The principle of legal certainty as a principle of economic efficiency

Legal certainty, a feature of the rule of law, constitutes a requirement for the operational necessities of market interactions. But, the compatibility of the principle of legal certainty with ideals such as liberalism and free market economy must not lead to the hastened conclusion that therefore the principle of legal certainty would be compatible and tantamount to the principle of economic efficiency. We intend to analyse the efficiency rationale of an important general principle of EU law—the principle of legal certainty. In this paper, we shall assert that not only does the EU legal certainty principle encapsulate an efficiency rationale, but most importantly, it has been interpreted by the ECJ as such. The economic perspective of the principle of legal certainty in the European context has, so far, never been adopted. Hence, we intend to fill in this gap and propose the representation of the principle of legal certainty as a principle of economic efficiency. After having deciphered the principle of legal certainty from a law and economics perspective (1), we shall delve into the jurisprudence of the ECJ so that the judicial reasoning of the Court as this reasoning proves the relevance of the proposed representation (2). Finally, we conclude in light of the findings of this paper (3).

O princípio constitucional da eficiência aplicado à outorga e à cobrança da água produzida na exploração petrolífera

Water production is unavoidable during a petrol well s lifetime. The amount of produced water associated with oil varies a lot. It can reach values which account to 50% in volume up to nearly 100%, at the end of the well s economic life. It could be verified that, once the water reaches the productive wells, there must be a management of this produced water. Its destiny is defined after a precise study, after which the best option is chosen between relieving it into the environment, re-injecting it into the producing container or disposing it into non-producing formations. Whichever option is made by the involved professionals, after the necessary analysis, it shall consider, besides the technical and economical aspects, also the alternatives which entail less environmental impact. The purpose of the present research is to conduct a study about the application of the constitutional principle of efficiency on the instruments worked out by the public administration on water management, specifically the water use licence and charging for the use in the management of water resources applicable to water production at the petrol wells. In this attempt, before entering the proper approach of the efficiency of the mentioned instruments, it was necessary not only bring to light the doctrinal perception about the constitutional principle of administrative efficiency, but also make some considerations concerning to the structure of the national water resources management, set by the Federal Constitution (1988) and the federal legislation (9433/97)

O dever constitucional de eficiência administrativa na jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal

O dever constitucional de eficiência administrativa consiste em norma reitora da atividade regulatória e das demais funções estatais. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de investigar seus sentidos, os tipos de norma em que se classifica e as estruturas argumentativas para a sua aplicação. Entende-se, por sentidos, os critérios usados para se considerar que uma conduta ou medida cumpre ou viola o dever de eficiência, incluindo consideração da relação entre meios para o exercício da atividade administrativa e resultados dessa atividade. Parte-se de diagnóstico de indefinição conceitual, na literatura jurídica brasileira, acerca desse dever constitucional, para investigar a existência de subsídios, na jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal, que viabilizem elaboração de conceito. Desse modo, verifica-se, na literatura, multiplicidade de definições. Além disso, o aspecto da análise custo-benefício, referido tanto na literatura sobre economicidade quanto nos textos sobre análise econômica do direito, sugere que o assunto também possa ser abordado de modo a correlacioná-lo ao conceito econômico de eficiência de Kaldor-Hicks ou de maximização da riqueza. Na jurisprudência, foi encontrada grande quantidade de sentidos de eficiência, a indicar que o STF pode não ter um posicionamento claro, senão em relação à concepção do dever constitucional de eficiência como um todo, pelo menos em relação a aspectos do conceito, a implicar a necessidade de elaboração, pelo tribunal, casuisticamente, de critérios para considerar que determinada conduta ou medida cumpre ou viola esse dever constitucional. Verificou-se, ainda, a ocorrência de aparentes divergências entre os ministros não apenas com relação à solução concreta de um caso, mas com relação à definição, em um mesmo caso, do sentido do dever de eficiência. Não se pode afirmar, no entanto, com segurança, que a concepção do dever de eficiência em um acórdão seja determinante, no STF, para a orientação dos votos. Ainda assim, um mesmo caso pode ter soluções distintas a depender do sentido de eficiência que se adote. Ademais, os acórdãos que parecem proceder a análise custo-benefício não se parecem referir a conceitos ou a critérios de eficiência econômica para fundamentar essa análise. Esses acórdãos também raramente fazem referência a dados empíricos. Quanto aos tipos de norma às estruturas argumentativas para aplicação, a literatura faz referência a teorias incompatíveis que dificultam compreender de maneira inequívoca como ocorre essa aplicação. O STF, a seu turno, faz uso de pelo menos 3 (três) estruturas argumentativas para aplicar o dever de eficiência: o consequencialismo, a análise custo-benefício e a ponderação de normas. O uso concomitante da análise custo-benefício e da ponderação de normas, contudo, enseja confusão entre o dever de eficiência e a máxima da proporcionalidade. Nesse contexto, a proposta conceitual busca tornar claros os sentidos, os tipos de norma e os modos de aplicação do dever constitucional de eficiência, mediante adoção de referencial teórico único que seja compatível com os achados de jurisprudência. Sendo assim, propõe-se a classificação do dever de eficiência como sobreprincípio e do dever de economicidade como postulado, com referência às concepções teóricas de Humberto Ávila, buscando-se evitar incorrer nos problemas diagnosticados na doutrina e na jurisprudência.

Algunas resoluciones relacionadas con el examen y la eficiencia del funcionamiento administrativo y financiero de las Naciones Unidas = Selected resolutions concerning the review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations = Résolutions portant sur l'examen de l'efficacité du fonctionnement administratif et financier de l'organisation des Nations Unies

Contiene las resoluciones 40/237 y 41/213 de la Asamblea General y la resolución 1987/112 del Consejo Económico y Social, sobre el funcionamiento administrativo y financiero de las Naciones Unidas.

The rights of property vindicated against the claims of universal suffrage : with an analysis of the principle of property, and new views of constitutional interest and general policy.

Mode of access: Internet.

Analysis of environmental efficiency variation : a materials balance approach

Recent literature has argued that environmental efficiency (EE), which is built on the materials balance (MB) principle, is more suitable than other EE measures in situations where the law of mass conversation regulates production processes. In addition, the MB-based EE method is particularly useful in analysing possible trade-offs between cost and environmental performance. Identifying determinants of MB-based EE can provide useful information to decision makers but there are very few empirical investigations into this issue. This article proposes the use of data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis techniques to analyse variation in MB-based EE. Specifically, the article develops a stochastic nutrient frontier and nutrient inefficiency model to analyse determinants of MB-based EE. The empirical study applies both techniques to investigate MB-based EE of 96 rice farms in South Korea. The size of land, fertiliser consumption intensity, cost allocative efficiency, and the share of owned land out of total land are found to be correlated with MB-based EE. The results confirm the presence of a trade-off between MB-based EE and cost allocative efficiency and this finding, favouring policy interventions to help farms simultaneously achieve cost efficiency and MP-based EE.

The Supreme Court’s Understanding of Federalism: Efficiency at the Expense of Diversity

This paper is an examination of the Supreme Court of Canada's interpretation of federalism since constitutional repatriation in 1982. It argues that the lure of centralist efficiency is overpowering a fundamentally important part of our federal order: regionalism. The author contends that changes made by the Court to certain fundamental concepts of Canadian constitutional law now provide Parliament with greater latitude than before in the exercise of its legislative powers. According to the author, these changes are disturbing because they are structured so as to preclude consideration of the legitimate concerns of regional polities. Furthermore, he argues that the Court has reinforced the central government's power to regulate the economy, including intraprovincial matters affecting trade, by resorting to highly functional tests that emphasize economic efficiency over other criteria. This, he claims, makes it more difficult to invoke legitimate regional interests that would lead to duplication, overlapping and even, in the eyes of some, inefficiency. The author the focuses on the Court's treatment of environmental protection in an attempt to show the tension between the Court's desire to use a functional approach and the need to recognize regional interests. Finally, through an examination of recent case law, he attemps to demonstrate that the Court's dominant perspective remains functional despite its endorsement of a more community-oriented undestanding of federalism in Secession Reference. If the Court chooses to proceed in this manner, it will alienate regional polities and may encourage them to choose more radical means of asserting their differences. Further, the author argues that strict adherence to the functional effectiveness approach will undermine the very values that federalism is meant to promote.

Os conflitos de competência normativa do estado regulador brasileiro no setor administrado pela ANP

The dissertation has by objective describe the administrative activity of regulation exercised by independent regulatory agencies, observing that this activity was already done before this structures creation, however, after a really deep administrative reform that had as objective built a Public Administration with more efficiency, it passed to be done with some own peculiarities of these new structures of regulation. The work gave especial attention to what concern the conflicts of normative competency that really often happen between ANP (Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis) and the legislatives organs of the Republic Federative of Brazil, because energetic area has unbelievable mater to any country, and the fact of some juridical norm be against the law and be accepted is very dangerous, it affronts the constitutional principle of the legality e may put in risk the democratic Estate of law, them, regulatory dogmatic must be scientifically knows, and developed, thought and especially there are so many doctrinaires divergences about regulation constitutionality. As a theorist point, the investigation got the Logical nocontradiction principle, according Hans Kelsen and Lourival Vilanova thought, doing a philosophical reflection about the system of positive law, in which there are many antinomies, or conflicts of norms, what include the conflicts of the administrative acts expedited by ANP and the legislation of the brazilian regulatory Estate. For a better understanding and exemplify some perplexities treated by the doctrinaire angle, this work did a lucubration about a possibility of a normative conflict between a ANP resolution and the municipal legislation in a specific case, also, brought several jurisprudences for the brazilians courts of justice, that confirm the empiric existence of normative conflicts among ANP s administrative norms and federal legislation. Finally, concludes observing that the regulation is not a legislative competency delegation to regulatory agencies, is just a new exercise of the administrative function, it is a technical specialization of the public administration, that using this know-how can acting with more efficiency, however the normative power of regulatory agencies must respect the empire of law, so in this terms, the dissertation suggests the ponderation of the constitutionals principles of efficiency and legality how form to harmonizing the democratic legitimate inherent to legal norm supremacy, with the perspective of an efficient economic and institutional development

Federealismo e desenvolvimento: cooperação entre os entes federados limites, direitos e deveres

Taking as a starting point the Classic Federalism and theory of the development this Work intend to present some ideas linked about cooperation between federal entities and intergovernmental relations with the main focus the regulation by the Public Consortia aimed at administrative efficiency as a Constitutional Principle of Activity Administrative, against the current provisions of the Federal Constituition of 1988, and infraconstitutional legislation in order to provoke debate and criticism about the principle of cooperation adopted as a paradigm and the capabilities that the state has and what it is, in fact, an efficient management public. It is in the growth of the state, and not a decrease as a minimal state, which aims to discuss its role in promoting the collective interests, and it is therefore essential, as an institution able to intervene on citizens in the search for socially relevant results. Study Federalism and Development on the premise of public consortia and administrative efficiency requires study the course of history as the formation of the Brazilian State, in particular the fact that he is in joint effort between federal agencies - federal, state and municipal - in order to better review the relations established in this plan, in what concerns directly on the issue of division of powers, especially the common or competitors and the subject of the highest relevance for the implementation of an effective federal pact. Finally, the objective of this Work is not only particularize the institute of public consortia, it is intended to demonstrate the deviousness of the concept of efficiency and the division of powers of federal agencies and the constitutional contribution of the institute as a program that should be put in a tone of debate, adequacy of the practice and the law itself

A study of administrative hearings conducted by state driver licensing agencies. Volume I. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

A study of administrative hearings conducted by state driver licensing agencies. Volume II - appendices. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and the principle of business control

In response to the increasing international competitiveness, many manufacturing businesses are rethinking their management strategies and philosophies towards achieving a computer integrated environment. The explosive growth in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMI) has resulted in the formation of functional "Islands of Automation" such as Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM), Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) and Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII). This has resulted in an environment which has focussed areas of excellence and poor overall efficiency, co-ordination and control. The main role of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is to integrate these islands of automation and develop a totally integrated and controlled environment. However, the various perceptions of CIM, although developing, remain focussed on a very narrow integration scope and have consequently resulted in mere linked islands of automation with little improvement in overall co-ordination and control. This thesis, that is the research described within, develops and examines a more holistic view of CIM, which is based on the integration of various business elements. One particular business element, namely control, has been shown to have a multi-facetted and underpinning relationship with the CIM philosophy. This relationship impacts various CIM system design aspects including the CIM business analysis and modelling technique, the specification of systems integration requirements, the CIM system architectural form and the degree of business redesign. The research findings show that fundamental changes to CIM system design are required; these are incorporated in a generic CIM design methodology. The affect and influence of this holistic view of CIM on a manufacturing business has been evaluated through various industrial case study applications. Based on the evidence obtained, it has been concluded that this holistic, control based approach to CIM can provide a greatly improved means of achieving a totally integrated and controlled business environment. This generic CIM methodology will therefore make a significant contribution to the planning, modelling, design and development of future CIM systems.

Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector

Guest editorial Ali Emrouznejad is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston Business School in Birmingham, UK. His areas of research interest include performance measurement and management, efficiency and productivity analysis as well as data mining. He has published widely in various international journals. He is an Associate Editor of IMA Journal of Management Mathematics and Guest Editor to several special issues of journals including Journal of Operational Research Society, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Medical Systems, and International Journal of Energy Management Sector. He is in the editorial board of several international journals and co-founder of Performance Improvement Management Software. William Ho is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston University Business School. Before joining Aston in 2005, he had worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include supply chain management, production and operations management, and operations research. He has published extensively in various international journals like Computers & Operations Research, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, European Journal of Operational Research, Expert Systems with Applications, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, and so on. His first authored book was published in 2006. He is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology and an Associate Editor of the OR Insight Journal. Currently, he is a Scholar of the Advanced Institute of Management Research. Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector This special issue aims to focus on holistic, applied research on performance measurement in energy sector management and for publication of relevant applied research to bridge the gap between industry and academia. After a rigorous refereeing process, seven papers were included in this special issue. The volume opens with five data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based papers. Wu et al. apply the DEA-based Malmquist index to evaluate the changes in relative efficiency and the total factor productivity of coal-fired electricity generation of 30 Chinese administrative regions from 1999 to 2007. Factors considered in the model include fuel consumption, labor, capital, sulphur dioxide emissions, and electricity generated. The authors reveal that the east provinces were relatively and technically more efficient, whereas the west provinces had the highest growth rate in the period studied. Ioannis E. Tsolas applies the DEA approach to assess the performance of Greek fossil fuel-fired power stations taking undesirable outputs into consideration, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide emissions. In addition, the bootstrapping approach is deployed to address the uncertainty surrounding DEA point estimates, and provide bias-corrected estimations and confidence intervals for the point estimates. The author revealed from the sample that the non-lignite-fired stations are on an average more efficient than the lignite-fired stations. Maethee Mekaroonreung and Andrew L. Johnson compare the relative performance of three DEA-based measures, which estimate production frontiers and evaluate the relative efficiency of 113 US petroleum refineries while considering undesirable outputs. Three inputs (capital, energy consumption, and crude oil consumption), two desirable outputs (gasoline and distillate generation), and an undesirable output (toxic release) are considered in the DEA models. The authors discover that refineries in the Rocky Mountain region performed the best, and about 60 percent of oil refineries in the sample could improve their efficiencies further. H. Omrani, A. Azadeh, S. F. Ghaderi, and S. Abdollahzadeh presented an integrated approach, combining DEA, corrected ordinary least squares (COLS), and principal component analysis (PCA) methods, to calculate the relative efficiency scores of 26 Iranian electricity distribution units from 2003 to 2006. Specifically, both DEA and COLS are used to check three internal consistency conditions, whereas PCA is used to verify and validate the final ranking results of either DEA (consistency) or DEA-COLS (non-consistency). Three inputs (network length, transformer capacity, and number of employees) and two outputs (number of customers and total electricity sales) are considered in the model. Virendra Ajodhia applied three DEA-based models to evaluate the relative performance of 20 electricity distribution firms from the UK and the Netherlands. The first model is a traditional DEA model for analyzing cost-only efficiency. The second model includes (inverse) quality by modelling total customer minutes lost as an input data. The third model is based on the idea of using total social costs, including the firm’s private costs and the interruption costs incurred by consumers, as an input. Both energy-delivered and number of consumers are treated as the outputs in the models. After five DEA papers, Stelios Grafakos, Alexandros Flamos, Vlasis Oikonomou, and D. Zevgolis presented a multiple criteria analysis weighting approach to evaluate the energy and climate policy. The proposed approach is akin to the analytic hierarchy process, which consists of pairwise comparisons, consistency verification, and criteria prioritization. In the approach, stakeholders and experts in the energy policy field are incorporated in the evaluation process by providing an interactive mean with verbal, numerical, and visual representation of their preferences. A total of 14 evaluation criteria were considered and classified into four objectives, such as climate change mitigation, energy effectiveness, socioeconomic, and competitiveness and technology. Finally, Borge Hess applied the stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyze the impact of various business strategies, including acquisition, holding structures, and joint ventures, on a firm’s efficiency within a sample of 47 natural gas transmission pipelines in the USA from 1996 to 2005. The author finds that there were no significant changes in the firm’s efficiency by an acquisition, and there is a weak evidence for efficiency improvements caused by the new shareholder. Besides, the author discovers that parent companies appear not to influence a subsidiary’s efficiency positively. In addition, the analysis shows a negative impact of a joint venture on technical efficiency of the pipeline company. To conclude, we are grateful to all the authors for their contribution, and all the reviewers for their constructive comments, which made this special issue possible. We hope that this issue would contribute significantly to performance improvement of the energy sector.