Commitments provide a flexible means for specifying the business relationships among autonomous and heterogeneous agents, and lead to a natural way of enacting such relationships. However, current formalizations of commitments incorporate conditions expressed as propositions, but disregard (1) temporal regulations and (2) an agent’s control over such regulations. Thus, they cannot handle realis...

This feature explores the operation of individual markets. Patterns of behavior in markets for specific goods and services offer lessons about the determinants and effects of supply and demand, market structure, strategic behavior, and government regulation. Suggestions for future columns and comments on past ones should be sent electronically to James R. Hines Jr., Professor of Economics, Univ...

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) continues to plague health-oriented government regulation. This is particularly reflected in recent challenges to tobacco control measures through bilateral investment agreements. There are numerous reform proposals circulating within the public health community. However, I suggest that perhaps it is time for the community to explore a stronger position ...

It is a typical scenario that many organisations have their business processes specified independently of their business obligations (which includes contractual obligations to business partners, as well as obligations a business has to fulfil against regulations and industry standards). This is because of the lack of guidelines and tools that facilitate derivation of processes from contracts bu...

Examining previously underused corporate documents, we revisit the story of the Asbestos Information Association/North America, an industry trade group that sought in the early 1970s to counteract the growing public attention to, and government regulation of, asbestos as a serious threat to workers and consumers. From the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, according to its own spokesperson, asb...

Firms in emerging economies exhibit dangerously low compliance with government regulations aimed at protecting society from the negative externalities of their operations. Weak government enforcement contributes to this lack of compliance, but we argue that the limited legitimacy of government and its regulations also plays a critical role, especially among firms without insider access to key p...

Our understanding of how markets and businesses operate was passed down to us more than a century ago by English economist Alfred Marshall. It is based on the assumption of diminishing returns: products or companies that get ahead in a market eventually run into limitations so that a predictable equilibrium of prices and market shares is reached. The theory was valid for the bulk-processing, sm...

E-business is to do commercial activities taking advantage of the advanced information network and computer technology. In China e-business has advanced in a certain degree not only in basic facilities and infrastructure, e-business regulations, and general economic laws, but also in theoretical researches and operation. However, e-business also gives a challenge to government and enterprises. ...

Technological advances and business incentives far outpace space regulations.