SSRN

Paternalism and Autonomy by Cass R. Sunstein. Objections to paternalism often rest on a powerful intuition: even if it improves welfare, it may still violate autonomy by failing to treat people as adults capable of choosing for themselves. This paper argues that to assess whether paternalism violates autonomy, we must specify which paternalism we mean, which conception of autonomy we adopt, and how paternalism actually operates.

Sunstein distinguishes coercive paternalism, which typically conflicts with standard accounts of autonomy, from libertarian paternalism, which often does not though some forms of it can still violate certain intelligible conceptions of autonomy. The key question becomes how much normative force those conceptions should carry: should they function as trump cards, cautionary notes, or simply background understandings?

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Competition in Dealer Markets with Internalisation and Externalisation by Robert Boyce and Eyal Neuman. Dealer markets hinge on how market makers manage inventory risk while competing for client order flow. This paper develops a dynamic model of multiple dealers who continuously update bid–ask quotes, balancing two core strategies: internalisation (skewing quotes to attract offsetting flow) and externalisation (offloading positions into the wider market). Using a variational approach, the authors derive a closed‑form Nash equilibrium that illuminates how these strategies interact under competition.

When internalising dealers face competitors who externalise, they are pushed to externalise more aggressively themselves. This strategic shift raises hedging costs across the board and leads to substantially wider spreads for clients a counterintuitive outcome where competition does not tighten spreads but amplifies risk‑management frictions.

The model offers a clean theoretical lens on dealer behaviour, optimal liquidation, and price impact, with implications for market‑making design and inventory‑risk governance.

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Cross‑border Consumer Protection by Giesela Rühl. Cross‑border consumer transactions are essential to the European Single Market yet legal uncertainty still deters both consumers and firms. Despite decades of integration, the coexistence of multiple national legal systems continues to create friction around applicable law, jurisdiction, and enforcement, limiting the economic potential of cross‑border contracting.

This paper maps the EU’s legal architecture designed to reduce these barriers. It analyses four pillars: determining the applicable law, jurisdictional rules, mechanisms for cross‑border enforcement, and alternative dispute resolution. Particular attention goes to the consumer‑protective design of Rome I and Brussels Ia, and to EU instruments such as the European Small Claims Procedure, European Payment Order, and the Consumer ADR framework.

The argument is two‑sided. On one hand, EU law grants consumers far‑reaching privileges access to their home law and courts, simplified enforcement, and streamlined dispute‑resolution pathways. These measures have meaningfully reduced traditional barriers. On the other hand, consumer trust in cross‑border trade remains limited, held back by regulatory complexity, inconsistencies across instruments, low awareness of rights, and practical shortcomings in enforcement.

The paper concludes that while progress is substantial, further reforms especially around simplification, digitalisation, and balancing consumer and business interests are needed to unlock the full potential of the Single Market. A timely contribution to debates on cross‑border consumer governance.

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AI Ecosystems, Power Shifts, and EU Competition Law Enforcement by Giuseppe Colangelo and Ariel Ezrachi.

AI assistants and agentic systems are reshaping competitive dynamics. Instead of firms competing through standalone products, the centre of gravity is shifting toward integrated AI ecosystems bundles of models, interfaces, data pipelines, and distribution channels. This transition is altering power relations along the vertical chain and raising new questions for competition law.

The authors highlight two opposing forces. On one side, vertically integrated providers can leverage their position to favour their own AI tools, reinforce ecosystem lock‑in, and extract rents from downstream intermediaries. On the other, the rise of agentic AI and strategic collaborations may open new paths to entry, enabling challengers to compete at the ecosystem level and potentially destabilise incumbent dominance.

The paper explores the tension between intra‑ecosystem competition (within a dominant platform) and inter‑ecosystem competition (between rival AI environments), including the emergence of “frenemy” relationships where firms simultaneously cooperate and compete. It also questions whether existing EU competition‑law frameworks are equipped to evaluate these complex, multi‑layered interactions

Read: http://spkl.io/61817DpM1

Grocery Retailers Substantially Reduce Food Waste through Local Demand Learning by Kohei Hayashida, Kanishka Misra, and Robert Evan Sanders.

Grocery retailers discard billions in perishable food each year, yet we know surprisingly little about whether and how they learn to reduce this waste over time. Using detailed sales, waste, and order‑arrival data from 109 new‑store openings of a major Japanese grocery chain, this paper provides rare, model‑free evidence that retailers meaningfully cut waste through local, firm‑side demand learning.

The findings are striking. Waste rates fall 56.8% after a store opens, but the adjustment takes roughly two years a slow, steady learning curve rather than a quick operational fix. Crucially, the reduction comes not only from learning how much to stock but what to stock: 27.4% of products are dropped within two years as stores tailor assortments to local demand.

To separate learning from alternative explanations, the authors extend the Newsvendor model with Bayesian learning and test its predictions. Competing mechanisms operational learning, demand‑side learning, shifts in underlying demand, margin changes, markdown strategies cannot fully account for the observed waste decline.

The takeaway: local demand learning is a powerful, under‑appreciated lever for reducing food waste, with implications for sustainability, inventory optimisation, and perishable‑goods forecasting.

Read: http://spkl.io/618978hZ5

Wellness Influencer Scienceploitation: An American Medicine Show Revival by Jennifer D. Oliva.

This article argues that today’s wellness‑influencer economy is not a new phenomenon but a digital revival of the American medicine show. From 19th‑century patent‑medicine peddlers to modern creators selling detox teas, biohacking gadgets, and supplement stacks, the same forces recur: information asymmetries, regulatory gaps, cultural anxieties now amplified by algorithmic reach and platform incentives.

The paper traces this evolution across five arcs: the history of American wellness fraud and its regulatory landscape; the rise of modern influencers and “conspirituality”; pandemic‑era health scams; the growing institutional capture of public‑health agencies by wellness‑industry interests; and a critique of current regulatory approaches. The recommendations are concrete: reform the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, impose platform‑transparency requirements modelled on the EU Digital Services Act, strengthen FTC enforcement, and amend Section 230 to remove immunity for algorithmically promoted health misinformation.

The core insight is sobering: the story of American wellness regulation is not one of science steadily defeating quackery, but of a continuous dance between innovation, exploitation, and institutional adaptation. Understanding that history is essential for designing frameworks capable of addressing contemporary wellness fraud while respecting legitimate interests in autonomy and expression.

Read: http://spkl.io/618078hpq

This paper examines whether firm-level regulatory intensity affects strategic change (changes in financing, , & operating decisions aimed at competitive advantage).

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The Rise of Private Equity Sponsors in the Management of Financial Distress by Aurelio Gurrea‑Martínez and Joon Hyug Chung.

Private equity sponsors now play an increasingly central role in the governance of financially distressed firms a structural shift with both promise and peril. Drawing on legal and finance scholarship and high‑profile cases across the United States, Europe, and Asia‑Pacific, this article shows how PE sponsors reshape the management of distress in ways that can enhance efficiency but also generate conflicts that destroy or divert value, often at the expense of creditors or specific creditor classes.

The comparative analysis reveals striking cross‑jurisdictional differences in how sponsors behave when distress looms. These divergences are rooted in legal and institutional environments that shape incentives not only during insolvency proceedings but also in the pre‑distress period, influencing capital structure choices, negotiation dynamics, and the use of liability‑management transactions.

The authors close by asking whether existing insolvency and insolvency‑adjacent frameworks remain fit for purpose in an era defined by private markets and sponsor‑driven governance. They propose targeted reforms to address the distinctive risks of private‑equity‑led restructurings.

Read: http://spkl.io/618278YHo

This article says & Gen Alpha use & Instagram as everyday search tools over , preferring short real-time videos from regular users over links or long articles.

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Information Matters

Redesigning Regulatory Sandboxes for Generative AI: Beyond Traditional for-Profit Innovation

The authors propose three main pathways for more inclusive sandbox design.

Authors: Bhargavi Ganesh, Jose A. Guridi, Thiago Moraes

Read More: http://spkl.io/6184789cy