Fundamental Conflict Of Interest Research Articles

WHY DOES A RULER TOLERATE CORRUPTION AND HOW CAN CORRUPTION POSSIBLY BE ELIMINATED?

There is a fundamental conflict of interests between the ruler and most citizens in non-democracies. When the ruler maximizes his benefit from taxation, the major constraint is that citizens might make attempts to overthrow the existing regime. The continuity and stability of regime are crucially related to the degree of support to the existing political regime by the bureaucracy. In this paper, we use a simple model to argue that, when the ruler maximizes his benefit and faces exogenous restriction on wage setting, toleration of corruption is necessary to induce the required support and effort from the bureaucracy. We then relax the exogenous restriction on wages and study the case in which the ruler may eliminate corruption by setting efficiency wage. We also explore the possibility that the ruler may use an audit device to check corruption.

The “Prevention Paradox”: food waste prevention and the quandary of systemic surplus production

Preventing food waste is a major global challenge to the sustainability and security of the environment, society and economy. In response to that challenge, a plethora of initiatives addressing food waste have formed in recent years. These initiatives focus on aspects such as the efficiency of resource use, reduction of supply chain food waste, food donations and rescue, consumer behaviour, and above all, innovative ways to add value to food surplus and waste. What many initiatives have in common is that they mainly deal with food waste once it exists rather than preventing it from occurring in the first place, which might thwart efforts to increase long-term food systems sustainability. The idea of food waste prevention itself is beset by several conceptual paradoxes: it is considered the most preferred method to manage waste—which it was supposed to prevent in the first place, and it is an ambiguous ecological behaviour lacking the tangible characteristics of waste composting or recycling (i.e. prevention by its nature is invisible). Most importantly, food waste prevention, like other major sustainability challenges, appears to be in a fundamental conflict of interest with current economic norms and practices. In response to these dissonances of prevention and the inability of waste management to reduce the creation of food waste, researchers have proposed a number of new approaches, including the re-appraisal of food overproduction as a key cause of food waste. Accepting Mourad’s (Environ Soc Berkeley J Sociol 59:26–33, 2015) challenge to “think outside the bin”, this work proposes a “Prevention Paradox” framing as a conceptual link between the bodies of research on food overproduction and food waste prevention, offering a more holistic approach to this major sustainability challenge.

Corporate control activism

This paper studies the role of activist investors in the market for corporate control. Our theory proposes that activist investors have an inherent advantage relative to bidders in pressuring entrenched incumbents to sell. As counterparties to the acquisition, bidders have a fundamental conflict of interests with target shareholders from which activist investors are immune. Therefore, unlike activists, the ability of bidders to win proxy fights is very limited. This result is consistent with the large number of activist campaigns that have resulted with the target’s sale to a third party and the evidence that most proxy fights are launched by activists, not by bidders.

Challenges of contract farming among small-scale commercial vegetable farmers in Eastern Cape South Africa

This research investigated the effectiveness of contract farming in commercialisation of small-scale vegetable farmers. The broad objectives of the study were to investigate the agri-business challenges inherent in contract farming and the government incentives required by agribusiness firms to engage small-scale vegetable farmers in contract farming programmes. A sample of 47 small-scale farmers and 15 agribusiness firms involved in contract farming production of vegetables were selected in Sarah Baartman district municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were chosen as data collection tools to identify the agribusiness challenges inherent in contract farming relationships between the parties. Findings from the study revealed that the contract farming environment in the area surveyed was highly polarised and characterised by a fundamental conflict of interest between agribusiness and farmers. Among the divergent key factors inhibiting contract farming engagement were a lack in terms of quality seeds, trust, entrepreneurial skills and formal contract agreements. The study recommends a collaborative partnership between private firms and government, with state support through revised policies and development programmes. These amendments are crucial to enhancing the engagement of small-scale vegetable farmers in lucrative agri-food chains.Keywords: agribusiness, commercialisation, contract farming, small-scale farmers

FINANCIAL FRAUD: A LITERATURE REVIEW

AbstractThis paper describes the empirical universe of financial fraud as it has been documented in the academic literature. Specifically, it describes the different forms of fraudulent behaviour in the context of financial market activities, the prevalence and consequences of such behaviour as identified by previous research, and the economic and market structures that scholars believe facilitate it. To structure the discussion, a conceptual distinction is made between three types of financial fraud: false financial disclosures, financial scams, and financial mis‐selling. The findings of the literature review highlight a number of recent developments that scholars think have facilitated the occurrence of financial fraud, including (1) the development of new fundamental conflicts of interest and perverse incentive structures in the financial industry; (2) an influx of unsophisticated, gullible participants in the financial marketplace; (3) the increasing complexity involved in financial market transactions as a result of rapid technological, legal, and financial innovation and an ever‐widening menu of financial products; (4) an increase in the use of justified secrecy in the form of a mystification of trading models adopted by fund managers.

State-ownership of tobacco industry: a ‘fundamental conflict of interest’ or a ‘tremendous opportunity’ for tobacco control?

Despite state-owned tobacco companies (SOTCs) accounting for over 40% of global production, the significance of state-ownership for tobacco control strategies has received limited academic and policy attention. The complex interests...

Optimal compatibility in systems markets

We investigate private and social incentives for standardization to ensure market-wide system compatibility in a two-dimensional spatial competition model. We develop a new methodology to analyze competition on a torus and show that there is a fundamental conflict of interests between consumers and producers over the standardization decision. Consumers prefer standardization with full compatibility because it offers more variety that confers a better match with their ideal specifications. However, firms are likely to choose the minimal compatibility to maximize product differentiation and soften competition. This is in sharp contrast to the previous literature that shows the alignment of private and social incentives for compatibility.

A Class-Based Analysis of Sustainable Development: Developing a Radical Perspective on Environmental Justice

Recent resurgence of interest in social aspects of sustainability has enjoined with on-going debates on environmental justice and equity. However, discussions on the socio-geographic distribution of environmental (dis-) benefits have substantially overlooked the issue of class (as defined by Marx). This paper begins to address that deficit by presenting a new conceptualization of sustainable development explicitly drawing on Marxist theorizations of class. Capital and labour have a fundamental conflict of interest; governments have limited potential, or interest, in intervening on labour's behalf. Environmental policies have been portrayed as offering economic and social benefits including so-called green jobs. This paper argues that such policies generate competition for investment rather than promoting equity. Green jobs may offer distributional benefits to individual workers, in certain locations, but cannot benefit labour as a class. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Freer Trade, More Regulation? Commercial Regulatory Provisions in Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreements

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have become a defining feature of the world trade system, expanding rapidly in number since the end of the Cold War and particularly in the Asia-Pacific, a region that was hitherto largely devoid of FTA activity. The nature of FTAs is also changing. Most incorporate a range of ‘trade plus’ measures that extend the reach of these agreements into various realms of commercial regulation, embodying specific rules on intellectual property, investment, government procurement, competition policy, and other areas of commercial practice. With conventional trade barriers (e.g. tariffs) continuing to fall and hence becoming less significant, the commercial regulatory provisions of FTAs have gained greater prominence. This article considers whether ‘freer trade’ in the early twenty-first century is increasingly concerned with setting the appropriate regulatory parameters to foster open market competition, but also competition on the regulatory terms of dominant FTA partners. The analysis centres on seven types of ‘influence effect’ associated with FTA commercial regulation, in broad terms relating to determining the liberalization embodied in agreements, shaping the domestic policy domain of FTA partners, affecting the relationship between FTAs and World Trade Organisation (WTO) accords, conferring regulatory preferences and free-rider advantages to trade partners, exhibiting cross-agreement regulatory influences, and exposing fundamental conflicts of interest on economic and social governance issues.

Scientific discourse, corporate ghostwriting, journal policy, and public trust

Scientific discourse, corporate ghostwriting, journal policy, and public trust

How much is that security worth? Valuation issues and recommendations for hedge fund advisers post‐registration

Every month, many hedge fund managers grapple with a fundamental conflict of interest. The conflict arises when a fund manager, whose compensation is based on fund performance, is charged with determining the value of the complex or illiquid securities in his portfolio. These securities often do not receive reliable market quotes, and may be difficult to value. Accordingly, a fund manager may be tempted to misprice the hard‐to‐price names in his account in order to bolster fund performance, and increase his own compensation. The situation is somewhat analogous to a chief financial officer calculating his corporation’s profits, all the while knowing that his calculations will affect his bonus. Change, however, is on the horizon. On December 2, 2004, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission)” amended the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (“Advisers Act)” to require certain hedge fund advisers to register with the Commission (the “Rule)”. Under the Rule, registered hedge fund advisers will be required to make their books available to SEC examiners by February 1, 2006, and, in turn, subject their valuation methods and policies to regulatory scrutiny.

DBS policymaking in Japan: An interpretive history

Despite Japan's successful experimentation with DBS technology, fundamental conflicts of interest between NHK and Japan's commercial broadcasters continue to chart an uncertain course for the future of Japan's DBS programme. This study traces the history of DBS policy-making in Japan, focusing on the role of the conflict between the two power groups in shaping Japanese DBS policy. The author highlights important policy considerations and discusses how the conflict between NHK and the commercial broadcasters must be resolved in order for Japan's DBS programme to be successfully implemented.

Marxism and Popular Politics: The Microfoundations of Class Conflict

A particularly important topic for Marxist theory is that of popular politics: the ways in which the underclasses of society express their interests and values through collective action. Classical Marxism postulates a fundamental conflict of interest among classes. It holds that exploited classes will come to an accurate assessment of their class interests, and will engage in appropriate collective actions to secure those interests. The result is a predicted variety of forms of underclass collective action: boycotts, rent strikes, tax and food riots, rebellion, and revolution. Underclass members of society instigate and support such protests because it is in their material class interest to do so. It will emerge, however, that this account is too schematic to provide a basis for explanation of popular politics. The microfoundations approach to Marxist theory will prove useful in this context because it directs us to some of the resources needed to provide a more adequate account of popular collective action.

AGRICULTURAL POLICY: COMMONWEALTH‐STATE ISSUES

The Report commenced, appropriately, by addressing the federal contract within which Australian agricultural policy is set. The Australian Constitution limits what can be done by the Commonwealth and State Governments and establishes procedures for settling arguments about where jurisdictions lie. There is a wider constitutional framework than the Constitution itself. It includes, for example, the Australian Agricultural Council which is the major means of co-ordinating powers and resolving conflicts between the Commonwealth and states in the field of agricultural policy. The federal contract also includes the wide range of co-operative approaches to policy, such as statutory marketing intitutions and the complementary legislation which supports them. The issue of federalism runs through the whole of the Report, but only in Chapter 2 was it addressed as a central issue. The Group viewed the Constitution itself as virtually immutable. The Australian Agricultural Council was criticised for acting only slowly and by consensus. Where there is a fundamental conflict of interest, the Commonwealth's financial strength may need to be used to encourage state co-operation. The emergence of the National Farmers' Federation was seen as hopeful, and there was a hint that a formal link between the Council and the Federation could facilitate consensus. But, on the whole, the tone of the Report regarding the federal contract was not enthusiastic. It was seen to constrain opportunities for change rather than to create them. Issues for the 1980s with respect to inter-governmental relations were expected to be similar to those of the past. In Chapter 2, the Group provided a brief synopsis of the respective roles of the Commonwealth and State Governments in areas covered in the rest of the Report, namely, assistance, marketing, international trade, transport, innovation and resource management. But having set the scene with an overview of the constitutional framework, the Group did not return to a federal overview of policy options. It is with that important task in view that I will address briefly three of the issues raised in Chapter 2, namely, assistance, marketing and international trade, and comment on Commonwealth grants to the states which are relevant to the remaining issues. My purpose is to highlight some policy dilemmas which need to be resolved within a federal context.

Attitudes to Industrial Relations in Four New Zealand Industrial Groups

While the attitudes of New Zealand trade unions and union officials to various aspects of industrial relations are consistently publicised, relatively little is known of the attitudes and opinions of rank-and file union members. The democratic structure of union organisations would lead one to expect a basic congruence between the policies and collective actions of unions, the public pronouncements of their elected officials, and the attitudes and wishes of their members. Yet public suspicion abounds that union off11cials are "unrepresentative", and do not genuinely reflect members' views: this suspicion is particularly strong when officials suggest that there are fundamental conflicts of interest between employers and employees, or when they take strong action in pursuit of demands. It is fanned by media coverage of industnal relations which stresses conflict and union militancy. The question of trade unionists' own attitudes is clearly important; these attitudes can both reflect and influence the conduct of bargaining process, and a knowledge of them can help both sides to pursue their objectives in a more realistic way.