Regulating privatized rail transport

Traditionally, transport regulation has been viewed as an exercise in second-best optimization, acknowledging the existence of huge information problems. Then the rail industry was deeply restructured worldwide to halt erosion of the sector's share of transportation markets. Restructuring took different forms in different countries, ranging from simple reorganization measures to extreme restructuring -with the private sector increasingly participating in the sector and with the provision of infrastructure separated from the provision of services. The authors argue that regulation of the rail industry cannot remain unaffected by these changes. New regulatory scenarios and issues have emerged. For example, contracts have to be defined for private participation and quality surveillance instruments must be defined. Traditional price controls have to be adapted to, and mechanisms designed to manage and plan infrastructure investments in, the new environment. Restructuring has brought new problems, too. Where licenses have been used, for example, several concessionaires have been unable to meet the objectives spelled out in the concession contract. Contracts should be flexible enough to take account of novel situations that may affect company performance. And yet, for the system to be credible, there cannot be systematic, unjustified deviations from the franchise objectives. Regulation of the sector should be simple and flexible, with license contracts designed to include the private sector and with industry organization adapted to local circumstances. Regulation should be governed by principles that foster competition and market mechanisms, wherever possible. At the same time, it should provide a stable legal and institutional framework for economic activity. Otherwise, regulators should refrain from intervening in the market-unless the goal of economic efficiency (subject to the socially demanded levelof equity) is in jeopardy.Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Railways Transport,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Water and Industry,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Legal form and risk exposure in Spanish firms

It is well-known that the legal form adopted by a firm determines the type of legal responsibility borne by its owners in case of bankruptcy. In this paper we argue that a firm under a limited liability status should be characterized by a higher than average bankruptcy probability, which ultimately captures their risk exposure when output is affected by exogenous shocks. To test this prediction we extend Lee’s (1976) switching regressions model to a panel dataset of 1313 Spanish firms from 1990–1994, separating them into corporate and entrepreneurial forms (with/without limited liability, respectively). We consider both random effects and fixed effects panel data models, taking into account the potential endogeneity between risk exposure and the legal form choice. Our results confirm the hypothesis that firms under limited liability have significant higher risk exposure than firms under unlimited liability.Data and financial support provided by the Fundación Empresa Pública (Madrid)Publicad

Processes, information, and accounting gaps in the regulation of Argentina's private railways

Almost a decade after Argentina began privatizing its railways, resolution of conflicts between regulators, users, and operators continues to take longer, and to be more difficult, than expected. The authors contend that many of these conflicts arose because there are no rules for interactions between the key stakeholders: government, regulators, users, unions, and the media. One result of inexperience in setting up concession agreement has been that the agreements did not clearly define the information needed for oversight and regulation. Argentine rail concession contracts were supposed to be specific about the way tariffs, quality, investment, exclusivity, and so on, would change over time. And the newly created regulatory bodies were given some discretion about adjusting the contracts in the face of unforeseen developments. However, initial privatization were carried out in such a way that there was no time to refine terms, so many loopholes remained. Those unforeseen events have happened, and the regulatory agency, the National Commission for Transport Regulation (CNRT), has had to adapt its procedures and decisions to available information. In some cases, alleged modifications of the operating environment have led to renegotiations. Changes have been introduced in the approach to furnishing information to the government for oversight and regulatory accounting. The changes center on clearer definitions in connection with four major issues: a) The measurement of efficiency; b) access prices; and c) the financial model. Circumstances in the Argentine rail industry early in 2001 did not favor dramatic changes, but current renegotiations could be used to adjust information requirements to reflect what has been learned through six yearsof experience.Environmental Economics&Policies,Knowledge Economy,Labor Policies,Decentralization,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Knowledge Economy

Creating agent platforms to host agent-mediated services that share resources

After a period where the Internet was exclusively filled with content, the present efforts are moving towards services, which handle the raw information to create value from it. Therefore labors to create a wide collection of agent-based services are being perfomed in several projects, such as Agentcities does. In this work we present an architecture for agent platforms named a-Buildings. The aim of the proposed architecture is to ease the creation, installation, search and management of agent-mediated services and the share of resources among services. To do so the a-Buildings architecture creates a new level of abstraction on top of the standard FIPA agent platform specification. Basically, an a-Building is a service-oriented platform which offers a set of low level services to the agents it hosts. We define low level services as those required services that are neccesary to create more complex high level composed services.Postprint (published version

On the monotonicity of the correction term in Ramanujan's factorial approximation

We present two new proofs of the monotonicity of the correction term $\theta_n$ in Ramanujan's refinement of Stirling's formula.Comment: Latex, 5 page

¿Una lectura revisionista de la lucha armada? Las políticas de la memoria en los ensayos sobre la violencia política en Argentina

El problema que deseamos poner en discusión parte del virtual desplazamiento de la investigación histórica sobre la lucha armada en Argentina por una serie de ensayos que realizan una condena moral de la violencia guerrillera, antes que un análisis en torno a procesos, rupturas y continuidades. Como veremos a continuación, el juicio a las organizaciones armadas dictará una condena que encuentra su fundamento en una prescripción moral y una filosofía política ligada a la defensa de los valores democráticos liberales.Fil: Campos, Esteban Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios e Investigación de America Latina; Argentin

El surgimiento de "lo económico": Acción y orden social dentro de la tradición económica

The article analyses and gives account of the process of constitution of economic field as an independent domain, endowed with an inner coherence of its own, which permits the delimitation of a particular object of study and consequently the emergence of a specific discipline to deal with it: economic science. This process is important to sociology as long as it allows tracking the origin of the solution that traditional economics gives to one of the main problems of sociology, namely, the link between social action and economic order. The paper addresses the independence of economic domain following and broadening the three-author scheme proposed by Dumont (1999), with special attention to the progressive configuration of a particular notion of human action –the homo oeconomicus– and a specific concept of social order in close relation to it –a spontaneous order based on mutual benefits–.El artículo analiza y da cuenta del proceso de constitución de lo económico como un dominio independiente, dotado de una coherencia interna que le es propia, que permite la delimitación de un objeto de estudio particular y consecuentemente el surgimiento de una disciplina específica que lo aborde: la ciencia económica. Este proceso es importante para la sociología en tanto permite rastrear el origen de la solución que la economía “tradicional, “ortodoxa” o “liberal” da a uno de los problemas fundantes de la disciplina sociológica, a saber, el del vínculo entre acción y orden social. Se aborda la autonomización de lo económico siguiendo y ampliando el esquema de tres autores propuesto por Dumont (1999), con especial atención en la configuración progresiva de una determinada concepción respecto del actuar humano –el homo oeconomicus– y de una noción particular del orden social en íntima conexión con él –un orden espontáneo de mercado basado en el beneficio mutuo–

“Rodolfo Rey, peronist and montonero”: The construcction of a popular hero in the first issues of the magazine Evita Montonera

Evita Montonera fue el medio de prensa oficial de la organización político-militar argentina Montoneros entre 1974 y 1979. Se trataba de una revista publicada de manera clandestina, que tenía como principal destinatario a los cuadros dirigentes y militantes de la propia organización, vinculada al campo político de la izquierda peronista. En este artículo proponemos que la revista Evita Montonera empieza a construir un “complejo heroico”, es decir, un conjunto de elementos que se articulan para crear un modelo de combatiente ejemplar, destinado a ser imitado por los lectores de la organización. La fuente documental elegida para sostener esta hipótesis de trabajo son las semblanzas de militantes caídos a causa de la escalada represiva que sufrió Montoneros y el activismo político-social en general desde 1974. Por razones de espacio y por la riqueza del documento, vamos a analizar solamente el artículo “Rodolfo Rey. Peronista y montonero”, publicado en el número 2 de Evita Montonera correspondiente a enero de 1975. La caja de herramientas teóricas que emplearemos para intentar demostrar la articulación de un “complejo heroico” en esta semblanza incluye disciplinas auxiliares, como el psicoanálisis del mito de Joseph Cambell y la antropología de la violencia de René Girard.Evita Montonera was the official press of the argentinian politico-military organization Montoneros between 1974 and 1979. It was a magazine published clandestinely , which had as main target the leaders and activists of the organization itself, linked to the political field of the Peronist Left. We propose that the magazine Evita Montonera start building a “heroic complex”, a set of elements that are articulated to create a model of exemplary fighter, intended to be imitated by the readers of the organization. The documentary source chosen to support this working hypothesis are the portraits of fallen militants because of the escalation of repression suffered Montoneros and the political and social activism in general since 1974. For reasons of space and the richness of the paper, we will analyze only the note “Rodolfo Rey. Peronista y montonero”, published in the number 2 of Evita Montonera for January 1975. The box of theoretical tools we use to try to prove the articulation of a “hero complex” in this sketch includes auxiliary disciplines, such as psychoanalysis of myth of Joseph Campbell and the anthropology of violence of René Girard.Fil: Campos, Esteban Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

"Venceremos en un año o venceremos en diez, pero venceremos": La organización Descamisados: entre la Democracia Cristiana, el peronismo revolucionario y la lucha armada

Dentro de las organizaciones armadas peronistas, el de Descamisados es uno de los casos menos abordados por la historiografía. Este trabajo intenta relevar algunos ejes de discusión que han surgido en torno al problema de la transición que lleva de la militancia católica postconciliar al peronismo y la lucha armada. De esta manera pondremos a prueba algunas hipótesis que intentaron explicar al fenómeno de la radicalización católica desde la Historia intelectual y la Sociología de la religión. Para cumplir con este objetivo, abordaremos el período previo a la constitución de Descamisados, donde varios militantes de la Juventud Demócrata Cristiana se desplazaron hacia lo que Michael Lowy denomina "cristianismo liberacionista", para finalmente asumir posiciones vinculadas al peronismo revolucionario. Las fuentes seleccionadas son algunos documentos de la Juventud Demócrata Cristiana y entrevistas a ex militantes de Descamisados.Within the armed Peronist organizations, Descamisados is one of the cases isless visited. This paper attempts to relieve some lines of discussion that have arisen around the problem of transition that leads from the post-conciliar Catholic militancy to the peronism and the armed struggle. In this way we will test several hypotheses attempting to explain the phenomenon of the catholic radicalization from the Intellectual history and the Sociology of religion. To comply this goal, we will address the period before the establishment of Descamisados, where several activists of the Juventud Demócrata Cristiana moved toward what Michael Lowy called "liberationist christianism," to finally take positions linked to the revolutionary peronism. The selected sources are some documents from the Juventud Demócrata Cristiana and interviews with former members of Descamisados.Fil: Campos, Esteban Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani"; Argentin