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Electric vehicles (EVs) have excellent demand response potential, but a single type of demand response is difficult to fully utilise the dispatching potential of EVs. To improve the utilisation of the demand response potential of EVs, this study proposes two kinds of dispatching strategies for electric vehicle aggregator (EVA) combined price‐based and incentive‐based demand response: long‐term contract strategy and short‐term contract strategy. The difference of the two strategies depends on the length of time for EV users to sign incentive agreements with EVA. The long‐term contract strategy assumes that some EV users sign a long‐term incentive agreement with the EVA. The short‐term contract strategy takes an EV charging process as the dispatching cycle. The objective of maximising revenues and minimising load fluctuation of EVA is optimised in two strategies. An improved multi‐objective particle swarm optimisation algorithm that combines region selection strategy and grouping strategy is used to solve the problem. The simulation results show that the two dispatching strategies can improve the comprehensive benefits of EVA as well as EV users. The two dispatching strategies can effectively improve the utilisation of dispatching potential of EVs.

This study applied the conjoint analysis technique to appraise the utility of interior contractors' contract terms and project price conditions. The sample group comprised 112 interior contractors working in 12 shopping centers of a public company in Thailand. The results showed that the advance payment term, the period of an interim payment term, the period to make a payment term, and the project price conditions had average utility ratios (ratio of its utility to the total utility) of 28.23%, 20.03%, 20.20%, and 27.72%, respectively. These results confirmed that each of these three contract terms is as important to interior contractors as the project price condition when the proposed amount is not reduced by 5%. This study also valued the three contract terms by comparing their utility with the utility of the project price condition. The values of the advance payment term, the period of the interim payment term, and the period to make a payment term varied between 0.00-8.75 %, 1.00-8.33%, and 2.00-11.67% of the proposed price, respectively. The value of all three contract terms varied between 10.00-20.00% of the proposed price. The insights provided by this study into the utility and value of these three contract terms could aid project owners or tenants of shopping centers in project price negotiations.

Boilerplate--the fine-print terms and conditions that we become subject to when we click \"I agree\" online, rent an apartment, enter an employment contract, sign up for a cellphone carrier, or buy travel tickets--pervades all aspects of our modern lives. On a daily basis, most of us accept boilerplate provisions without realizing that should a dispute arise about a purchased good or service, the nonnegotiable boilerplate terms can deprive us of our right to jury trial and relieve providers of responsibility for harm.Boilerplateis the first comprehensive treatment of the problems posed by the increasing use of these terms, demonstrating how their use has degraded traditional notions of consent, agreement, and contract, and sacrificed core rights whose loss threatens the democratic order. Margaret Jane Radin examines attempts to justify the use of boilerplate provisions by claiming either that recipients freely consent to them or that economic efficiency demands them, and she finds these justifications wanting. She argues, moreover, that our courts, legislatures, and regulatory agencies have fallen short in their evaluation and oversight of the use of boilerplate clauses. To improve legal evaluation of boilerplate, Radin offers a new analytical framework, one that takes into account the nature of the rights affected, the quality of the recipient's consent, and the extent of the use of these terms. Radin goes on to offer possibilities for new methods of boilerplate evaluation and control, among them the bold suggestion that tort law rather than contract law provides a preferable analysis for some boilerplate schemes. She concludes by discussing positive steps that NGOs, legislators, regulators, courts, and scholars could take to bring about better practices.

On average, temporary jobs are far less stable than permanent jobs. This higher instability could potentially lower workers’ incentives to relocate towards the workplace, thereby resulting in longer commutes. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between temporary employment and commuting length. Building on the notion that individuals strive to optimize their utility when deciding where to work and live, we develop and test a theoretical framework that predicts commuting outcomes for different types of temporary workers – fixed-term, casual and temporary agency workers – and in different institutional contexts. We estimate fixed-effects regression models using 17 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). As expected, the results show that the link between temporary employment and commuting length varies by employment type and institutional context. Agency work is associated with longer commutes than permanent work in both countries, whereas this applies to fixed-term contracts for Germany only. For casual work, the findings suggest no commuting length differential to permanent employment. In terms of policy, our findings suggest lengthy commuting can be a side effect of flexible labour markets, with potentially negative implications for worker well-being, transportation management and the environment.

I study a repeated principal-agent game with long-term output contracts that can be renegotiated at will. Actions are observable but not contractible, so they can only be incentivized through implicit agreements formed in equilibrium. I show that contract renegotiation is a powerful tool for incentive provision, despite the stationarity of the environment. Continuation contracts are designed to punish deviations in noncontractible behavior. If the equilibrium actions are observed, these contracts are renegotiated away. This form of anticipated renegotiation results in welfare improvements over outcomes attainable by one-period contracts or by long-term contracts that are not renegotiated. When the principal is not protected by limited liability, first-best outcomes are attainable regardless of the impatience of the players. Equilibrium strategies are shown to satisfy various concepts of renegotiation-proofness.

We study capital structure negotiation and cost of debt financing between sponsors and lenders using a sample of more than 1,000 project finance loans worth around US$195 billion closed between 1998 and 2003. We find that lenders: (i) rely on the network of nonfinancial contracts as a mechanism to control agency costs and project risks, (ii) are reluctant to price credit more cheaply if sponsors are involved as project counterparties in the relevant contracts, and finally (iii) do not appreciate sponsor involvement as a contractual counterparty of the special purpose vehicle when determining the level of leverage.

Labor market insecurities have been growing in Europe and previous research has illustrated that unemployment and insecure jobs negatively affect individuals’ wellbeing and health. Although empirical evidence suggests that these effects vary substantially across different welfare states, we still know little about the moderating role of specific labor market policies. Taking a cross-national comparative perspective, this article investigates how passive and active labor market policies (PLMP, ALMP) as well as employment protection legislation (EPL) shape the experience of unemployment and insecure jobs. We complement micro data of round 1–6 (2002–2012) of the European Social Survey with time-varying macro indicators of PLMP, ALMP, and EPL. The data include about 89,000 individuals nested in 112 country-rounds and 26 countries respectively. We apply three-level random intercept models as well as pooled linear regression models including country fixed effects. The results show that labor market policies are important in shaping the experience of unemployment, but are less relevant for workers in insecure jobs. Specifically, higher unemployment benefit generosity buffers the negative effects of unemployment on well-being but not health. Moreover, we discuss different interpretations for the finding that higher ALMP expenditures are associated with more negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health. With respect to EPL it is found that in countries with high insider protection, deregulating the restrictions on the use of temporary employment increases the negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health.

We provide the first comprehensive and robust evidence on the relationship between CSR disclosure quality and the costs of corporate bonds in China. We find that firms with high CSR disclosure quality are associated with lower costs of corporate bonds. Our findings are robust to endogeneity issues arising from reverse causality, omitted variable bias, and the interdependencies between price and non-price terms. The negative relationship between CSR disclosure quality and the costs of corporate bonds is stronger in weak corporate governance firms and in firms located in regions with weak institutional environments. We also find that firms' misconduct significantly mitigates the influence of CSR disclosure quality. In the additional analyses, we provide evidence that CSR disclosure can offer incremental information beyond the credit ratings. Regarding non-price terms, we conclude that firms with higher quality of CSR information are less likely to be subject to collateral terms, but they tend to include more restrictive covenants. Further analyses also show that compared with low-quality or mandatory CSR disclosure firms, bond investors perceive firms with CSR disclosures rated above \"A\" categories or voluntary CSR disclosure as less likely to cause asymmetric information problems and thus charge lower risk premiums. Overall, this study demonstrates that CSR disclosure quality is an important determinant that affects both price and non-price bond contract terms.

HauptbeschreibungThe Economic Impact Group (EIG) was created to support the work on the DCFR with insights from law and economics. It brings together a number of leading European law and economics scholars. The Group looked at the main elements of the DCFR with two questions in mind: from an economic perspective, is it sensible to harmonize private law across Europe for this specific element, and is the solution chosen in the DCFR optimal?This book presents the outcome of the work of the EIG. It deals with key issues such as the function of contract law, contract formation, good faith, non-discrimination, specific performance versus damages, standard contractual terms and consumer protection in contract law. The EIG complements the work of the drafters of the DCFR with insightful and critical assessments, based on the well-established law and economics literature.