The Puzzling Underuse of Arbitration in Post-Communism: A Law and Economics Analysis

The paper attempts to explain the failure of postcommunist traders exemplified by Balkan traders to make use of arbitration courts by means of the rational choice of forum approach offered by the law and economics movement. Conjectures about traders? behaviour derived by combining this approach with the constraints set by institutional features of Balkan countries, in particular Bulgaria and Croatia, are confronted with experience. As it turns out the successes yielded by the rational choice of forum approach are very limited. This may be a dissapointment to its most fervent advocates, but is nevertheless useful, because it suggests a more flexible approach. -- In dem Aufsatz wird der Versuch unternommen, die geringe Neigung der Kaufleute der postkommunistischen Länder, ihre Streitigkeiten durch Schiedsgerichte entscheiden zu lassen, mit Hilfe eines theoretischen Instrumentariums zu erklären, das der ökonomischen Analyse des Rechts entstammt. Diese hat sich mit der Frage befasst, unter welchen Umständen Konfliktparteien ein bestimmtes Forum für die Konfliktaustragung gegenüber anderen vorziehen. Die Anwendung dieser Ansätze auf die institutionellen Gegebenheiten bestimmter Balkanländer, insbesondere Bulgarien und Kroatien, führt zu Hypothesen, die einer empirischen Überprüfung zugänglich sind, dabei aber nicht sonderlich gut abschneiden. Dieses Ergebnis legt eine Erweiterung des Forschungsansatzes nahe.Schiedsspruch,Verfahrensdauer,Parteilichkeit,Berufungsverfahren,Rechtsfortbildung,arbitration awards,court congestion,favoritism,appeals process,lawmaking

Death or survival. Post-communist bankruptcy law in action. A survey

The paper discusses some major lessons to be learnt from the application of bankruptcy law in a post-communist environment. Its focus is on East Central Europe because elsewhere bankruptcy law is of rather limited practical relevance. The incentives and the selection of trustees turn out to be key issues if the loss of value typically occuring during bankruptcy procedures is to be contained within reasonable limits. Reorganization is a realistic option only if management has sufficient incentives to file bankruptcy in time. Post-communist legislation has tried to achieve this mostly by threat of punishment. This approach has proved inefficient. The paper also criticizes the tendency of post-communist legislation to deemphasize individual remedies against defaulting debtors. -- Der Aufsatz analysiert Erfahrungen mit der Anwendung eines Konkursrechts in postkommunistischen Wirtschaftsordnungen. Der Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung liegt in Ostmitteleuro-pa, weil in den weiter östlich gelegenen postkommunistischen Ländern die praktische Bedeu-tung des Konkursrechts sehr begrenzt ist. Die Anreize, die der Konkursverwalter hat, und das Verfahren, nach dem er eingesetzt und gegebenenfalls seines Amtes enthoben wird, erweisen sich als wichtige Erfolgsfaktoren, insbesondere beeinflussen sie die Ausmaße, die der für Konkurse typische Werteverfall annimmt. Eine Unternehmenssanierung kommt meistens nur dann in Frage, wenn das Management ausreichend starke Anreize hat, den Konkurs nicht zu verschleppen. Postkommunistische Rechtsordnung haben dies vor allem durch Strafandro-hung zu gewährleisten versucht, dieser Ansatz war wenig erfolgreich. Als problematisch er-weist sich auch die Neigung postkommunistischer Gesetzgeber, die Gesamtvollstreckung zulasten der Einzelvollstreckung zu favorisieren.trustee,execution,fraudulent conveyance,reorganization,going concern sale,Konkursverwalter,Einzelvollstreckung,Konkursplan,übertragende Sanierung,Vollstreckungsvereitelung

The Impact of the War 1991: 1995 on the Croatian Economy: A Contribution to the Analysis of War Economies

The economics of the Croatian war differ considerably from what is often thought of as typical features of a war economy. Most strikingly, while wars are often perceived as generating a tendency towards repressed inflation and a command economy the Croatian economy actually moved in the opposite direction. Croatia "nevertheless" won the war. This has prompted some to think of the war as matter of minor relevance for Croatian economic development in the nineties. The paper argues that this view is mistaken. Croatia offers an opportunity to reconsider the macroeconomics of regional wars. This reconsideration demonstrates the power of the new classical framework. -- Die kroatische Volkswirtschaft brachte in den Kriegsjahren 1991 ? 1995 keineswegs die gemeinhin als typisch erachteten Eigenarten einer Kriegswirtschaft hervor. Weder kam es zu einer zurückgestauten Inflation noch zu einer Verstärkung befehlswirtschaftlicher Elemente, eher war das Gegenteil der Fall. ?Nichtsdestoweniger? gewann Kroatien den Krieg. Manche haben daraus geschlussfolgert, dass der Krieg für die kroatische Wirtschaft ein Ereignis von untergeordneter Bedeutung war. Diese These ist irrig. Kroatien bietet uns eine Gelegenheit, die ökonomische Analyse regionaler Kriege zu überdenken. Die neuklassische Makroökonomik erweist sich dabei als hilfreich.Wehrpflicht,totaler Krieg,Flüchtlinge,sozialistische Industrialisierung,Draft,total war,refugees,socialist industrialization

The evolution of law under communism and post-communism: a system-theory analysis in the spirit of Luhmann

The paper suggests that Luhmann’s theory of social systems and evolution offers a powerful approach for analyzing law and the economy. It considers Yugoslavia and some Central European countries before and after 1990. Luhmann’s concept of evolution stands in stark contrast to mainstream economic theory. It enables us to clarify the concept of transformation. A transformation became necessary because communism was an evolutionary dead end. According to this view, in postcommunism the primacy of functional differentiation needs to be reestablished because it was partially reversed under communist rule. In these circumstances, the popular call for “sufficient” public control over the market is asking for the impossible. Post-communist law is bound to fall behind the evolution of markets. This causes economic problems and retards financial deepening

Ekonomska analiza zakona o stečaju: pregled literature

Ekonomska literatura tek se nedavno počela intenzivnije baviti važnom problematikom zakona o stečaju. Pri oblikovanju zakona i njegovoj provedbi pojavljuje se pitanje opravdanosti očuvanja poduzeća u stečaju, što može biti korisno i vjerovnicima i cjelokupnome nacionalnom gospodarstvu. U članku se iznose iskustva više zemalja vezana za metode spašavanja poduzeća u stečaju, te se daje osvrt na nekoliko istraživanja kojima se pokušalo procijeniti koliko se poduzeća u stečaju moraju prodati ispod svoje stvarne vrijednosti. Podrobnije se obrazlažu razlozi i načini spašavanja financijskih ustanova te navode opasnosti od njihove likvidacije

Reliability of human retina organoid generation from hiPSC-derived neuroepithelial cysts

The possible applications for human retinal organoids (HROs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) rely on the robustness and transferability of the methodology for their generation. Standardized strategies and parameters to effectively assess, compare, and optimize organoid protocols are starting to be established, but are not yet complete. To advance this, we explored the efficiency and reliability of a differentiation method, called CYST protocol, that facilitates retina generation by forming neuroepithelial cysts from hiPSC clusters. Here, we tested seven different hiPSC lines which reproducibly generated HROs. Histological and ultrastructural analyses indicate that HRO differentiation and maturation are regulated. The different hiPSC lines appeared to be a larger source of variance than experimental rounds. Although previous reports have shown that HROs in several other protocols contain a rather low number of cones, HROs from the CYST protocol are consistently richer in cones and with a comparable ratio of cones, rods, and Müller glia. To provide further insight into HRO cell composition, we studied single cell RNA sequencing data and applied CaSTLe, a transfer learning approach. Additionally, we devised a potential strategy to systematically evaluate different organoid protocols side-by-side through parallel differentiation from the same hiPSC batches: In an explorative study, the CYST protocol was compared to a conceptually different protocol based on the formation of cell aggregates from single hiPSCs. Comparing four hiPSC lines showed that both protocols reproduced key characteristics of retinal epithelial structure and cell composition, but the CYST protocol provided a higher HRO yield. So far, our data suggest that CYST-derived HROs remained stable up to at least day 200, while single hiPSC-derived HROs showed spontaneous pathologic changes by day 200. Overall, our data provide insights into the efficiency, reproducibility, and stability of the CYST protocol for generating HROs, which will be useful for further optimizing organoid systems, as well as for basic and translational research applications

Courts, credit and debt collection in post-communist Slovakia: Notes about some understudied ingredients of a successful transition

In economic terms Slovakia has been one of the most successful transition countries, but its advance towards the rule of law has been uneven and beset with numerous difficulties. While in the 1990s the judiciary increased its reputation considerably by standing up in the defense of democracy, it lost face only shortly later because of its apparent inability to prevent court corruption from spreading. Only quite recently government managed to take effective measures against it. Nevertheless debt collection has become much less of a problem than it used to be in the 1990s and liquidity constraints have been greatly relieved. This change seems only to a minor part due to increasing judicial efficiency which has made slow progress only. Thus, Slovak experience has reconfirmed the conjecture that erecting the rule of law takes much more time than transforming the economic system

Zur Anatomie von Protestbewegungen

Vorgestellt wird ein noch relativ neuer soziologischer Theorieansatz, der die Häufigkeit und Relevanz von Protestbewegungen in der modernen Gesellschaft zu erklären versucht. Dieser wird mit herkömmlichen wirtschaftstheoretischen Vorstellungen in Zusammenhang gebracht und seine Tragweite am Beispiel ökologischer Protestbewegungen exemplifiziert.The paper summarizes an innovative sociological theory of protest movements which is still rather new and little known outside German-language academic sociology proper. It seeks to explain the high frequency and considerable political impact of protest movements in the modern society. This theory is related to elements of traditional economic theory and applied to ecological protest movements