Center For Free Enterprise

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http://hdl.handle.net/11416/279
The Center for Free Enterprise connects business education to human welfare and engages students in rigorous education about the principles and institutions needed for free individuals to flourish with dignity in a civil society.

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Now showing 1 - 15 of 15
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    An Economic Analysis of Contractual Relationships in Franchising Systems with Case Studies
    (University of Edinburgh, 1988) Dnes, Antony William
    Fieldwork methods are used to analyse the nature of franchise systems in the UK. These systems are viewed in terms of their contractual relationships following theoretical approaches suggested by the economics of organisation, including agency analysis. In particular, product, brand and specialised-input franchises are identified and fee schedules are placed in the context of the wider franchise contract. The fieldwork covers 19 case studies of UK franchising systems. The thesis contains a predictive theory of franchising. This identifies initial investments which franchisees undertake as hostages with screening and bonding properties for the franchisor. These hostages influence monitoring costs. The thesis makes an operational, use of modern transaction-cost ideas.
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    The New Student's Guide to Economics at Universities and Polytechnics
    (Economic Affairs, 1989-06) Dnes, Antony William
    Outlines how economics is taught at universities and polytechnic colleges in Great Britain. Introduction of mathematical economics and statistics during the first year; Intermediate work covered during the second or third year; Role of tutorials in giving students a change to discuss their reading and lecture material; Distinction between a seminar and a tutorial.
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    The Privatisation of British Rail: a Track Record
    (Economic Review (UK), 1997-09) Dnes, Antony William
    The privatization of railroads in the United Kingdom has involved a subsidy for the new companies providing services, and has been carried out in a complex way. Passengers services have been separated from the maintenance of stations and track. Bidders for passenger service operations have mainly been bidding for subsidies. Franchisees are under pressure to maximise profits when railroad services are profitable. Franchisees may have monopoly power so use monopoly pricing, which leads to a net loss for society. Loss-making services involve a subsidy which may not be set at the best level, but bidding may still allow costs to be cut compared to nationalization.
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    The Regulation of the United Kingdom Electricity Industry: An Event Study of Price-Capping Measures
    (Journal of Regulatory Economics, 1998-05) Dnes, Antony William; Kodwani, Devendra G.; Seaton, Jonathan S.; Wood, Douglas
    The privatization of United Kingdom utilities after 1979 established a regulatory regime based around price capping rather than return capping. This innovation was intended to provide a predictable framework that encouraged efficiency. An event methodology was used to examine stock market reaction to the main regulatory announcements affecting 12 Regional Electric Companies from flotation to 1995. The results indicate that the regulatory announcements were only a minor contributor to the persistent abnormal returns observed. The low connection between regulatory events, efficiency changes and abnormal returns at company level lead to a conclusion that the initial structural and control frameworks dominated the regulatory framework.
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    The Marketing Firm: a Transactions Cost Approach
    (Journal of Strategic Marketing, 1998-06) Dnes, Antony William
    Presents a transactions cost approach in analyzing the concept of the marketing firm. Factors that influence the success of marketing; Transaction costs involved in marketing; Practical lessons provided by the study of long-term contractual relations.
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    Commitment in Licensing Contracts: an Application of Hostage Analysis
    (Applied Economics Letters, 2001-05) Dnes, Antony William
    Examines the applications of the economic theory of hostages on license agreements. Applicability of lump-sum payment limits to problems involving the licensing of intellectual capital; Demand and cost conditions in license agreements; Schedules for licensing fees.
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    Externality and Organizational Choice in Franchising
    (Journal of Economics and Business, 2005-01) Dnes, Antony William; Garoupa, Nuno
    In this paper, we examine some implications of externality for the organization of firms. The need to control externality explains the selection, at the level of the chain, of full integration, dealerships or franchising systems, or systems of dual distribution where company and franchised outlets operate simultaneously, in preference to unrestricted retailing. We show that there could be a trade-off between managerial motivation and effective controlling of externality. This trade-off can explain the selection of particular organizational structures within franchising. In particular, non-separable externality, where the value of the externality depends upon characteristics of both the generating and affected unit, is costly to control contractually and could encourage integration.
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    Corporate Governance: an International Perspective
    (Managerial & Decision Economics, 2005-10) Dnes, Antony William
    In this special edition of Managerial and Decision Economics, I have gathered together papers from a number of international experts in corporate governance. The intention is to look at aspects of corporate governance from several vantage points outside of America, following the Enron and similar debacles.
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    Enron, Corporate Governance and Deterrence
    (Managerial & Decision Economics, 2005-10) Dnes, Antony William
    The lessons taught by the fiscal scandals involving firms like Enron and WorldCom are examined. These scandals have resulted in the reform of corporate governance in America.
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    Asymmetric Information and the Law of Servitudes Governing Land
    (The University of Chicago Press, 2009-01) Dnes, Antony William
    The legal doctrine on servitudes has long been viewed as a Byzantine tangle of doctrine emanating from property law, contract law, and courts of equity. This paper explains the structure of the law governing servitudes on land using key ideas from the economics of information, focusing on easements and covenants and the rules governing their formation and application. We develop a model of land markets that incorporates asymmetric information (adverse selection) and specialization in ownership and use this to offer a rationale for the seemingly ad hoc limits on the use of servitudes. We stress the inability of sellers of land credibly to assure buyers that land is not encumbered by servitudes. Our model explains variations in legal doctrine over time and across jurisdictions, particularly comparing servitudes in the United States and in England.
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    Behavior, Human Capital and the Formation of Gangs
    (KYKLOS, 2010-11) Dnes, Antony William; Garoupa, Nuno
    In this paper, we examine the street gang as a special case of the dysfunctional social group, the members of which are often regarded as exhibiting apparently irrational behavior. Individuals in this setting have nuisance value for the rest of society and engage in considerable risk taking for the benefit of the group. We focus on the formation of street gangs but do indicate possible extensions of our analysis to other gang-like groups, which could include collusive business interests, terrorist cells, and even sports hooligans.
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    Managerial Economics: a Forward Looking Assessment
    (Managerial & Decision Economics, 2010-12) Rubin, Paul H.; Dnes, Antony William
    We examine recent trends in managerial economics, particularly in relation to behavioral, experimental, global and organizational influences. Managerial economics shows healthy development over the recent decade and is still grounded in practical applications. Examples are given using recent articles from Managerial and Decision Economics.
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    Should the UK Move to a Fair-Use Copyright Exception?
    (International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 2013-06) Dnes, Antony William
    In the wake of two major government reviews in the United Kingdom, this paper considers whether there might be advantages, particularly in terms of encouraging innovative creative work, in moving the UK much closer to a position allowing courts to accept a claim of fair use as a general defence to a claim of copyright infringement. Since an EU directive holds UK and European jurisprudence to a specific defence based on enumerated purposes, the arguments in the paper are potentially of more general application beyond UK shores. A comparison is made between the operation of enumerated purposes for fair dealing in the UK and the US approach to copyright exceptions based on fair use, which is spreading internationally. A case is made on the basis of the nature of transformative use of existing expressive work, and noting that encouraging innovative work is part of the EU jurisprudence that has increasing impacted UK courts in recent years, making it by no means impossible to argue for fair use in a UK context, or, indeed, in a wider context.
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    Rogue Groups in Business
    (Managerial & Decision Economics, 2013-10) Dnes, Antony William
    This paper explores the formation of and behavior within rogue groups in business settings and considers implications of the analysis for whistle-blowing. Behavior may be unacceptable to some groups but seen as worthy by others, and rogue behavior typically revolves around the exercise of idiosyncratic skills of value to a rogue group. This paper shows how the behavior can be modeled as the formation of human capital, but that the modeling needs to be embedded socially to be of interest in distinguishing different groups. The paper demonstrates that rogue behavior in business may be conceptualized analogously to that of a gang, albeit with recognition of certain differences.
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    The formation of terrorist groups: an analysis of Irish republican organizations
    (Journal of Institutional Economics, 2017-01-16) Dnes, Antony William; Brownlow, Graham
    We examine the history of the organization of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and assess whether Republican terrorism reflected the possession of valuable group-specific human capital within the terrorist cell. The analysis is motivated by economic models of the formation of specialized groups. We also note the public-goods co-ordination problem facing terrorist groups, given their inability to use mainstream enforcement mechanisms. Of particular interest are four well-defined historical examples of factionalism within the IRA. The history of Irish republicanism is consistent with the prediction that increasing the opportunities for cell members outside of life in the organization, particularly through amnesty, destabilizes the organization but leaves a hardcore of remaining terrorists. The gap between terrorist characteristics and those belonging to members of wider society is more gradated than predicted.