Public and Private Regulation: Mapping the Labyrinth. CEPS Working Document No. 370, October 2012

Private governance is currently being evoked as a viable solution to many public policy goals. However, in some circumstances it has shown to produce more harm than good, and even disastrous consequences as in the case of the financial crisis that is raging in most advanced economies. Although the current track record of private regulatory schemes is mixed, policy guidance documents around the world still require that policy-makers give priority to self- and co-regulation, with little or no additional guidance being given to policymakers to devise when, and under what circumstances, these solutions can prove viable from a public policy perspective. With an array of examples from several policy fields, this paper approaches regulation as a public-private collaborative form and attempts to identify possible policy tools to be applied by public policy-makers to efficiently and effectively approach private governance as a solution, rather than a problem. We propose a six-step theoretical framework and argue that IA techniques should: i) define an integrated framework including both the possibility that private regulation can be used as an alternative or as a complement to public legislation; ii) involve private parties in public IAs in order to define the best strategy or strategies that would ensure achievement of the regulatory objectives; and iii) contemplate the deployment of indicators related to governance and activities of the regulators and their ability to coordinate and solve disputes with other regulators.

The Theoretical Framework and Methodology to Estimate the Farm Labour and Other Factor-Derived Demand and Output Supply Systems. Factor Markets Working Document No. 44, May 2013

This paper provides a conceptual framework for the estimation of the farm labour and other factor-derived demand and output supply systems. In order to analyse the drivers of labour demand in agriculture and account for the impact of policies on those decisions, it is necessary to acknowledge the interaction between the different factor markets. For this purpose, we present a review of the theoretical background to primal and dual representations of production and some empirical literature that has made use of derived demand systems. The main focus of the empirical work is to study the effect of market distortions in one market, through inefficient pricing, on the demand for other inputs. Therefore, own-price and cross-price elasticities of demand become key variables in the analysis. The dual cost function is selected as the most appropriate approach, where input prices are assumed to be exogenous. A commonly employed specification – and one that is particularly convenient due to its flexible form – is the translog cost function. The analysis consists of estimating the system of cost-share equations, in order to obtain the derived demand functions for inputs. Thus, the elasticities of factor substitution can be used to examine the complementarity/substitutability between inputs.

Identity Construction in Europe: A Discursive Approach. IES WORKING PAPER 2/2010

Proposing a discursive approach to studying identity, this paper presents Positioning Theory as a theoretical framework for conceptualizing the construction of identity in discourse. The Positioning Diamond is employed to analyse the discourse surrounding the Danish Euro referendum. The analysis reveals how identities are constructed in discourse that promotes a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote in the referendum, highlighting the generally implicit allocation of rights and duties to actors within a specific narrative context. The penultimate section discusses appropriate criteria for evaluating discursive accounts, distinguishing between cases in which truth, normative and ethical criteria are applicable. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of policy considerations and recommendations.