Private Negotiations Research Articles

Telecommunications Divestment

This article examines the undemocratic process of telecommunications divestment in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The divestment of the telecommunications sector was largely prompted by each state's inability to service external debt. Despite espousing the importance of public participation in the ownership of state-owned enterprises being divested, the governments each limited or excluded nationals from ownership of the telephony companies. Divestment of the telecommunications sector was principally undertaken through private negotiations with Cable and Wireless which has historically provided service to former British colonies. This continued colonization of the telecommunications sector is at odds with the democratic structure of both states.

The Crafting of the National Low-Emission Vehicle Program: a Private Contract Theory of Public Rulemaking

I. INTRODUCTION Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAA),(1) the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. or EPA) is expressly prohibited from enforcing more stringent motor vehicle emissions standards until the year 2004.(2) However, Congress granted the State of California a preemption waiver permitting that state alone to adopt stricter standards.(3) Congress further granted other states the authority under the CAA to adopt any emissions standards adopted by California.(4) Thus, while states other than California cannot choose to implement their own vehicle emissions standards, they do have the power to adopt the California standards in place of the applicable federal standards. In 1990, California adopted the Low-Emission Vehicle (CAL LEV) program.(5) Following its adoption, a number of states in the Northeast, as well as Texas, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, began to consider adopting California's standards. The Northeast states, empowered to act together under the CAA as the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC), adopted a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to adopt the CAL LEV program.(6) Of these states, only Massachusetts and New York actually succeeded in implementing the program. Auto manufacturers (both U.S. and foreign industry groups) protested the OTC's actions and, in response, proposed an alternative to regional adoption of the California LEV program. The U.S. EPA reacted by supporting compromise negotiations between the states and the auto industry. These negotiations resulted in the creation of the National Low-Emission Vehicle (NLEV) program.(7) The NLEV program, if implemented, would apply in all 49 states other than California. Since the program incorporates requirements for more stringent auto emissions standards prior to 2004 (contrary to the CAA ban), the U.S. EPA seems to lack authority under the CAA to enforce the NLEV program. Provisions of the NLEV program purport, however, to create independent contract mechanisms, outside the realm of the CAA, that would permit the U.S. EPA to enforce the more stringent emissions standards. The U.S. EPA, in sum, has collaborated with state governments and auto manufacturers to negotiate a rule that neither was contemplated by Congress nor is suggested in the language of the CAA. Adoption of the NLEV program raises several fundamental legal issues. First, does the U.S. EPA have the authority to implement and enforce a regulation that appears, on its face, unauthorized under federal statute? Second, does the EPA have the authority to utilize a rulemaking procedure that is inconsistent with statutory guidelines, such as those established in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act. Third, if the EPA does have the authority to use novel rulemaking procedures, do the U.S. EPA and the states have the legal authority to reach an agreement on a national regulation through informal negotiations between select states and auto manufacturers? Fourth, what is the efficacy of substituting private negotiation in place of public rulemaking? A discussion of these legal questions begins with a survey of the path that the EPA, the states, and the auto manufacturers have traveled to arrive at the novel NLEV plan. To understand the negotiating stances of all parties involved in the NLEV rulemaking, it is important first to have a sense of the legislative, regulatory, and general political history that laid the groundwork for the NLEV negotiations. After describing the negotiating backdrop, this comment summarizes the substance of the NLEV program, followed by a discussion of the unorthodox rulemaking procedure that the EPA has used in crafting the rule. Finally, this comment considers the link between the EPA's unorthodox negotiating procedure and the unconventional NLEV rule. This comment concludes that the 1990 CAA excessively restricts the EPA's ability to react to changing air pollution control needs and technological advances. …

A Comparison of Prices Brought by English Auctions and Private Negotiations

A comparison of house prices brought by English auctions and private negotiations produced evidence that the pricing mechanism matters. In an active market for middle‐ to high‐priced houses, auctions extracted higher prices than private negotiations.

THE SEQUESTRATION AND DISPERSAL OF THE BUCKINGHAM COLLECTION

Conflicting, partial and inaccurate accounts of the dispersal in the 16505 of the Duck of Buckingham have appeared widely. Drawing on little-unknown and unpublished documents, an accurate and detailed narrative has been compiled here for the time. It details the rival attempts to sequestrate and protect the collection in London, and the circumstances under which it was sent to Holland for safe keeping. The pawning of the collection in Antwerp described as are the farcical attempts at a sale by auction and the eventual sales by private and the eventual sales by private negotiation. A chronological Appendix of unpublished documents is included. All illustrations are of items formerly in the collection.

Trust in numbers: the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life

This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the sciences of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is exactly wrong to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply.

Land use rights reform in China: Some theoretical issues

The socialist regime in China abolished the long-established system of private property rights in land during the Great Leap Forward (1957–1962) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1978) and replaced it with a bureaucratic and discretionary system based upon the Communist Party hierarchy. Recently, however, through the so-called ‘land use rights reform’ introduced as part of the economic liberalization programme of Deng Xiao Ping, the Chinese government has in effect revived private property rights in land in the form of leasehold interests allocated by auction, tender and private negotiation.

Experimental Examination of a Thin Market: Price Behavior in a Declining Terminal Market Revisited

AbstractPerceived characteristics of thin markets are described and approaches to furthering their study are suggested. Design features of a laboratory thin market, patterned after a typical livestock marketing situation, are described. Price bias and variation from a “thick” private negotiation market with 22 traders is compared to that from a “thin” auction market with 8 traders. No systematic price bias was found in any of the markets. Price variation was actually lower in the thin auction market.

Property rights for changing forest values: a study of mixed-wood management in Canada

As new values of forests emerge, property rights must evolve to accommodate these changes. An analytical framework is presented that may be used to assess whether private negotiations between firms may optimally accommodate newly emerging values. A study of mixed-wood management in Canada reveals that private negotiations form a central role in many mixed-wood policies with varying degrees of success. The analytical framework is used to illustrate that successes in mixed-wood policies may be attributed to tenure structures that facilitate trades in property rights, whereas problems may be explained by constrained or absent markets for property rights. Although private market negotiations may accommodate emerging values in the case of mixed-wood management, physical characteristics and social values associated with nontimber resources may prevent such solutions and may therefore require government regulation.

The Elusive Shadow of the Law

This article explores the conditions which lead to variation in the degree to which law affects private negotiations? It is an extension and modification of Mnookin and Kornhauser's (1979) formulation that negotiations occur in the shadow of the law. Drawing on prior research on disputes, I hypothesize that this effect depends on the way a claim is framed (which in turn is affected by the claimant's gender), on the mode of attorney involvement, and on claimant use of informational networks. I examine these hypotheses by an analysis of a small sample of recently divorced men and women who were interviewed about the negotiations that led to their custody and child-support arrangements.

Pollution Subsidies and Multiple Local Optima

In a famous example, Coase (1960) discussed the negotiations that would take place between a farmer and a rancher when the cattle destroyed part the crops. Coase showed that if the property rights were clearly defined and transactions costs were negligible, the same allocation would result whether the rancher paid the farmer for damages or the farmer paid the rancher to reduce damages. This insight naturally raised a question about whether a similar symmetry existed when public intervention was used because transactions costs prevented private negotiations. Could the same results be achieved with taxes' on the release of pollution and subsidies for pollution abatement? This is an important question since distributional goals, political power, or historical rights might make one or the other of the policies more desirable, if they were identical from an efficiency standpoint. It has been shown in several articles that

Transforming adversaries into collaborators

After more than a decade of sharp conflict, environmental and chemical industry lobbyists sat down in direct, private negotiations on reforming pesticides regulatory policy in the United States. This article examines the dynamics that transformed longtime adversaries into temporary collaborators during 1985–86. It also examines why the efforts of this ad hoc coalition eventually failed. In doing so, this case looks into the current state of relations among American interest groups, and between the interest group community and the Congress.

Lessons from the Alternative Dispute Resolution Movement

In less than a decade, alternative dispute resolution-ADR-has grown from a bravely-voiced hope to a congeries of practices animated by the desire to resolve legal battles outside the courtroom.' ADR offers a way-station, or a series of them, between the probity of the adversary system and the flexibility of private negotiations.2 Though not without an ideology, ADR has never had a unified theory to explain what it accomplishes and how it works. But enough experience has accumulated by now to permit a search for a more analytical understanding of ADR and the lessons it might teach.

The Influence of Private Contractual Failure on Regulation: The Case of Oil Field Unitization

An analysis of the interdependence between regulation and private contractual failure reveals that the feasible range of regulation is restricted by the same forces that block private agreement. The focus of the study is oil field unitization regulation in Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming (federal lands) from 1948 through 1975. Despite large potential gains from unitization, private negotiations fail because of lease heterogeneities and information problems regarding lease value estimates. In response, the federal and state governments have adopted strikingly different policies to encourage unitization with different results. Only the federal government's regulations are effective because they surmount information problems. Texas has the least successful regulation. The paper argues that the policy differences are due to the political influence of small firms that benefit from nonunitized production. 25 references, 2 tables.

Labor Displacement and Public Policy

Change is an inevitable part of every dynamic society. Economic changes which displace labor include changes in consumer preferences which result in unemployment for those producing goods no longer desired , technical changes, in which the same product is produced with less labor, and political -economic changes , which cause labor displacement as a direct or indirect result of a conscious policy decision. Under tradition, public policy, and law, the source of labor-displacing change is a primary determinant of the availability and extent of any assistance'' for those persons displaced. In Europe, virtually all workers are guaranteed some form of adjustment assistance, including mandatory 30-day notice before severance, severance pay, and (often) retraining and relocation assistance. In the United States, adjustment is provided as a result of private negotiations (usually between union and management) or because the federal government has assumed an obligation for those displaced. Collective bargaining agreements which provided private adjustment to displaced workers include the meat-packing automation agreements of the early 1960's and the longshore containerization agreements in the late 1950's. Federal adjustment is provided to those in domestic industries who lose work time or employment because of import competition and to individuals who may be displaced by government-mandated rail or mass transit re-organization, park expansion, or environmental protections. Individuals involuntarily displaced typically suffer substantial income (and psychic) losses. Earnings in the year after displacement are often only 50 to 75 percent of earnings in the year before displacement. Individual hardship varies in relatively predictable patterns. Older workers, those with fewer skills, those unable to leave the area, and those who are female or belong to minority populations suffer the most severe income losses. The extent and distribution of income losses depends on both individual and area characteristics. Area unemployment conditions are most critical in determining re-employment ease or difficulty, but advance notice, employer-union cooperation, and the active involvement of local employment service personnel can reduce the duration of unemployment and improve prospects for satisfying new employment. Current concern for the labor displacin3 consequences of agricultural mechanization results from the nature of labor-displacing change, the lack of private and public adjustment for displaced farm laborers, and the existence of real income losses among those displaced. Although some 700, 000 persons do some farmwork for pay each year in California, the vast majority work less than 10 days in agriculture. The resulting work pattern assures farmworkers multiple sources of income, which limits income losses when any single crop harvest is mechanized. In designing and administering any assistance program for farmworkers, the high proportion of workers and these multiple income sources make it difficult to avoid a Hobson's choice: exclusion of the casual workforce or providing incentives to many persons to do a few days of farmwork in order to qualify for displacement compensation. Some agricultural research is conducted with public monies. If this research results in labor-saving innovations , what responsibility does government (or its agents) incur for the plight of displaced labor? If one adopts the legal notion of culpability, responsibility rests with the initiator of displacing change, i.e., the university. But if the benefits of agricultural mechanization accrue to society-at-large, general labor market can be justified. General adjustment is usually favored by manpower researchers, since it is often more effective and efficient and avoids horizontal inequities (providing different benefits to similarly situated persons).

Justice Field and the Jurisprudence of Government-Business Relations: Some Parameters of Laissez-Faire Constitutionalism, 1863-1897

HE institutional and economic growth of American society through the mid-nineteenth century entailed -close cooperation between the public and private sectors. Antebellum state and local politicians viewed government's resources as a means attain the developmental goals of a society dedicated material growth; public officials were more than willing to seek the public good through private negotiations.' State legislatures chartered hundreds of corporations and lavished them with land grants, lottery franchises, eminent domain privileges, and tax exemptions.2 Local governments, too, engaged in the scramble for regional development and readily opened their treasuries railroad corporations and other businesses.3 By the 1870s, however, various socioeconomic groups began perceive that their interests were no longer congruent with those of the corporations that government had created and subsidized. In that decade, shippers waged successful struggles impose stiff regulatory laws on grain

Frequency of Adoption in Children with the Nuerological Learning Disability Sindroms

statistical study of 80 children with the A neurological learning disability syndrome(minimal brain damage) revealed that the incidence of adoption in this group was almost four times that expected in an equivalent, but normal population. Sixty percent (six children) had been adopted through a private agency; 30 percent (three children) had been adopted through a state agency; and 10 percent (one child) had been adopted through private negotiations. Because adoption agency personnel were not able to release information on the preadoption history of the children, only speculation on the significance of this observation is included in this report.

A New Chapter of Space Law: The Agreement on the Rescue and Return of Astronauts and Space Objects

By the end of 1967, space diplomacy proved capable of accomplishing an international agreement at the speed of space travel itself. On the very last day before the end of its 22nd Session, the United Nations General Assembly was confronted with an Agreement on the Rescue and Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space and almost simultaneously adopted a resolution in which it “commends” the Agreement. What a United Nations Committee had not been able to produce in five years of hard work, emerged suddenly from private negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although many of the Agreement's particular provisions submitted by the two space powers had their origin in earlier texts discussed in the UN Outer Space Committee and its legal subcommittee, the fact remains that it was a bilateral draft which was rushed through the multilateral arena.