From Pseudochrony to Diachrony: A.V. Dicey, Home Rule and the Invention of Legal History

Pupils of the common law are weaned on a familiar diet: Coke, Blackstone, Maitland, Pollock and, on questions constitutional, Albert Venn Dicey. With Dicey, the great ‘mid-Victorian’ intellectual aristocrat, the encounter is usually brief: a few, foundational hours on ‘common law constitutionalism’, where students are taught to epitomise the man’s varied career into three apothegms: parliament is sovereign; the rule of law has near-absolute value; the constitution is undergirded by non-legal conventions. These dicta are, in the telling, simple concepts (whose truth may or may not be challenged, depending on the proclivity of the teacher); their author is essentially anonymous — a ‘smooth-surfaced entity known as Dicey’ without historical reality.Scholarships & Prizes Office. University of Sydne

Community-based study on knowledge, attitudes and perception of rabies in Gelephu, south-central Bhutan.

postprintCommunity knowledge, attitudes and practices are important both for prevention of human deaths due to rabies and for control of the disease in animals. This study was a cross-sectional survey investigating the level of community knowledge as well as attitudes and perceptions about rabies in Gelephu, south central Bhutan, a region endemic for rabies. A total of 615 household respondents were interviewed, of which 224 (36%) were males and 391 (64%) were females. The majority of the respondents had high level of knowledge, and attitude and perception of rabies, and has a positive attitude towards the prevention and control of rabies. Multivariable logistic regression model showed that better knowledge about rabies was predicted by gender, educational level and dog ownership status of the respondents, whilst health-seeking behaviours of animal bite injuries were predicted by dog ownership status, presence of children in the household and occupation of the respondents. The majority of the respondents believed that stray dogs are a problem in the community and felt that it was important to control the dog population in Gelephu. These findings also indicate that there exists a knowledge gap about rabies in the community that could be improved by creating an awareness education programme. Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Perception, Rabies, Cross-sectional survey, Bhuta

Community-based study on knowledge, attitudes and perception of rabies in Gelephu, south-central Bhutan.

Community knowledge, attitudes and practices are important both for prevention of human deaths due to rabies and for control of the disease in animals. This study was a cross-sectional survey investigating the level of community knowledge as well as attitudes and perceptions about rabies in Gelephu, south central Bhutan, a region endemic for rabies. A total of 615 household respondents were interviewed, of which 224 (36%) were males and 391 (64%) were females. The majority of the respondents had high level of knowledge, and attitude and perception of rabies, and has a positive attitude towards the prevention and control of rabies. Multivariable logistic regression model showed that better knowledge about rabies was predicted by gender, educational level and dog ownership status of the respondents, whilst health-seeking behaviours of animal bite injuries were predicted by dog ownership status, presence of children in the household and occupation of the respondents. The majority of the respondents believed that stray dogs are a problem in the community and felt that it was important to control the dog population in Gelephu. These findings also indicate that there exists a knowledge gap about rabies in the community that could be improved by creating an awareness education programme. Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Perception, Rabies, Cross-sectional survey, Bhuta

Antitrust in Two-Sided Markets: Is Competition Always Desirable?

The main objective of antitrust interventions is to assure competition in markets to benefit consumers. This paper challenges this common approach by examining the case of a satellite broadcasting network with monopoly power. First, satellite TV is identified as a two-sided market. It is then analyzed in the framework of the canonical model for two-sided markets developed by Rochet & Tirole (2004). The main finding is that the satellite network maximizes his profits by choosing a price formation which maximizes the overall welfare of all market participants. Even if the satellite network uses his monopoly power to introduce a fee to receive satellite TV, it would do so only until the semi-elasticity of the amount of consumers in regard to the per-interaction-price equals the one of the TV stations – exactly the point where welfare is maximized. It is therefore concluded that antitrust cases have to take a more in-depth look at two-sided markets before deciding that competition is best for consumers