Germany's Mezzogiorno revisited: Institutions, fiscal transfers and regional convergence

This paper revisits the question: Will Eastern Germany become a new Mezzogiorno? Building upon the established analysis of East Germany's disappointing economic performance since unification, when wages were allowed to far outstrip productivity, the purpose of this work is to provide fresh economic perspectives on why the Former DDR has stalled in its convergence with the Old Lander. The term Mezzogiorno refers to the transfer dependent southern region of Italy. --

Proteostasis and ageing: insights from long-lived mutant mice

The global increase in life expectancy is creating significant medical, social and economic challenges to current and future generations. Consequently, there is a need to identify the fundamental mechanisms underlying the ageing process. This knowledge should help develop realistic interventions capable of combatting age-related disease, and thus improving late-life health and vitality. While several mechanisms have been proposed as conserved lifespan determinants, the loss of proteostasis- where proteostasis is defined here as the maintenance of the proteome- appears highly relevant to both ageing and disease. Several studies have shown that multiple proteostatic mechanisms, including the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-induced unfolded protein response (UPR), the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy, all appear indispensable for longevity in many long-lived invertebrate mutants. Similarly, interspecific comparisons suggest that proteostasis may be an important lifespan determinant in vertebrates. Over the last 20 years a number of long-lived mouse mutants have been described, many of which carry single-gene mutations within the growth-hormone, insulin/IGF-1 or mTOR signalling pathways. However, we still do not know how these mutations act mechanistically to increase lifespan and healthspan, and accordingly whether mechanistic commonality occurs between different mutants. Recent evidence supports the premise that the successful maintenance of the proteome during ageing may be linked to the increased lifespan and healthspan of long-lived mouse mutants

The Preconditions for Producer Power: Comments

SUMMARY Hanns Maull's preconditions for producer power may be rephrased under three heads producers' oligopolistic power in the market, the countervailing power of consumers, and the producers' degree of political unity. The degree of importer dependence and producers' shares of reserves are compared for petrol, tin, copper and bauxite. Substitution possibilities suggest e.g. joint copper?bauxite associations. If the dramatic effect of an OPEC may be unobtainable for producers of other minerals, the possibility of more modest gains should not be discounted. RESUMEN Los Prerrequisitos del Poder Productor: Comentarios Los prerrequisitos del poder productor sugeridos por Hanns Maull pueden reformularse bajo tres categoríes: el poder oligopolístico de los productores en el mercado, la capacidad de resistencia de los consumidores, y el grado de unidad política de los productores. Se hace una comparación del grado de dependencia de los importadores y de la distribución de las reservas entre los productores en los casos del petróleo, et estaño, el cobre y la bauxita. Las posibilidades de substitución sugieren la conveniencia de, por ejemplo, asociaciones conjuntas en cobre y bauxita. Aun cuando es posible que el efecto dramático de una OPEP no sea alcanzable para los productores de otros minerales, no debe descartarse la posibilidad de resultados más modestos. RESUME Conditions préalables à l'emprise des producteurs: commentaires Les conditions énumerées par Hanns Maull peuvent se traduire en emprise oligopole sur le marché; capacité compensatrice des consommateurs; degré de solidarité entre producteurs sur le plan de la politique. L'étude fait la comparaison entre la situation subordonée des importateurs et la part des réserves qui tombe aux producteurs dans les domaines pétrole, étain, cuivre et bauxite. Parmi les substituts proposés figure la création d'associations conjointes pour le cuivre et la bauxite. Si les producteurs d'autres minéraux ne peuvent pas escompter le succés dramatique de l'OPEP, on ne doit pas perdre de vue la possibilité de bénéfices plus modestes

Optimal Antitrust Penalties and Competitors\u27 Injury

Herbert Hovenkamp\u27s primary target in Antitrust\u27s Protected Classes is the Chicago School\u27s optimal deterrence model of antitrust penalties. Substantive antitrust rules are often overinclusive prohibiting practices even when they are efficient - in order to avoid the costs of error associated with a more case-specific rule. The optimal deterrence model attempts to correct for this overinclusiveness by setting the penalty for antitrust violations at a level just sufficient to deter only inefficient instances of the violation. The task is complicated by, among other things, the myriad effects antitrust offenses can have on economic actors: allocative inefficiencies and efficiencies (the losses and gains, respectively, in value to consumers from reduced or increased output of a product); productive inefficiencies and efficiencies (cost increases or cost savings in production of a product); and wealth transfers from one economic actor to another. William Landes distills the analysis into a formula: the penalty should be equal to the net harm to everyone but the offender. For cartels, the optimal penalty would be equal to the deadweight welfare loss plus the wealth transfer to the cartel from purchasers; this penalty would deter only those instances of the offense in which the deadweight welfare loss exceeded any savings in production costs to the cartel. Since the Sylvania decision, courts have increasingly turned to economic models - particularly those of the Chicago School - to separate monopolistic from competitive harms. By formalizing the effects of antitrust practices on efficiency and on the wealth of various economic actors, the models guide the formulation of substantive rules, the application of rules to particular practices, and the definition of compensable harms. Hovenkamp\u27s notion of WL3 losses offers no such guidance. In the next Part, I argue that the concept of WL3 losses misconceives the socia1 costs of monopolistic exclusion and fails to provide a theoretical link between the competitor\u27s harm and the monopolistic outpμt restriction. In Part III, I argue that competitors\u27 harms should in some instances be compensable as antitrust damages - not because they represent social costs in themselves, but because they can be proxies for the demonstrable costs of monopoly. Competitors are not, I argue, a protected class; their right to recover is purely instrumental to the ultimate standard of consumer welfare

Thurman Arnold\u27s International Antitrust Legacy

In the decades before the World War II, a new economic philosophy favoring cooperation among competitors challenged the competitive model embodied in the antitrust laws. In the United States, the cooperative model had some successes in, for example, the Webb Pomerene Act of 1918, the associational activities of the 1920s, and the NRA codes of the 1930s. And, of course, antitrust law itself, after some false starts, came to recognize that some forms of cooperation are necessary for efficient production. Outside the United States, however, especially in the economic turbulence following World War I, policymakers adopted such an extreme form of the cooperative model that they not only tolerated but actively assisted the formation and operation of international cartels as means of organizing production. Wyatt Wells\u27s fascinating study shows that America\u27s efforts to project its antitrust policies internationally during and after World War II played a critical role in the destruction of this cartel ideal, particularly in Western Europe. This ideological transformation had lasting effects for the development of the world economy