Handbook of institutional investment and fiduciary duty

Foreword by Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States Endorsements by Keith Ambachsheer, James Gifford, John Kay, Bob Monks, Knut Rostad and Anne Stausboll

Legal and regulatory barriers to effective public-private partnership governance in Kazakhstan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical assessment of legal and regulatory impediments to effective governance of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Kazakhstan. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative study develops propositions from the PPP literature and then tests them against findings from in-depth interviews. Interviewees have been selected by a purposeful sampling from PPP projects in Kazakhstan as well as from national and regional PPP centres. Findings – The identified barriers to effective PPP management include irregularities in the PPP legal framework, such as lack of legal definition of a PPP and controversy with the government guarantee’s legal status for its long-term payments to partnerships; bureaucratic tariff setting for partnership services; non-existent opportunity for private asset ownership; and excessive government regulation of PPP workers’ wage rates. Practical implications – The partners’ opposing perspectives on a number of PPP issues show that management needs to identify and carefully reconcile stakeholder values in a partnership in order to achieve more effective PPP governance. Practitioners, particularly those in the public agencies, have to be concerned with ways to reduce the government overregulation of the private operators, which is likely to result in greater PPP flexibility in management and, ultimately, higher efficiency in delivering the public services. Originality/value – By elucidating multiple examples of overregulation and PPPs’ inefficiency, the paper demonstrates that the government dominance in PPP management is conceptually inappropriate. Instead, the government should adopt the concept of co-production and manage its relations with the private sector partner in a collaborative fashion.

An empirical approach toward understanding the linkage between legal and financial institutions

Researchers have made different attempts to investigate the interaction between the quality and efficiency of a country’s institutions and a country’s economic performance. Within this framework, emphasis has been put on the relationship between the legal institutions and the financial system as essential factors in creating and enhancing overall economic growth. The link between legal institutions and the financial systems, however, is still somewhat controversial. This paper reports on a survey administered to 1,362 participants regarding preferences for investment under different legal and financial institutions. Results suggest that the performance of a country‘s legal institutions affects the willingness to invest money in that country and that people of different gender, age, political traditions, and professional experience react differently to these institutions.

Legal and economic interfaces between antidumping and competition policy

Includes bibliography

Análisis de la gestión del riego en Mendoza: sus determinantes sociales, institucionales, legales y administrativos: resumen = A study of irrigation management in Mendoza: social, institutional, legal and administrative factors: summary

Incluye Bibliografía

A Responsabilidade civil objetiva como dever fundamental e sua incidência nas relações privadas

O trabalho analisa fundamentos sociológicos e filosóficos da responsabilidade civil objetiva, especificamente da responsabilidade “pelo risco”. Parte do pressuposto de que o modo que a maior parte da doutrina civilista que analisa o instituto mitiga as potencialidades do mesmo ser compreendido como um elemento de organização das sociedades funcionalmente diferenciadas, caracterizadas pelo excesso de complexidade e pela radical contingência que permeiam a comunicação realizada entre os sistemas sociais, entre os seres humanos e das relações entre estes e aqueles. Conclui que o risco é uma característica insuperável de tais sociedades, e, analisando as consequências do mesmo para a formação do sujeito capaz de comprometer-se com uma vida política, propõe, baseado principalmente nos estudos filosóficos de Paul Ricoeur e na dogmática constitucional de Robert Alexy, que a responsabilidade civil objetiva seja elevada ao nível jurídico e moral de dever fundamental do sujeito de direito, precipuamente no bojo das relações travadas entre os particulares.