Competition and quality in the notary profession

The 1999 Dutch Notary Act has initiated an ambitious deregulation process in the market for notary services in the Netherlands. We evaluate the impact of this liberalisation policy on (i) the level of competition in the profession and (ii) the quality of services. We compare the level of competition before and after the liberalisation using two different indicators, namely a relative-profit indicator and a variation of the Bresnahan-Reiss indicator. Using the relative profit indicator, we find that the level of competition has increased after 1999. We find, however, no significant difference between the level of competition in 1996 and in 2002. This is particularly clear when we measure competition taking the local market as the relevant market for notary services. The results on the national market are more mixed and there is some evidence that competition in 2002 is higher than in 1996. Using the Bresnahan-Reiss indicator, we find that entry does affect conduct in the notary market, but again that the level of competition in the local market for notary services in 2003 does not significantly differ from the 1995 level. We also examine whether competition affects the quality of notary services. We use both subjective and objective measures for quality of notary services. We find that subjective quality - the perceived level of service by clients - is, if anything, negatively affected by competition. Using objective quality, i.e. quality that is not observable to clients, we find that in 2003 competition leads to a deterioration of quality, as the quality of monopoly notaries outperforms the quality of oligopoly notaries. This was not the case in 1995. Confronting our empirical findings with qualitative insights, we present options for policy.

Arrow's theorem for weak orders

We characterize binary decision rules which are independent and strongly paretian,or independent and almost strongly paretian when the individual preferences and the collective preference are weak orders.Binary decision rule, lexicographic dictatorship

The impact of market forces on the provision of childcare: Insights from the 2005 Childcare Act in the Netherlands

In January 2005, the Dutch government introduced the Childcare Act which replaced the former financing system which had elements of both supply- and demand-financing with a fully demand-financing system. Whereas previously public funds partly flowed to suppliers in the form of subsidies granted by local municipalities, they now flow exclusively to parents who are free to choose their childcare provider. This reform was intended to stimulate market forces in the market for childcare. This paper examines the impact of the introduction of market forces on the provision of childcare in the Netherlands.

Do non-profits make a difference? Evaluating non-profit vis-Ã -vis for-profit organisations in social services

This CPB Document provides a framework for the evaluation of non-profit organisations. This framework addresses the question under which conditions, and, if so, in what way non-profits should be stimulated. Essentially, in order to answer these questions, three steps can be followed: (i) identifying potentially relevant market failures that non-profits may aim to diminish; (ii) linking market failures to observed performance indicators for profits and non-profits; and (iii) use these insights to derive policy implications: should non-profits be stimulated? We apply the proposed framework to three sectors that are commonly labelled as 'social services': the care sector, the childcare sector and welfare-to-work services. All these sectors are subject to substantial informational problems regarding the quality of services. When surveying the literature, we find non-profit organisations only to make a difference in some specific cases. So far, there is no strong evidence that can be used as an argument to stimulate non-profit organisations in mixed markets. Moreover, such (targeted) policies may discourage donated labour and private donations, thus rendering them largely ineffective.

Home green home; a case study of inducing energy-efficient innovations in the Dutch building sector

This document provides a case study of policies aiming to foster technological innovations for ‘green’ buildings in the Netherlands. The study aims to provide 1) a detailed overview of the policy framework over the last thirty years, and 2) a picture of the level of innovations related to energy efficiency in buildings in the Netherlands. �The analysis shows an intensification of environmental policy in the Dutch building sector in the mid-1990s, followed by a slight decline after 2001. A striking feature of environmental policy in this sector is the large number of policy programs implemented successively for short periods of time. This might affect the stability and continuity of the policy framework and be damaging for innovation. Faced with high levels of uncertainty about future policies, firms may prefer to postpone risky investments in innovative activities. Finally, governmental R&D support for green innovations in general remains very low in the Netherlands. Descriptive data on patenting activities show that Dutch firms file nowadays about 150 patents annually in the field of energy efficiency in buildings. The Netherlands have a clear comparative advantage in the field of energy-saving lighting technologies, mainly due to intensive patenting activities by Philips. High-efficiency boilers also represent a substantial share of Dutch innovation activities in this domain over the last decades. In many other fields (such as insulation, heat-pumps and co-generation, solar boilers, etc), however, Germany, Austria and Scandinavian countries rank much higher than the Netherlands.

Movimento e inteligência de massa (swarming): fronteira crítica para sustentabilidade das organizações humanas

Até que ponto os movimentos humanos de massa funcionam como superorganismos autorreguláveis, tal qual se vê nos deslocamentos de enxame? Essa é uma questão que a publicação desenvolve ao longo de seu conteúdo

The effects of competition on the quality of primary schools in the Netherlands

Do schools facing more competition in their neighbourhood perform better than schools facing less competition? As a measure of school quality, we look at the performance of pupils at the nationwide standard test (the so-called Cito test) in the final year of primary education. Since competition is likely to be endogenous to the quality of schools, we use the distance between the school and the town centre as an instrument for the level of competition faced by a school. The intuition is that schools located close to the town centre, which are easily accessible to a large number of parents, face more competition than schools located further away from the town centre. Using a large range of data on pupil, school and market characteristics, we find that school competition has a small positive significant effect on pupil achievement. An increase in competition by one standard deviation (comparable to 5 additional schools in the market) increases pupil achievement at the Cito test by five to ten percent of the mean standard deviation, so about less than one point. This result is robust to a large range of specifications.

Políticas de Amizade Internacional na Cooperação Judiciária em Matéria Penal – A Não-Extradição de Nacionais Brasileiros e Portugueses para Terceiros Estados (Comparação com o Direito da UE)

This article addresses different implications of nationality in international cooperation in criminal matters, especially in extradition law. Most States, particularly of the civil law tradition, have a longstanding practice not to deliver their own citizens to foreign criminal justice systems. This article begins by reviewing the rationales of the classic nationality exception and contrasts it with the approach of States of the common law tradition, which have no objections of principle to extraditing their own nationals. It then looks into the extradition relations between Brazil and Portugal, following which it provides a brief critical appraisal of the adequacy of the nationality exception in an increasingly globalised world. With these foundational issues settled, the article moves on to questioning what are the effects of interstate affinity upon extradition. It concludes that, in addition to (immediate or direct) effects between the States involved, affinity can also have meaningful (indirect) implications to third States: States which are linked by peculiar (historical, legal, political) bonds sometimes refuse to extradite each other’s nationals to other States. In this regard, the article analyses of the state affairs among the Member States of the European Union following the groundbreaking case law initiated by the Court of Justice in 2016, and compares this recent legal development with the regime that has been in place between Brazil and Portugal since 1971.O presente artigo analisa as diferentes implicações da nacionalidade sobre a cooperação judiciária internacional em matéria penal, especialmente sobre o direito da extradição. A maioria dos Estados, em particular os da tradição jurídica continental, tem uma longa tradição de não entregar os seus cidadãos para sistemas de justiça criminal estrangeiros. O artigo começa por se debruçar sobre as razões que estão na base desta tradição e faz um contraste com a abordagem seguida pelos Estados da tradição jurídica anglo-americana, que tendem a não levantar objeções à extradição de seus nacionais. Em seguida o artigo atenta nas relações de extradição entre o Brasil e Portugal, fazendo uma breve avaliação crítica da regra da não extradição de nacionais num mundo progressivamente globalizado. Com estas questões essenciais tratadas, o artigo prossegue então para aquela que constitui a sua questão central, que é a de saber que efeitos a existência de laços de afinidade ou proximidade entre Estados pode ter sobre a matéria da extradição. A conclusão proposta é a de que, para além de efeitos (imediatos ou diretos) entre os Estados em causa, essa afinidade se pode também projetar (de modo indireto) sobre Estados terceiros: de facto, por vezes, os Estados que se encontram ligados por peculiares laços históricos, jurídicos e/ou políticos também recusam a extradição para outros Estados dos nacionais um do outro. A este respeito o artigo analisa a situação dos Estados Membros da União Europeia desde a inovadora jurisprudência iniciada pelo Tribunal de Justiça em 2016, comparando este recente desenvolvimento com o regime que já vigora entre o Brasil e Portugal desde 1971

Mobilização de recursos para o terceiro setor

O livro procura compreender mais a fundo os múltiplos aspectos da mobilização de recursos para o terceiro setor por meio de uma linguagem informal e informativa. Funciona como um guia de passo a passo para aqueles que lidam com a realidade das diferentes Organizações da Sociedade Civil, alertando sobre a importância de considerar alguns fatores estratégicos no seu sucesso, principalmente no que diz respeito à mobilização de recursos. Os 12 anexos apresentam dicas e fontes de interesse

Impactos do Programa Bolsa Floresta: uma avaliação preliminar (Cadernos de Sustentabilidade)

Este estudo trata do Programa Bolsa Floresta (PBF), um dos maiores programas de Pagamento por Serviços Ambientais (PSA) do mundo, com mais de 35 mil pessoas atendidas em 15 Unidades de Conservação Estaduais (UCs) do Amazonas. Seus objetivos visam: melhorar a qualidade de vida das populações tradicionais e promover a manutenção dos serviços ambientais providos pelas florestas, por meio do não desmatamento e degradação florestal