法律翻译｜《法与经济学杂志》第65卷第4期

译者 | 魏靖哲 UC Berkeley LL.M.

一审 | 邓雅元 复旦法本

二审 | 郑晨焕 WUSTL LL.M.

编辑 | NYZ 武汉大学本科

         于杰 上海对外经贸大学本科

责编 | 王有蓉 中国政法大学硕士

The Journal of Law and Economics Volume 65, Number 4 | November 2022

《法与经济学杂志》第65卷第4期

• 01 Why Did Firms Practice Segregation? Evidence from Movie Theaters during Jim Crow
  

  企业为何实施种族隔离？以吉姆-克劳时期的影院产业为例

• 02 Does Amazon Exercise Its Market Power? Evidence from Toys“R”Us

  亚马逊是否滥用了其市场支配地位？来自玩具反斗城的例证

• 03 Creditors’ Rights, Threat of Liquidation, and the Labor and Capital Choices of Firms
  

  债权人权利保护、企业清算威胁以其在劳动力和资本投入间的选择

• 04 The Development of the Takeover Auction Process: The Evolution of Property Rights in the Modern Wild West

  收购拍卖的历史发展：现代西方国家法人财产权制度的重大变革

• 05 Do Prostitution Laws Affect Rape Rates? Evidence from Europe

  禁娼法会影响强奸率吗？来自欧洲的例证

• 06 Crime and (a Preference for) Punishment: The Effects of Drug Policy Reform on Policing Activity

  犯罪与刑罚：毒品政策改革对警务活动的影响

• 07 Pride and Prejudice: Same-Sex Marriage Legalization Announcements and Hate Crimes

  傲慢与偏见：同性婚姻合法化与仇恨犯罪

Why Did Firms Practice Segregation? Evidence from Movie Theaters during Jim Crow

企业为何实施种族隔离？以吉姆-克劳时期[1]的影院产业为例

Ricard Gil and Justin Marion  

Racial segregation by businesses during Jim Crow was often voluntary and practiced without a legal mandate. Voluntary segregation can be driven by profit-motivated business owners catering to racist white customers or discrimination by business owners. We assess the relative importance of customers’ and firms’ discrimination by examining the 1953 desegregation of Washington, DC, movie theaters, which occurred rapidly because of a Supreme Court ruling affecting only businesses in Washington. Using weekly data for a nationwide sample of theaters, we find that revenues of Washington theaters fell relative to other theaters, consistent with reduced demand from biased white customers. We use a test for firms’ discrimination based on a model of the screening decision for films with black actors cast in prominent roles. We cannot reject that the run length of these films was profit motivated. Together, our results point toward customer discrimination as a primary cause of public accommodation segregation.

（图片源于网络）

Does Amazon Exercise Its Market Power? Evidence from Toys“R”Us

亚马逊是否滥用了其市场支配地位？来自玩具反斗城[2]的例证

Leshui He, Imke Reimers, and Benjamin Shiller

Since its founding, Amazon has established a reputation for being consumer friendly by consistently offering lower prices than its market position would seem to allow. However, recent antitrust concerns about dominant online platforms have revived questions about whether Amazon’s growing market share threatens consumer welfare. Given its reputation, regulators have proposed a new focus on conduct unrelated to prices. We ask whether such a move is premature. Using the sudden and unanticipated US exit of Toys“R”Us as a natural experiment, we find that Amazon’s toy prices on its US site increased by almost 5 percent in the wake of the exit relative to similar products and to toys on its Canadian site. Thus, despite Amazon’s long-standing reputation, it may exploit increases in market power in traditional ways as competing retailers cease operating. 

自成立以来，亚马逊通过不断提供与其市场地位不相匹配的低价产品，在消费者中建立了良好的口碑。然而，近来占市场支配地位的网络平台的反垄断问题日益得到密切关注，重新引发了关于亚马逊不断增长的市场份额是否威胁到消费者福利的讨论。鉴于亚马逊的长期以来价格低廉的声誉，监管机构提议将新的重点放在与价格无关的行为上。有学者质疑，这样的举措是否为时过早。本文以玩具反斗城在美国的突然退出作为研究对象，发现亚马逊在其美国网站上的玩具价格相对于类似产品和其加拿大网站上的玩具价格增长了近5%。因此，尽管亚马逊长期以来享有对消费者友好的盛誉，但随着竞争零售商的停业，它有可能会重蹈其他同行的覆辙，走上滥用市场支配地位之路。

（图片源于网络）

债权人权利保护、企业清算威胁以其在劳动力和资本投入间的选择

Shashwat Alok, Ritam Chaurey, and Vasudha Nukala

In 2002, India introduced a legal reform that allowed secured creditors to seize and liquidate a defaulter’s assets, thereby strengthening creditors’ rights. We study the impact of the legal change on firms’ real decisions regarding their capital and labor, exploiting variation in their prepolicy proportion of collateralizable assets. We find that firms increased employment and reduced their capital investments. These effects are especially strong for firms in regions with less-efficient courts. Our results are consistent with an increased threat of liquidation for firms following the passage of the law.

2002年，印度进行了一项法律改革，允许有担保的债权人扣押违约债务人的财产并进行清算，从而增强了债权人权利保护。我们通过比较此政策出台前后，企业可抵押资产比例的变化，来研究此项法律制度改革对企业在资本和劳动力方面的实际决策产生的影响。我们发现，企业增加了人力资源开支而减少了资本投资，这一影响在法院效率较低的地区的企业尤其明显。这一结果与此项法规通过后企业清算威胁的增加密不可分。

The Development of the Takeover Auction Process: The Evolution of Property Rights in the Modern Wild West

《收购拍卖的历史发展：现代西方国家法人财产权制度的重大变革》

William O. Brown Jr., Tingting Liu, and J. Harold Mulherin

Using a unique, hand-collected sample of US acquisitions, we study the interaction between the legal system and the takeover auction process from 1981 to 2020. We associate the strengthening of the property rights of targets’ boards after the 1989 Time Inc. decision with fundamental changes in the takeover auction process. This strengthening of the boards’ property rights has moved the auction process from a public one to a behind-the-scenes one in which targets’ boards control both the number of bidders and the flow of information. Targets’ boards are more likely to initiate the auction themselves, and the length of the private negotiation process has significantly lengthened. This fundamental change has benefited target shareholders.

通过分析自主搜集的独特的美国公司收购样本，我们对1981年至2020年间相关法律制度和收购拍卖之间的相互影响进行了研究。1989年“时代公司”一案[3]的裁决颁布后，收购拍卖这一交易过程发生了根本性变化，我们发现这与目标公司董事会的产权加强有密切联系。董事会产权的强化使收购拍卖过程从公开透明转向幕后，在这个过程中，目标公司的董事会控制着意向收购方的数量和信息的流动。目标公司的董事会更有可能自己发起收购程序，且私下谈判过程的时间也大大延长了。这一根本性的变化使目标公司的股东受益。

（图片源于网络）

Do Prostitution Laws Affect Rape Rates? Evidence from Europe

禁娼法会影响强奸率吗？来自欧洲的例证

Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova

We identify a causal effect of the liberalization and prohibition of commercial sex on rape rates, using staggered legislative changes in European countries. Liberalizing prostitution leads to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase. The results are stronger when rape is less severely underreported and when it is more difficult for men to obtain sex via marriage or partnership. We also provide the first evidence for the asymmetric effect of prostitution regulation on rape rates: the magnitude of prostitution prohibition is much larger than that of prostitution liberalization. Placebo tests show that prostitution laws have no impact on nonsexual crimes. Overall, our results indicate that prostitution is a substitute for sexual violence and that the recent global trend of prohibiting commercial sex (especially the Nordic model) could have the unforeseen consequence of proliferating sexual violence.

If you expel prostitutes from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts. (St. Augustine, in Richards 1995, p. 118)

通过比较欧洲国家不断反复的立法演变，我们确定了自由化和禁止商业性行为与强奸犯罪率高低的因果关系。结论是：放宽卖淫导致强奸率显著下降，而禁止卖淫则导致强奸率显著上升。当强奸类犯罪的漏报情况不那么严重、以及当男性更难通过婚姻或性伙伴关系实施性行为时，这种影响会更加显著。为证明针对卖淫行为的监管立法对强奸犯罪的发生率有着极不对称的影响力，我们率先提供了证据，即禁止卖淫相较放宽卖淫将大幅提高性犯罪的发生率。安慰剂测试表明，禁娼法对非性犯罪没有影响。总的来说，我们的结果表明，卖淫是性暴力的替代品，而近年来全球禁止商业性行为的趋势，尤其是北欧地区的变化，可能会催生性暴力激增的意外后果。“若将性服务者彻底驱逐，整个社会都因情欲泛滥而动荡不安”。(圣奥古斯丁：《理查兹》，1995年版，第118页。）

Crime and (a Preference for) Punishment: The Effects of Drug Policy Reform on Policing Activity

犯罪与刑罚：毒品政策改革对警务活动的影响

Adam Soliman  

Researchers still know very little about the incentives of police. Using geocoded crime data and a novel source of within-city variation in punishment severity, I shed light on enforcement behavior. I find a 13 percent decrease in drug arrests in parts of a city where drug sale penalties were weakened. There is no displacement of nondrug offenses. If offenders are significantly deterred by harsher penalties, as the law intended and Becker’s model of criminal behavior predicts, drug arrests should increase in areas with weaker penalties. My results are therefore consistent with police officers treating enforcement effort and punishment severity as complements. I also find that citywide crime and drug use do not increase after the reform. I thus call into question the War on Drugs view of punishment and suggest that certain types of enforcement can be reduced without incurring large public safety costs.

研究者们对警察执法政策的激励机制仍然知之甚少。利用分区域的犯罪数据和城市内犯罪惩罚力度变化的最新资料，本文对执法行为的影响进行了分析。本文指出，在城市某一地区针对毒品销售的处罚减弱后，毒品犯罪的逮捕量下降了13%，在非毒品犯罪方面则没有产生影响。如果犯罪者因更严厉的惩罚而受到极大的威慑，正如立法目的和贝克尔的犯罪行为模型所预测的那样，在惩罚力度较弱的地区，毒品犯罪逮捕量应相应增加。因此，我们的研究结果与警察提倡将执法力度和处罚力度作为补充的做法相一致。笔者还发现，改革后全市的犯罪和毒品使用现象并没有增加。因此，本文对"向毒品宣战"活动所倡导的加重毒品犯罪刑罚的观点提出质疑，并建议在不严重威胁公共安全的前提下减少某些类型的执法。

（图片源于网络）

Pride and Prejudice: Same-Sex Marriage Legalization Announcements and Hate Crimes

傲慢与偏见：同性婚姻合法化与仇恨犯罪

Robert W. Pettis, Zehra Valencia, and Breyon J. Williams

In this paper, we examine whether same-sex marriage legalization announcements impact the occurrence of hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit the variation in the timing of same-sex marriage legalization announcements across states. On average, a same-sex marriage legalization announcement reduces the anti-LGBT hate crime rate by 112 per 100,000 people, although some additional analyses have weaker results. Decreases are mostly driven by reductions in violent crimes. Event-study estimates show that results fade after 1 year and provide evidence that reductions are not due to changes in social trends before an     announcement. Our results demonstrate that salient, progressive LGBT policy announcements may, by themselves, effectively reduce anti-LGBT hate crimes.

引注

[1]过去美国针对黑人实施的种族歧视、种族隔离

[2]一美国著名玩具零售商

[3]指1989年美国最大出版公司时代公司与美国最大电影唱片公司华纳公司的合并案