Private Compensation Research Articles

Gas extraction governmentality: The depoliticization of Groningen's extractive territorialization

The Dutch Northeastern province of Groningen has attracted national and international attention for being situated on top of Europe's biggest gas field. Decades of gas extraction have caused human-made gasquakes that have become highly politicized as they have resulted in the damage of thousands of houses, messy compensation policies, unsafe living situations, an intense situation of social and psychological desperation, and deep political distrust. An issue that has, however, been mostly absent from political debates is the fact that the gas extraction has also caused land subsidence with major implications for the area's water systems. In this article, we investigate the depoliticizing governmentality techniques of Groningen's extractive territorialization. In doing so, we differentiate how the same governmentality techniques have mostly depoliticized gas extraction-land subsidence while they have failed to depoliticize the gasquakes. We nuance the complex power dynamics (i.e., simultaneous de- and re-politicization), socio-material transformation processes (i.e., land subsidence and gasquakes), and institutional dynamics (i.e., public water management and private compensation organizations) evoked by extractive transformations. We argue that the extractive alliance's land subsidence-governmentalities reflect a subtle re-ordering of territorial control. Yet, we also highlight the limits, contestations, and contingency of extractive governmentalization. We unravel how an understanding of power as simultaneously unintentional and intentional informs our analysis. We show how the extractive alliance benefits from the interplay of power strategies, yet not without being strongly contested by local inhabitants and social movements.

Moral identity and compensation preferences:The role of self- consistency and social approval

We examine how organizations can make amends with their customers after service failures that threaten consumer relationships. We propose that customers of ethical companies will be more satisfied when the company provides compensation that corresponds with and reinforces their moral identity. In particular, we explore the impact of two dimensions of moral identity - internalization and symbolization - on customers’ satisfaction with different types of private versus public (psychological and tangible) compensation following service failures. We propose that high moral identity internalization will be associated with higher satisfaction with private (psychological and tangible) compensation, while high moral identity symbolization will be associated with higher satisfaction with public (psychological and tangible) compensation. We find support for these predictions in two studies; an organizational survey study (N=159) of customers of a green social enterprise and an online scenario study (N=214). Moreover, the results of Study 2 show that the relationships between these moral identity dimensions and compensation are driven by different underlying mechanisms, namely self-consistency and social reinforcement respectively.

Willingness to accept local wind energy development: Does the compensation mechanism matter?

Wind power development projects often include compensation for the affected communities, but little is known about the efficacy of the alternative compensation mechanisms. This study addresses this question by examining the relative potential of private and public compensation. We conduct a Choice Experiment (CE) that investigates household preferences of compensation for the local siting of a hypothetical wind park. Households chose among different alternatives, where each alternative was characterized by three varying attributes: the number of turbines, the level of private compensation, and the level of public compensation. Results indicate the wind park imposes welfare losses to local residents and non-local recreational users, with about 35% of these losses corresponding to non-use values. Findings show that households prefer public compensation to private compensation, with household’s willingness to accept being lower with public compensation than private compensation. This finding suggests that estimates of local resistance to wind development depends on the compensation mechanism.

Occupational diseases and migrant workers’ compensation claiming in China: an unheeded social risk in asymmetrical employment relationships

ABSTRACTAs a result of rapid industrialisation in China, rural–urban migrant workers are increasingly susceptible to occupational diseases. Based on the concept of risk society, the occupational disease represents a distinctive industrial risk for migrant workers. However, this issue has been little explored from a sociological perspective, and this article aims to fill this gap by exploring migrant workers’ responses to occupational disease compensation. Despite the various laws on occupational diseases, migrant workers are generally unable to receive legal compensation. Instead, they have to negotiate with employers informally for private compensation. In addition to suffering physically from occupational diseases, the poor enforcement of public laws creates new social risks for workers, that is, the disadvantaged encounter unjust treatment, judicial injustice and social exclusion because their de jure entitlement is deprived. As a consequence, the laws aimed at protecting workers against accidents and occupational illnesses fail to reduce the power imbalance between employers and employees.

PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN CONJUNCTION TO THE RECOGNITION, RESTITUTION AND COMPENSATION OF PROPERTY IN DIFFERENT STATES

Historically, property has been the foundation of the existence of human society and of states at all times. The “Rule of Law” in every democratic state guarantees and protects property. In a chronological period of time, how has the Albanian legal systems guaranteed private property? After the change of dictatorial system caused by the democratic developments during the 90’ which happened in all the East Europe, the democratic state although it wasn’t responsible for the past injustice, took over the moral and legal obligations to adjust, as soon as possible, some of the previous regime injustices, from 29 November 1994 and after. The first step was Law nr.7512 in August 1 st 1991 “For sanctioning and protection of private property, for free initiative independent private activity and privatization”. Two basic elements of this process are: recognition/restitution and compensation of property. Both elements have encountered difficulties in their materialization in practice. The jurisprudence of European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Albania have tried to give the legal definition “restitution and compensation of property” meaning not the same as the right of property in a constitutional sense and rules of international law, but an understanding based on the principle of fairness and justice and more to the principle of the welfare state. An important role had the unification of these decisions, that taking into account the decisions of the European Court of Justice, unified judicial practice in regard to the question of restitution and compensation. Besides the repeated decisions and frequent recommendations as to improve the situation, Albanian state hasn’t built yet appropriate and effective mechanisms for tackling this problem. Keywords : Private property, restitution and compensation of property, jurisprudence, ECHR

Corporate Philanthropy and Productivity: Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment

Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and nonprofit sectors as well as in firms that engage in corporate philanthropy or other corporate social responsibility policies. This paper compares the effectiveness of a social incentive that takes the form of a donation received by a charity of the subject’s choice to a financial incentive. We find that social incentives lead to a 13% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. The response is strong for subjects with low initial productivity (30%), whereas high-productivity subjects do not respond. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives, half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely to do so than men. Furthermore, offering subjects some discretion in choosing their own payment schemes leads to a substantial improvement in performance. Comparing social incentives to equally costly increases in private compensation for low-productivity subjects reveals that the former are less effective in increasing productivity, but the difference is small and not statistically significant. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1985 . This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.

The Justice Ayre in the Border Sheriffdoms, 1493–1498

This article examines the administration of justice in the southern part of the kingdom during the first decade of James IV's reign. It does so through an analysis of the earliest surviving records of the justice ayre, for Lauder (1493), Jedburgh (1493), Jedburgh (1495), Selkirk (1495) and Peebles (1498). The character, intended purpose and provenance of the records is discussed. The function of the itinerant court is assessed, including how it worked with royal and seigneurial officials, and its relationship to regalian jurisdictions. The numbers of cases, outcomes and types of offences are examined, noting differences with the statutory record, especially with reference to the classification of theft and homicide. Comment is made on the process of pardon, highlighting the ways in which royal mercy could precede assythement, and the steps preliminary to remission. The extent to which a culture of private vengeance, feud and compensation can be detected in these records, and how this related to the ambitions and mechanisms of royal justice, underpins a cautiously pessimistic evaluation of this system.

Violent Crimes and Retaliation in the European Criminal Justice System between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Century

Early modern courts dealing with violent crimes constitute an exemplary field to study historical changes in the function and significance of retaliation as a measured reaction to criminal behavior. In pre-modern times, on the one hand, appropriate violence could be considered as a socially accepted behavior to react to violations of honor, body and property, as well as violent assaults could be compensated with a material recompense. On the other hand, penal justice partially followed the purpose of retaliation in the sense of retribution, and criminal courts punished manslaughter or murder with the death penalty. The ambivalence of retaliation with regard to violence was even more emphasized since the seventeenth century, because the emerging public criminal justice system followed more and more utilitarian purposes and punished violent crimes to maintain social control or to ‘discipline’ and ‘civilize’ perpetrators. Whereas the death penalty and retribution slowly decreased since the eighteenth century the purpose of private compensation and conflict settlement persisted to a certain degree, influencing court decision. If compensation between perpetrators and victims was achieved criminal courts could waive public punishment, but instead increasingly imposed punitive damages (Privatstrafe) and material public recompense. As a consequence, the function of retaliation and the relations between the different actors shifted from private compensation (perpetrators and victims) and public punishment (state and perpetrators) to ‘public compensation’ and ‘private punishment’ as an amalgamation of private and public retaliation which served for the interests of the state: fiscal recompense, the juridification (Verrechtlichung) of vindicatory violence as well as private retaliation, and the extension of social control through the criminal justice system. Commencing with the legal practice of the early modern criminal justice systems in Europe private and legal retaliation to violence significantly changed from legitimate vindicatory violence, private compensation and retributive public punishment to a system of formal social control and public retaliation that prevents violence, but impairs the interest of victims and prefers public compensation. Based on recent studies on violence in early modern Europe and exemplary court records this paper analyses the significance and the different functions of retaliation in the legal practice of European criminal justice systems responding to violent crimes.

Social Incentives Matter: Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment

Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives to financial incentives using an online real effort experiment. We find that social incentives lead to a 20% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely than men. Furthermore, social incentives do not attract less productive subjects, nor subjects that respond more to exogenously imposed social incentives. Our calculations suggest that a dollar spent on social incentives is equivalent to increasing private compensation by at least half a dollar.

Comparing Federal and Private Sector Compensation

Public sector compensation has come under increased scrutiny from politicians and the media, but comprehensive technical comparisons of federal and private compensation have been largely absent from the discussion. Drawing from the academic literature and using the most recent government data, this report measures the generosity of federal salaries, benefits, and job security. Compared to similar private sector workers, we estimate that federal workers receive a salary premium of 14 percent, a benefits premium of 63 percent, and extra job security worth 17 percent of pay. Together, these generate an overall federal compensation premium of approximately 61 percent. Reducing federal employee compensation to market levels could save taxpayers roughly $77 billion per year.

The Disastrous Unexpected Consequences of Private Compensation Reforms - Testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Hearing: 'Executive Compensation: How Much is Too Much?'

Americans are not nearly as angry as they should be about executive compensation. If they knew more, they would be angrier. The current crisis is only the latest in a series of intensifying crises brought on by epidemics of “control fraud.” “Control fraud” is a white-collar criminology theory that explains frauds in which those that control a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a “weapon.” In the financial sphere, accounting is the “weapon of choice.” Accounting control frauds’ ability to create record (fictional) profits means that compensation is a major driver of fraud epidemics and executive compensation is the primary means by which control frauds convert a firm’s assets to their own personal benefit – while minimizing the risk of prosecution. We need to recognize that compensation, not simply executive compensation, is what has perverted private market discipline. Second, we need to recognize the critical role that executive compensation plays in producing epidemics of accounting control fraud. Third, we need a massive crackdown on accounting fraud – which will allow us to claw back the massive fruits of accounting fraud that executives have already received. We need to provide the FBI promptly with a minimum of 1000 new white-collar crime specialists and prioritize their investigations on the leading nonprime specialty lenders and investors. The Fourth, we need to realize that huge pay for senior executives must be given only on the basis of real, sustained performance. What we need is a commitment to “vigilant” regulators who do not have a “mandate … to look the other way.” That does mean professionals from the civil service rather than the shameful political appointees that were appointed precisely because they did not believe in regulation.

Roles of Government in Compensating Disaster Victims

First explored are the nature of disasters – societal and individual, natural and manmade – and the place of both tort law and private insurance in providing compensation for disaster victims. Following brief discussions of disaster prevention and the sorts of private and public harms that are caused by disasters, five possible roles of government with respect to individual victim compensation are examined: 1) Facilitating the Receipt of Private Compensation for the Consequences of a Disaster; 2) Assuring Insurance Availability for Disaster Victims When the Market Fails to Do So; 3) Providing Victim Compensation Either When Government Should Have Prevented the Disaster or When It Is the Sort of Disaster We Aspire to Have Government Prevent; 4) Providing Victim Compensation as an Alternative to Tort Recovery; and 5) Providing Victim Assistance to Overwhelmed Communities For Reasons of Altruism and National Solidarity. Finally, brief attention is given to the type and level of victim compensation that government might assure.

Crowding out or crowding in? Public and private transfers in Germany

Intergenerational support exchanges are of particular interest in Europe's ageing populations. This paper focuses on the relationship between private and public financial transfers to and from the elderly. Based on German data we find that the giving of private transfers is influenced by public transfers. The close link between public transfers to the elderly and the financial support they give to others represents an inefficient backflow of pay-as-you-go financed pensions to the young generation. This mechanism can be interpreted as a private compensation device for the generations. We can also show that at the same time the receipt of public transfers by the elderly crowd-out private financial support they would have received otherwise in the German welfare state.

An overview of The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002

The intent of this paper is to provide an overview of the principal provisions of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (the ‘Act’),1 which became law in the USA on 26th November, 2002, and the practical effects which the Act has had on the state of terrorism insurance coverage as it had evolved between 11th September, 2001 and the passage of the Act. The Act voids some of the exclusions which had made their way into insurance policies (particularly post‐9/11) relating to losses from certain ‘acts of terrorism’ (as defined by the Act) and requires insurers meeting certain criteria to ‘make available’ terrorism insurance coverage to their insureds. The Act also establishes a temporary federal reinsurance programme which provides a system of shared public and private compensation for insured losses resulting from certain certified acts of terrorism. From the standpoint of the average insured, however, the practical impact of the Act has been far less dramatic than may appear on the face of it. As The Department of the Treasury explained in its Final Rule,2 one of the main purposes of the Act was to address market disruptions that resulted in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the USA and to ensure the availability and affordability of property and casualty insurance for certain risks associated with acts of terrorism. In addition, the Act was designed to provide a transitional period for the private insurance markets to stabilise, thereby allowing insurance companies to resume pricing terrorism insurance coverage. The Act also sought to build capacity in the insurance industry to absorb any future losses, while preserving insurance regulation and consumer protections in the individual states.

Insurance Economics and Legal Systems

Legal systems are historical jungles, national patchwork systems equipped differently to cope with large loss scenarios. They react differently, and involve private insurance in different ways. So the same scenario may affect many countries, but in different ways: first, state and private prevention standards vary from country to country and change over the course of time; secondly, state and private compensation systems function and develop differently; and finally, there are cultural differences in the social and political perception of risks, and in the significance attached to them in the public debate. Almost 100 years ago the German sociologist Eugen Ehrlich said: ‘‘The focal point of legal development in our time, as in all times, lies neither in legislation nor in jurisprudence or court decisions but in society itself.’’

DOES INDONESIA HAVE A 'LOW PAY' CIVIL SERVICE?

Government officials and policy analysts maintain that Indonesia's civil servants are poorly paid, and have been for decades, a conclusion that is supported by anecdotal evidence and casual empiricism. In this paper, the relationship between government and private compensation levels is systematically analysed using evidence from two large household data sets, the 1998 Sakernas and the 1999 Susenas. The results suggest that government workers with a high school education or less, representing three-quarters of the civil service, earn a pay premium over their private sector counterparts. Civil servants with more than a high school education earn less than they would in the private sector but, on average, the premium is far smaller than is commonly alleged, and is in keeping with public/private differentials in other countries. The results prove robust to varying econometric specifications and cast doubt on the proposition that low pay is an explanation for government corruption.

Comparing Public and Private Earnings Using State Wage Surveys1

This paper shows how state wage surveys can be used to compare the earnings of public and private sector workers within states. This subject of long-running interest to economists has generated a complex and sometimes contradictory set of empirical results. Surprisingly little, if any, of this academic work has used the publicly available wage surveys that many states routinely collect. This paper serves as an introduction to such surveys and an application of the Wisconsin State Wage Survey for the purpose of comparing public and private compensation. While the evidence generally indicates public earnings are higher, we are careful to point out the limitations of our methodology which suggests this conclusion is incomplete.

Defensive Technology and Welfare Analysis of Environmental Quality Change with Uncertain Consumer Health Impacts

AbstractMeasuring the ex post losses from environmental quality change is an important issue when environmental contamination creates health risks, liability is assigned, and private compensation efforts are required. This paper proposes a methodology for measuring the ex post welfare impact of environmental quality change using market behavior from defensive expenditures. Conditions under which a defensive technology can provide a bound on welfare estimates are identified.