitive effect and reduced downstream access. Second, it explains why certain aspects of IP regimes may be working well and why others may be candidates for change or elimination. Third, it elucidates factors that cut against changing IP regimes in ways that likely will exacerbate the two key persistent problems of anticompetitive effect and reduced downstream access. Providing one example of how the coordination approach could inform practical policy discussions, the paper frames a discussion for evaluating a case against the present copyright regime