This book examines the relationship between regulation and market integration, with a special focus on China. It pursues a Law and Economics and Comparative Law approach (China and EU) to analyze the current obstacles to market integration and domestic economic growth in China. Topics covered at the national level include competition law, public procurement rules and financial regulation. At the regional and local level, this book addresses questions related to administrative monopolies, self-regulation, legal services markets, and environmental law.

With the Chinese government planning a comprehensive and detailed reform of regulatory law, the European experience is likely to contribute significantly. This timely book analyses comparative Chinese and EU regulatory reform from a Law and Economics perspective.

This volume contains papers presented at the 18th Annual EU Competition Law and Policy Workshop. The papers examine means of balancing effective (public) competition law enforcement and the requirements of legitimate and accountable exercise of public authority. The authors address the design and performance of various enforcement tools at European and national levels, including sanctions and remedies but also distinctive instruments under Regulation 1/2003 (eg commitment procedures) and under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 106(3) when used as a basis for infringement procedures). From the perspective of legitimacy, reflections focus on the implications of fundamental rights standards and general principles of law for the EU's complex and quasi-federal enforcement architecture. Issues that may sometimes escape judicial scrutiny are also discussed, such as how agencies prioritise their activities, and how investigation responsibilities are distributed within the European Competition Network. Effectiveness and legitimacy are then considered in the context of public enforcement cooperation beyond the EU, where international organisations, regional cooperation and a range of formal and informal modes of governance prevail.

Vertical agreements represent a variety of supply and distribution contracts involving different market players, such as suppliers of diverse inputs, manufacturers, distributors and retailers. They gain particular significance in a global economy where technological advances are dynamic and are changing all the time. Such agreements are signed among businesspeople on a daily basis, and antitrust experts around the world are often asked to advise on whether they have any negative impact on competition or whether they infringe antitrust law. Taking into consideration the complex economic impacts of these vertical alliances, and the different market conditions that firms face in a wide variety of situations, the author proposes an in-depth examination of the following topics: resale price-fixing; geo-blocking clauses; exclusive and selective distribution systems; the concept of ‘economic efficiency’ in the context of vertical restraints; self-assessment of potential anticompetitive effects and antitrust risks; ex post control of vertical restraints; digital economies and its policy impact; alternative enforcement models under various institutional frameworks; the role and influence of political pressure groups. The book offers very constructive theoretical and political insights at the frontier between the disciplines of Economics and Law. By comparing two world’s leading antitrust jurisdictions, this book explores the lessons to be learned from the legal rules in the European Union and in Brazil, considering their promises and drawbacks, and formulates policy recommendations.

This edited volume provides an overview of inequality and stratification in contemporary China. A rare and timely resource, it presents key research on the topic published in Chinese Sociological Review from 2011 to 2023, using one or multiple waves of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data, reflecting the advancement of the field over the past decade. The CGSS, launched in 2003 and modelled after the US General Social Survey, is an annual or biennial cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of the population from all provinces except for Tibet. Certain waves of CGSS data (e.g., 2003 and 2008) contain detailed retrospective information about education and job history, which can be analysed to address various issues related to educational stratification and career mobility in both the pre-reform and reform eras. At the junction of the 20th anniversary of the CGSS (2003-2023), this volume draws on CGSS data to uncover dynamic and evolving inequality in China by examining topics such as education stratification, income inequality, career and intergeneration mobility, and how they are shaped by the socialist/post-socialist institutional structure such as the household registration (hukou) system, the work unit (danwei) system. This collection significantly advances the understanding of Chinese social stratification, extending far beyond scholars’ initial interests in the social consequences of the market transition. This volume invites social scientists to think more deeply about how politics and economics interplay with other social and demographic trends in shaping the pattern of inequality and provides a rich source and foundation for understanding inequality dynamics in contemporary China.

This book analyses and critically evaluates the development of two key components of China’s economy: the network of productive enterprises, and the national innovation system, from the inception of market-oriented reforms to the present day. The approach is a partly novel one, albeit inspired to classical political economy, rooted in the structure and evolution of social relations of production and exchange and of the institutional setting in these two crucial domains. The main findings are twofold: First, the role of planning and public ownership, far from withering, has being upheld and qualitatively enhanced, especially throughout the most recent stages of industrial reforms. Second, enterprises are increasingly participating - along with universities and research centers - in a concerted and historically unparalleled effort to dramatically upgrade China’s capacity to engage in indigenous innovation. As a result, China’s National Innovation System has been growing and strengthening at a pace much faster than that of the national economy as a whole. The book also presents a speculative and provisional perspective on the validity, and meaning, of the claim that the country’s socioeconomic system is indeed a form of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It will be on interest to students and scholars researching China, politics, and development economics.

A detailed overview of the law-and-economics methodology developed and employed by environmental lawyers and policymakers.