We explore the incentives countries face in trade litigation within the new WTO Dispute Settlement System. Our analysis yields a number of interesting predictions. First, because sanctions are ruled out during the litigation process, the Dispute Settlement System does not preclude all new trade restrictions. However, the agenda-setting capacity of the complainant, including its right to force a decision, make traderestrictions less attractive than under the WTO's predecessor GATT. Second, the system's appellate review provides the losing defendant with strong incentives to delay negative findings, and both parties with a possibility to signal their determinacy in fighting the case. Third, a relatively weak implementation procedure potentially reinforces incentives to violate WTO trade rules. Fourth, bilateral settlements are more likely at an early stage in the process and are biased towards the expected outcome of the formal dispute settlement procedure. empirical evidence based on a first data set of cases at an advanced stage of the litigation process provides qualitative support for our claims. (pdf, 230k)
This paper analyzes the new World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system as a dynamic game under uncertainty, and explores its strategic elements and incentive structure. Our model delivers a number of implications, confirmed by already settled cases: Governments are often tempted to introduce trade restrictions which can guar- antee a positive payoff for a certain period of time. The complainant's agenda{setting capacity, nevertheless, can enhance economic efficiency by limiting the period in which trade restrictions are active. The losing party has a strong incentive to appeal the first instance findings of the procedure. Bilateral settlements can become feasible at different intermediate stages of the process. (pdf, 311k)
We use a change in the voting procedures of one of the two chambers of the Swiss parliament to explore how transparency affects the voting behavior of its members. Until 2013, the Upper House (Council of States) had voted by a show of hands. While publicly observable at the time of the vote, legislators' decisions could only be verified ex post through the time-consuming screening of online videos. In 2014, halfway through the legislative period, the chamber switched to electronic voting. Since then, the individual votes of legislators have become more transparent and observable as their votes are now recorded electronically and, in some cases, published online.
Our analysis is based on individual voting behavior in all final passage votes during the 2011- 2015 legislative period. In a difference-in-difference framework, the larger chamber, the Lower House (National Council), serves as a control group. Not only have the voting procedures of the Lower House remained unchanged since 2007 but also the legislative texts on which both chambers vote are the same. This unique framework makes it possible to estimate the causal effects of voting procedures on legislators' choices.
Since the voting system reform, members of the Upper House are significantly less likely to deviate from their party line. Our results reflect the increased observability of legislators' votes and the greater conformity pressure exerted by political parties, as easier monitoring enables them to enforce discipline among their members.
Der Beitrag berichtet über eine empirische Analyse einer Version der IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe, die um Zeiten der Fortbildung und Umschulung angereichert wurde. Die betrachteten Personen hatten zwischen Januar 1993 und Dezember 1994 eine neue Arbeitslosigkeitsperiode mit Bezug von Arbeitslosengeld oder -hilfe begonnen und wurden getrennt nach westlichen und östlichen Bundesländern untersucht. Besonderes Augenmerk wurde auf den so genannten 'Lock-in-Effekt' gelegt, der darauf beruht, dass Teilnehmer während der Massnahme nicht in gleichem Masse Arbeit suchen wie die Nichtteilnehmer. Es ergibt sich bei Umschulungsmassnahmen ein stark negativer Beschäftigungseffekt, während kürzere Fortbildungsmassnahmen erheblich besser abschneiden. Umschulungen zeigen andererseits langfristig die stärksten positiven Beschäftigungswirkungen. Es wird daher empfohlen, dass Massnahmen eine Chance bekommen sollten, ihre Wirkung erst einmal zu entfalten. Der anfangs zu beobachtende 'Lock-in-Effekt' wird meist langfristig kompensiert. [http://www.iab.de/asp/internet/dbdokShow.asp?pkyDoku=k050823805]
In many countries, caseworkers in a public employment office have the dual roles of counselling and monitoring unemployed persons. These roles often conflict with each other leading to important caseworker heterogeneity: Some consider providing services to their clients and satisfying their demands as their primary task. Others may however pursue their strategies even against the will of the unemployed person. They may assign job assignments and labour market programmes without consent of the unemployed person. Based on a very detailed linked jobseeker-caseworker dataset, we investigate the effects of caseworkers' cooperativeness on the employment probabilities of their clients. Modified statistical matching methods reveal that caseworkers who place less emphasis on a cooperative and harmonic relationship with their clients increase their employment chances in the short and medium term.
(doi:10.1111/j.1467-985X.2009.00600.x)
We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assist caseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour market programmes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labour market outcome for each programme and thereby suggested an 'optimal' labour market programme for each unemployed person. The support system was piloted in several employment offices. In those pilot offices, half of the caseworkers used the system and the other half acted as control group. The allocation of the caseworkers to treatment and control group was random. The experiment was designed such that caseworkers retained full discretion about the choice of active labour market programmes, and the evaluation results showed that caseworkers largely ignored the statistical support system. This indicates that stronger incentives are needed for caseworkers to comply with statistical profiling and targeting systems.
In this paper the motivation and various concepts of statistical systems for assisting case workers in assigning unemployed persons to active labour market programmes (ALMP) are examined and the particular implementation of such a statistical system in Switzerland, which was introduced in the form of a randomized pilot study, is discussed.
This paper examines whether contacts between caseworkers in public employment offices and employers impact on the reemployment chances of the unemployed they counsel. This analysis is made possible through a large administrative dataset on unemployed combined
with an extensive survey of caseworkers' characteristics and their strategies. This data was created for evaluating public employment services in Switzerland. We use econometric techniques from the treatment evaluation literature to identify causal effects of a more intense employer focus of the caseworkers. The estimation results indicate that caseworkers who maintain direct contacts to firms achieve higher reintegration rates.
Aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik in der Schweiz wird der deutschen gegenübergestellt. Beide Länder haben viele Gemeinsamkeiten bezüglich Zielsetzung, Instrumenten und institutionellen Reformen von aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik. In der Schweiz stand jedoch bereits schon früher eine informative administrative Datenbasis zur Evaluation zur Verfügung, so dass arbeitsmarktliche Massnahmen dort
früher evaluiert werden konnten. Die gefundenen Wirkungen der schweizerischen Instrumente werden zusammengefasst. Positive Effekte können insbesondere für den Zwischenverdienst gefunden
werden, ein Instrument welches, vergleichbar zum Kombilohn, Anreize zur Aufnahme von Beschäftigung mit geringerer Bezahlung schafft. Ausserdem wird erörtert, wie durch eine effizientere
Allokation von Massnahmen eine höhere Beschäftigung hätte erreicht werden können. In einer Pilotstudie in der Schweiz ist ein statistisches Hilfsmittel zur Massnahmenauswahl erprobt worden. In
Deutschland wird ein ähnliches System gegenwärtig entwickelt. Für die Evaluation aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik und die Prognosen ihrer Wirkungen ist eine informative Datenbasis notwendig. Die schweizerischen und die deutschen Datensätze werden hierzu beschrieben.
(http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwvjh:75-3-8 )
