Insider Trading in a Globalizing Market: Who Should Regulate What?

As the market for securities becomes increasingly global, the question of whose rules should apply to any particular transaction will arise with increasing frequency. The issue is examined

RURAL DEVELOPMENT, PRIVATIZATION AND PUBLIC CHOICE: SUBSTANCE DEPENDS UPON PROCESS

Whether or not privatization facilitates rural development depends upon what rural development means. In practice, rural development often is the result of a struggle between rent defenders and rent seekers. A positivist concept of rural development is proposed, and the institutions of public choice are examined to determine how they might influence privatization decisions. The conclusion is that whether or not privatization improves efficiency of adjustment in rural economies depends upon the specifics of political deals required to achieve a particular act of privatization.Privatization, Rural development, Public choice, Rent-seeking, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A novel Big Data analytics and intelligent technique to predict driver's intent

Modern age offers a great potential for automatically predicting the driver's intent through the increasing miniaturization of computing technologies, rapid advancements in communication technologies and continuous connectivity of heterogeneous smart objects. Inside the cabin and engine of modern cars, dedicated computer systems need to possess the ability to exploit the wealth of information generated by heterogeneous data sources with different contextual and conceptual representations. Processing and utilizing this diverse and voluminous data, involves many challenges concerning the design of the computational technique used to perform this task. In this paper, we investigate the various data sources available in the car and the surrounding environment, which can be utilized as inputs in order to predict driver's intent and behavior. As part of investigating these potential data sources, we conducted experiments on e-calendars for a large number of employees, and have reviewed a number of available geo referencing systems. Through the results of a statistical analysis and by computing location recognition accuracy results, we explored in detail the potential utilization of calendar location data to detect the driver's intentions. In order to exploit the numerous diverse data inputs available in modern vehicles, we investigate the suitability of different Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques, and propose a novel fuzzy computational modelling methodology. Finally, we outline the impact of applying advanced CI and Big Data analytics techniques in modern vehicles on the driver and society in general, and discuss ethical and legal issues arising from the deployment of intelligent self-learning cars

Reconsidering Public Relations’ Infatuation with Dialogue: Why Engagement and Reconciliation Can Be More Ethical Than Symmetry and Reciprocity

Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters’s critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue’s potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue’s emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, such as dialogue or dissemination, is less important than the mutual discovery of truth. Reconciliation, a new model of public relations, is proposed as an alternative to pure dialogue. Reconciliation recognizes and values individuality and differences, and integrity is no longer sacrificed at the altar of agreement

Marketless trading in Hammurabi’s time: A re-appraisal

In this article I revisit Karl Polanyi’s writings on ancient Mesopotamia. I begin by situating them in the context of his general approach to trade, markets and money in the ancient world. Next, I reconstruct his major theses on Mesopotamia, drawing upon his published works as well as unpublished documents in the Karl Polanyi and Michael Polanyi archives. Finally, I provide a critical assessment of the merits and demerits of his contribution, with reference to Assyriological research published in the decades that have elapsed since his death in 1964

Urban property tax reform : guidelines and recommendations

The property tax is a potentially attractive means of financing municipal government in developing countries. As a revenue source, it can provide local government with access to a broad and expanding tax base. At present, however, yields of urban property taxes in developing countries are extremely low. In part, these low yields reflect failures in the administration of the tax. Procedural improvements alone, however, are unlikely to have a significant, sustained impact on property tax yields. This suggests that the scope of reform must be expanded to address the systems for rate setting and revaluation, and the incentives confronting administrators of the tax. The scope of reform may have to include the entire structure of local finance. Judging from recent experience, providing local government with complete autonomy over tax policy and administration does not always guarantee that the tax will be exploited effectively. Under these conditions, property tax reform can only be achieved in the context of wider restructuring in the sources of municipal revenue. By reducing the extent of arbitrary subsidies between jurisdictions and confronting local taxpayers with the cost of the services they consume, these reforms are consistent with the pursuit of the efficiency objective that is the principal justification for property tax reform.Municipal Financial Management,Urban Governance and Management,Regional Governance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform

Liberty, Markets and Environmental Values: A Hayekian Defence of Free Market Environmentalism

Communitarian conceptions of the 'situated self' lie at the core of 'green' critiques of market approaches to environmental problems. According to this perspective resource management issues should be dealt with in the 'public sphere' of democratic politics rather than the 'private sphere' of market drien consumer choice. This paper suggests that such arguments rest on a series of non-sequiturs. Drawing on Hayek's non-rationalist liberalism it shows that a 'situated' view of the self offers a radical endorsement of the case for privatisating environmental assets, wherever it is possible to do so.free market environmentalism; property rights; deliberative democracy

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Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

EQUITY, ECONOMIC SCALE, AND THE ROLE OF EXCHANGE IN A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY

This paper explores these theoretical and practical issues, considering the question of the environmental and ecological impacts of economic activity from the viewpoint of the scale at which this activity takes place and the exchanges across time and space which affect its sustainability. Following a consideration of the dynamics of economic change in the next section, the paper discusses the meaning of trade/exchange, economic scale, and political/ecological/economic boundaries before returning in the final section to the two equity-related issues outlined above.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centr