Economic Punishment Research Articles

Repeated game behavior between bidder and regulatory agency of construction engineering with intertemporal choice

The traditional theory of bidder and regulatory agency of construction engineering does not take into account the repeated periodicity of the game between the regulator and regulated party, so that the mathematical point of game equilibrium deviates from actual behavioral expression. According to the intertemporal nature of bidder and regulatory agency, this paper analyzed the payoff matrix of the subject of bidder and regulatory agency, constructed the repeated game behavior model of bidder and regulatory agency, and explored the game conditions of the behavioral expression (steady state and unsteady state) between the two game parties of construction engineering. The results shows that: (1) The administrative triggers are adopted in the normalized regulation, which could make both parties between bidder and regulatory agency reach Pareto Optimality; (2) The intertemporal choice behavior of the bidder is related to the economic punishments, extraneous benefits and legitimate benefits. The increase of economic punishments and legitimate benefits could reduce the illegal behaviors; (3) The larger the discounted function, the easier it is for the bidder to choose long-term legal behavior. Our work indicated that the key to establishing a long-term market mechanism between bidder and regulatory agency is to increase the future impact on the present, and construct the administrative trigger measures of infinitely repeated game.

Safe Food Supply Chain as Health Network: An Evolutionary Game Analysis of Behavior Strategy for Quality Investment.

There is a natural relation between human health and the quality of their food and drinks, and elevating the quality input level of food production for all enterprises within the food supply chain system forms the foundation for preventing various potential food safety risks that may be encountered. Unlike the previous research on quality investment of food production by enterprises, this paper probes into the evolutionary routes of the behavior strategy selection of subjects in the food supply chain and the preconditions for the equilibrium points of the social co-governance system. It takes the approach of establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of food suppliers, food manufacturers and consumers on the basis of the social co-governance framework, in view of the above, this paper focuses on the influence of the reputation mechanism and the market contracts among supply chain subjects on the selection of a behavior strategy for quality investment by enterprises under the condition of lawful regulation by government. The results show that every subject selects their own behavior strategy on the basis of the balance of their respective interests. The net disbursement incurred by enterprises for quality investment and the costs of participation in governance by consumers constitute the dominant factors that influence both enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy and the level of social co-governance. Compared with the increase in economic punishment imposed on suppliers for production of risky food raw materials, it is more efficient to control food safety risks by lowering the costs of quality investment by suppliers. Accordingly, this paper proposes advice on policy in an attempt to provide inspiration for preventing and controlling food safety risks.

Patterns of Corporate Punishment in Corruption Crimes in the Indonesian Legal System

The issue of criminalizing corruption crimes involving corporations has become a concern because, recently, the phenomenon of corruption in several cases has involved corporations that are not easily subject to criminal sanctions. This research aims to analyze the criminal liability for corporations as perpetrators of corruption crimes in the Indonesian legal system and the pattern of punishment for corporations that commit corruption crimes. This research method applies the normative juridical method with a qualitative analysis of secondary data. The results show that law enforcement officials who determine corporations as suspects in corruption crimes and punish them but have difficulty in ensnaring corporations. One of the causes is the incomplete provisions regarding corporations as legal subjects in the anticorruption law. In addition, investigators have difficulty finding evidence and determining the identity of corporate offenders. The pattern of punishment for corporations is to apply a cumulative-alternative punishment pattern aimed at the corporation and its management. For corporations, the type of punishment imposed is fines or economic punishment aimed at recovering losses due to corruption or administrative punishment such as revocation of business licenses, while for the management, the punishment imposed is imprisonment and fines.
 Keywords: sentencing, corruption, corporation

The practice of non-recognition and economic sanctions: The case study of Ukraine, Manchuria and South Africa

Abstract Russia’s invasion of Ukraine again proves the essential role of collective non-recognition against unlawful situations, despite contentious debates concerning the status of the principle of non-recognition in the international legal system. However, an old but unsettled question also resurfaces: How should we perceive the relationship between the practice of non-recognition and economic sanctions? Some scholars contend that the practice of non-recognition must entail economic punishments and isolation and be ‘as oppressive as possible’. For quite some time, the economic language has dominated as the only language that matters facing any unlawful situations. Unfortunately, this tendency also undermines a long history of innovative development of other forms of declaratory and institutional non-recognition. This article, by examining the current non-recognition campaign in the case of Ukraine, together with case studies of Manchuria and of the South African apartheid regime, endeavours to provide more perspectives concerning the relationship between non-recognition and economic sanctions. The article argues that, compared to other forms of non-recognition, economic sanctions have never been a reliable factor in demonstrating international attitudes and the legal beliefs of the international community.

Identifying the effective and ineffective configurations of the mandatory waste management policy in China: a qualitative comparative analysis

Mandating domestic waste separation is essential for solving the urban waste crisis, but it remains unclear what kind of mandatory policy in detail is more effective or counterproductive. This current study described the mandatory policy of waste separation as a configuration of five attributes, i.e. economic punishment, social punishment, supervision, charges, and community governance. Based on data mining and text analysis of the messages from Sina Weibo, the concurrent effects of those attributes were analysed by a qualitative comparative analysis from 44 pilot cities in China. The study found three configurations of high willingness by residents to separate waste, which all require different mandatory policy attributes working together. Specifically, H1a is the combination of supervision, community governance, and economic punishment; and H1b is a combination of social punishment, community governance, and economic punishment. In configuration H2, supervision and community governance are core conditions, while charges and economic punishment are not necessary.

The impact of insurance on pollution emissions: Evidence from China's environmental pollution liability insurance

The disaster risks caused by environmental pollution can be effectively reduced by insurance, however, how insurance affects pollution emissions remains unexplored in existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impacts of Environmental Pollution Liability Insurance (EPLI) implemented in China on pollution emissions by adopting difference-in-differences approach. Using the data at the prefecture-city level from 2003 to 2015, we find that EPLI has a significant inhibitory effect on pollution emissions, and the effect is stronger with the increasing numbers of insured enterprises and insurance premiums. Further analysis exploring channels suggests that EPLI can strengthen public supervision by compensating the public for economic losses caused by pollution, and improve self-discipline by increasing economic punishment for enterprises pollution. Our findings provide a new rationale for environmental administrators to regulate industrial polluters.

Food manufacturer willingness to employ blockchain technology system under the social Co-governance framework: China's situation

The blockchain technology system has gradually come to be employed in the food supply chain system, and it has emerged that the system offers the unique function of effectively curbing counterfeiting by food manufacturers. Unlike previous research on adoption by enterprises of new technology, this paper probes into the specific evolutionary routes of game subjects from the perspective of the precondition for enterprises' willingness to employ blockchain technology on the basis of China's social co-governance framework and by establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of food manufacturer, government and consumer. The study then tests and verifies the stability conditions of equilibrium points and the relationship between these equilibrium points and the social co-governance level through numerical simulation analysis. On the above basis, the expected market proceeds of food producers employing blockchain technology and the influence of government and consumer behavior on enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy and the level of social co-governance are analyzed. The results show that every subject selects their own behavior strategy on the basis of the balance of their respective interests, and the final stability condition of the system is independent of their initial intentions. Rather, the expected sales volume of foods employing blockchain technology, governmental behavior (e.g., supervision, casual inspection, economic punishment, and fiscal subsidies), and complaints made by consumers constitute the main factors that influence food enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy. The level of social co-governance and the behavior of both government and consumers will ultimately be accomplished by influencing enterprises' expected economic returns, and the selection of an enterprise behavior strategy internally depends on the expected economic returns from producing foods employing blockchain technology. Therefore, this paper makes relevant proposals in an attempt to assist the Chinese government to better promote and popularize the blockchain technology system among food manufacturing enterprises.

Sanctioning Russia’s oligarchs – with shame

ABSTRACT When most people hear the word “sanctions,” they think of formal economic and political punishments leveled at rogue regimes, like the US trade embargo against Iran, or the threatened expulsion of Hungary from the European Union. Both kinds of sanctions have been leveled against Russia since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But the past eight months have also brought a different sanctions strategy to the fore: one aimed at stigmatizing the individuals close to Putin’s regime, in hopes of shattering elite support and encouraging revolt. These sanctions, which have led to the freezing and seizure of Russian oligarchs’ assets in the West, have prompted the first murmurs of public dissent by Russian oligarchs in nearly two decades. The sanctions have consequently been effective in destabilizing Putin’s authority, cracking the façade of control that has previously deterred attempts to topple him. This article explains the sociological dynamics of this strategy, and how stigma can be effective even where legal and economic punishments fail.

Rethinking China’s ‘economic coercion’: The case of the UK leaders’ meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2012

In 2012, David Cameron met the Dalai Lama. In retaliation for the meeting, China froze bilateral relations for 18 months. Subsequently, Cameron pledged to have no more meetings with the Dalai Lama and reiterated British recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. For some, China used economic punishment to extract the UK’s concession. For others, China used only diplomatic punishment. This article argues that both sides have underestimated the complexity of the case and need to integrate their insights for a better explanation. While China did not impose or threaten economic sanctions on the UK, its diplomatic sanctions put both political and economic pressure on the UK to concede. This article contributes to the studies of China–UK relations and China’s ‘economic coercion’.

How do integrity level and economic punishment affect residents' willingness and behavior to separate household waste? New evidence from 1293 questionnaires in Jinan

The willingness and behavior of urban residents to classify waste will determine the effectiveness of urban domestic waste treatment, and in order to examine the willingness and behavior, it is crucial to clarify the role and influence of morality and law. Based on the field survey data of 1293 residents in Jinan, we empirically analyze the impact of integrity level and economic punishment on residents’ waste classification willingness and behavior. We find that both the integrity level and perceived penalty effectiveness have a direct promoting effect on recycling intention and behavior; the integrity level has the greatest impact on the recycling intention (30.8%), and the perceived effectiveness of the penalty system has the greatest impact on the recycling behavior (23.6%); the recycling intention has mediation effect in the influence of integrity level on recycling behavior and the perceived penalty effectiveness on recycling behavior; in addition, the mechanism of integrity level and perceived penalty effectiveness promoting classification behavior through recycling intention mostly exists in people with high education and under 40 years old.

Exploring the driving mechanism of environmental mass incidents

Environmental mass incidents caused by pollution of enterprises seriously threaten the government's credibility and social stability. Thus, this paper tries to explore the driving mechanism of environmental mass incidents and to master critical factors for coping with it. Firstly, the spatial public goods game model on complex networks are applied to study the cooperation drive mechanism among individuals within the surrounding people. Secondly, a tripartite evolutionary game model including the government departments, polluting enterprises, and surrounding people is established to learn the complex conflict-of-interest relationships and behavior mechanism among them. Finally, the influence of key factors on system evolution is simulated. The results are as follows: In a complex network, individuals in the surrounding people work together for the common good. The driving factors of collective protest are common goal, strategic interaction, emotional contagion and the payoff of collective protest. The economic benefits related to environmental subsidies generated positive effect on surrounding people's collective action. In addition, the economic punishment mechanism of government departments has not shown influence on the strategic choices of surrounding people and polluting enterprises. Furthermore, the rectification burden of polluting enterprises and profit of collective protest are the key factors affecting the equilibrium of system evolution.

The Enlightenment of Foreign Environmental Protection Experience on Establishing Environmental Protection System in China

With China’s attention to the construction of ecological civilization,the reform of the existing ecological environment governance system is an important way to realize the construction of ecological civilization.This paper puts forward corresponding measures for the problems existing in the ecological environment protection management system in China from several aspects:establishing the ecological protection prediction system,cleverly designing the economic punishment system,establishing the comprehensive application mechanism of scientific research,and implementing the”no regret”ecological protection policy.

Identifying environmental and health threats in unconventional oil and gas violations: evidence from Pennsylvania compliance reports.

With unconventional oil and gas booming in commercial development, its inevitable environmental damage has aroused the public's vigilance. To support the regulation improvement and early-warning system building, it is of great need to learn the regular patterns in recurrent violations both for practitioners and governments. In this respect, we utilized the "Oil and Gas Compliance Report" from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from 2000 to 2019, a total of 5737 violation records, to dig out the historical violation patterns. Through LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) analysis combined with the decision tree model, our research attained the following conclusions: first, we find that the LDA themes of violations as "Erosion and sediment" and "Water pollution" are critical factors for "Failed" enforcement results. Therefore, policymakers and practitioners should pay more attention to those two types of accidents. Second, it is noted that counties are also one of the essential features that matter the enforcement results. Third, we need to consider the role of economic punishment dialectically, while it is not a significant feature for successful enforcement results. That is to say, a monetary penalty may not necessarily improve the effectiveness of the company's measurements.

How to simulate international economic sanctions: A multipurpose index modelling illustrated with EU sanctions against Russia

One of the main challenges economists must face while studying economic sanctions is to simulate them in their models faithfully. It seems extremely hard to achieve without a dedicated variable that precisely imitates coercive economic measures. Thence, this short paper aims to offer a framework for the construction of economic sanction indexes. Researchers can use our multipurpose index modelling to simulate economic punishment in their econometric models. If our work is framed within the Ukrainian crisis case and European economic sanctions against Russia, the method we provide can be used in any other case study. It is a great alternative to the standard use of dummy variables that witness sanctions' implementation and withdrawal. Additionally, our proposal allows calibrating the weight attributed to each sanction depending on its type, the sanction sender's ability to apply economic pressure, and the effect of time on sanctions' effectiveness. The first part of this paper details the methodology and the mathematical formalisation of our framework. It is used to build a sanction index that simulates sanctions against Russia during the Ukrainian crisis. The second part is an empirical study that compares our index to another one from the literature. Results reveal that our new sanction index witnesses the behaviour of sanctions more precisely, which leads to a stronger explanatory power. Moreover, it enhances the statistical significance of impulse-response functions generated by our SVAR models. Consequently, the framework for sanction index construction that is proposed in this paper successfully produced a reliable index that simulates the European Union's sanction against Russia in the Ukrainian crisis case.

An Optimal Allocation of losses and size in Power System Network with Dispersed Generation

In the Power System the distribution of the loss allocation to clients is a difficult issue for the effective power. They are various s loss allocations methods have been utilized to set up suitable economic punishments or prizes. The real power and operating cost are additionally influenced with dissemination organizes loss allocation, and in this way power advertises requires appropriate methodology for reasonable portion of loss allocations among network members. This paper presents three different techniques for obtained losses allocations distribution network with dispersed generation. Within the sight of dispersed generation, the different power streams in distributed network for embracing works to recognize among the commitments that increase or decrease the losses. The proposed three methods are tested in 16 & 69 Node Radial distribution network and its outcomes are contrasted and those of different strategies.

Evidentiary Thresholds for Unilateral Aggression: Douma, Skripal and Media Analysis of Chemical Weapon Attacks as a Casus Belli

The initiation of military or economic punishment generally on states requires significant justification, lest it be judged an act of aggression. In 2018 two separate incidents invoked similar rationales for such acts of reprisal, specifically that they were responding to attacks using chemical weapons. The incidents were an alleged sarin gas attack by the Syrian government on political opponents, which led to military strikes from the United States, and an alleged poisoning via novichok nerve agents by the Russian government on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter, which led to economic sanctions from the United Kingdom. In both cases, however, evidence of culpability fell short of what legal standards typically require. Despite this, media coverage has failed to examine alternative scenarios or to offer effective critical assessment of the weak rationalizations offered by US and UK governments. The result, precipitate and incautious policy, driven by hasty conclusions rather than careful analysis, represents a failure on the part of both media and government institutions to present the public with an even-handed and neutral assessment of matters vital to their national interest.

Aggressive Economic Incentives and Physical Activity: The Role of Choice and Technology Decision Aids

Aggressive incentive schemes that allow individuals to impose economic punishment on themselves if they fail to meet health goals present a promising approach for encouraging healthier behavior. However, the element of choice inherent in these schemes introduces concerns that only non-representative sectors of the population will select aggressive incentives, leaving value on the table for those who don't opt in. In a field experiment conducted over a 29 week period on individuals wearing Fitbit activity trackers, we find modest and short lived increases in physical activity for those provided the choice of aggressive incentives. In contrast, we find significant and persistent increases for those assigned (oftentimes against their stated preference) to the same aggressive incentives. The modest benefits for those provided a choice seems to emerge because those who benefited most from the aggressive incentives were the least likely to choose them, and it was those who did not need them who opted in. These results are confirmed in a follow up lab experiment. We also find that benefits to individuals assigned to aggressive incentives were pronounced if they also updated their step target in the Fitbit mobile application to match the new activity goal we provided them. Our findings have important implications for incentive based interventions to improve health behavior. For firms and policy makers, our results suggest that one effective strategy for encouraging sustained healthy behavior combines exposure to aggressive incentive schemes to jolt individuals out of their comfort zones with technology decision aids that help individuals sustain this behavior after incentives end.

Solving Transnistria: Any Optimists Left?

Since 1992, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the situation in Transnistria, the breakaway republic on the border between Moldova and Ukraine. After the conclusion of the agreement that ended the armed conflict, the Moldovan government in Chisinau and the Transnistrian authorities in Tiraspol made efforts to find a political solution, under the supervision of a negotiation mechanism that included, until the end of 2005, Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia’s 2003 plan to that end was rejected by the Moldovan leadership. This triggered a set of political and economic punishments from Moscow. The political changes of 2005 have given a new impetus to the negotiations on the resolution of the Transnistrian conflict. The changes in Georgia and Ukraine and the resuscitation of GUAM have significantly influenced the premises for a settlement, while the United States and the European Union have become observers in the negotiations format. At the end of 2007, however, the prospects of solving the Transnistria issue are no longer that promising. The present negotiating mechanism continues to lose relevance. Meanwhile, developments in Kosovo, relevant for the case of Transnistria, are taking international affairs down a path where the frozen conflicts of the former USSR are losing importance as time goes by. This article argues that the decisions of the actors involved have negatively affected the negotiating mechanism. During 2005–06, the parties took unilateral steps that they perceived as likely to improve their position in the future. Meanwhile, the heated debate on Kosovo and the tangled political evolution of Ukraine in the last two years have seemed to lead the conflict in Transnistria to a dead-end, at least in the short and medium term.

An Institutional Theory of Sanctions Onset and Success

Why do economic sanctions sometimes succeed, but often fail, to produce a policy change? The authors argue that the effect of economic punishment is conditional on a state's political institutions. In all cases, the key to sanctions success is to generate political costs for the target regime's winning coalition. However, because of different institutional incentives, economically punishing sanctions are less likely to succeed against a nondemocratic target than against a democratic target. Sanctions increase rents. This benefits nondemocratic leaders more than democratic ones. Also, nondemocratic leaders have smaller winning coalitions, so their core constituents suffer less from sanctions than democratic leaders. Additionally, the authors' strategic argument leads to novel hypotheses regarding the initiation of sanctions. They test hypotheses from their political cost argument against all dyadic sanctions cases between 1948 and 1990, using two different dependent variables and a censored selection estimator to take into account the strategic nature of sanctioning.

Punishing schools: fear and citizenship in American public education

In a society increasingly dominated by zero-tolerance thinking, Punishing Schools argues that our educational system has become both the subject of legislative punishment and the instrument of punishment for children. Authors Lyons and Drew analyze the connections between a culture of economic punishment of our schools (by the diversion of funding to charter schools, the imposition of unfunded mandates, and the enforcement of dubious forms of teacher accountability) and the imposition by those schools of punitive controls on their own students - a vicious cycle that creates fear and encourages the development of passive and dependent citizens. Based on in-depth interviews and detailed analysis of official documents, newspapers, and popular texts, Punishing Schools offers a rich and incisive critique of our public education system and its role in our national political culture.