Franziska Weber

Labour Market Access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees under the Common European Asylum System

The paper identifies a policy inconsistency between the EU’s asylum and the EU’s labour migration policies and makes a call for stronger convergence. The analysis starts off by setting out the EU’s current and future economic challenges with a view to its ageing population and low fertility rates, which displays the EU’s need for migrants. Two trends can be observed: The lacking success of Europe’s highly-skilled regime, i.e. the Blue Card scheme, casts doubts on the suitability of the EU’s labour migration policy and its ability to meet the EU’s labour market’s needs this way. Labour market access for people that come to the EU to seek asylum on the other hand is subject to quite a number of restrictions. The lack of coordination seems short-sighted. In an attempt to advocate for stronger coherence the paper sets out the rights to access the EU labour market of those who come to the EU as asylum seekers in detail and explores reform potential where these rights can be expanded consistent with the EU’s labour market needs. It looks at EU law in general and refers to Germany as an implementation example.

Enforcement of European Food Laws

Taking the substantive law dimension as a given, this contribution assesses the enforcement policy of European food laws from a law and economics point of view. In this exercise the roles of the European Food Safety Authority and the national enforcement authorities in the Member States are being evaluated. National authorities are primarily responsible to ensure businesses’ compliance with food laws and handle situations of non-compliance. Aside of the public law dimension, the private law enforcement dimension is explored also. Overall, when critically assessing the current system against the law and economics criteria as developed by Steven Shavell for the choice between regulation or liability laws, the EU enforcement system can be seen in a rather positive light. Both, the strong role given to public regulators, same as the supplementary role given to private litigation can be supported by economic arguments. In the light of a resource-saving enforcement strategy placing some emphasis on self-regulation, also called “private regulation” within this volume, is likewise warranted.

Liability for Unknown Risks: A Law and Economics Perspective

In the law and economics literature liability is generally regarded as an instrument which provides potential tortfeasors with incentives for optimal care taking. The question, however, arises whether liability can still provide those incentives when risks are unknown. That is the central question that is addressed in this contribution. One may, furthermore, have to differentiate between risks that are unknown to the tortfeasor and those are that not known according to the state of the art. After setting out the economic functions of liability rules and regulation the effects of missing information for care levels and activity levels is sketched and attention is paid to the way in which strict liability and negligence affect the incentives to do research concerning unknown risks. We conclude that an exposure to liability may on the one hand provide potential tortfeasors with incentives to do further research and hence to innovate; on the other hand, liability for unknown risks could also limit activity levels of socially desirable activities. We therefore conclude that it remains inherently difficult to use tort law as an instrument to provide incentives to generate information concerning unknown risks. We argue that in the tradeoff between tort liability and safety regulation there are strong arguments in favour of safety regulation, on the condition that it is used in a smart mix with liability rules. Finally, we equally investigate problems that arise in case of insurance of liability for unknown risks.

Liability for unknown risks : A law and economics perspective

In the law and economics literature liability is generally regarded as an instrument which provides potential tortfeasors with incentives for optimal care taking. The question, however, arises whether liability can still provide those incentives when risks are unknown. That is the central question that is addressed in this contribution. One may, furthermore, have to differentiate between risks that are unknown to the tortfeasor and those are that not known according to the state of the art. After setting out the economic functions of liability rules and regulation the effects of missing information for care levels and activity levels is sketched and attention is paid to the way in which strict liability and negligence affect the incentives to do research concerning unknown risks. We conclude that an exposure to liability may on the one hand provide potential tortfeasors with incentives to do further research and hence to innovate; on the other hand, liability for unknown risks could also limit activity levels of socially desirable activities. We therefore conclude that it remains inherently difficult to use tort law as an instrument to provide incentives to generate information concerning unknown risks. We argue that in the tradeoff between tort liability and safety regulation there are strong arguments in favour of safety regulation, on the condition that it is used in a smart mix with liability rules. Finally, we equally investigate problems that arise in case of insurance of liability for unknown risks.

Dispersed losses in tort law. An economic analysis

From a law and economics perspective tort law is to serve two important functions: deterrence of wrongdoers and victim compensation. We can easily construct examples of torts leading to small and widespread harm for which it is questionable whether a rational victim will initiate an individual lawsuit. This is mainly true because of rational apathy, free-riding problems and information asymmetries. In this paper we assess various funding and insurance options that are available with a view to improving the individual’s risk ratio and the potential of out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms to capture small claims. Next, we consider the attribute ‘widespread’ and, therefore, look at any solution that would involve grouping claims, thereby leading to cost-reductions for the individual. Public law enforcement functions in a way similar to grouping claims because a collective matter is dealt with in one proceeding and individuals are relieved of (most of) the litigation costs. Combinations of public and private means are likewise possible. Throughout the analysis we will differentiate cases of small and widespread and very small and widespread harm. For the latter the threat of collective compensation claims is neither credible nor economically feasible. This calls for an investigation of alternative remedies to compensation, such as skimming off procedures, fines or punitive damages that uphold the deterrent effect. In addition to the theoretical analysis, we will refer to current eu policy where applicable.

Towards a Rapid Claims Settlement Mechanism for Disasters

The starting point of this contribution is the necessity to speedily compensate victims of an accident, which in reality is often not the case. We look at the term accident in a broad manner, referring to disasters that affect many people rather than only one person. The main obstacles to a fast compensation may be found in lengthy mass litigation. The necessity to proceed quickly is, for instance, crucial because it can prevent further damage, for example the local industry from facing insolvencies after an oil spill. We discuss some real-life examples of such rapid claims settlement mechanisms, the Belgian compensation fund for technological incidents and the American Gulf Coast Claims Facility. Both examples show some strengths and weaknesses, which lead us to conclude that speed cautiously has to be balanced against the requirements of due process and the need to make the tortfeasor face the total costs of an accident to induce deterrence. We give some guidance as to how such a mechanism could be designed in practice.

Law and Economics of Self-Regulation in Advertising

This paper looks at the effectiveness and usefulness of establishing a self-regulatory entity (SRE) in the advertising sector. In different countries one finds different forms of this type of institution. It may play a role in ensuring that misleading and aggressive advertisements are stopped and furthermore deal with questions of taste and decency of certain advertisements. Taking a broad view, an SRE can be classified as a law enforcement mechanism, the existence of which may be crucial to induce advertisers to law-abiding compliant behaviour. This paper will present a comparative legal analysis of various European SREs within a law and economics framework.