The burgeoning wellness industry attracts a lot of practitioners who are largely unregulated. This “wild west” of wellness creates uncertainty for insurers, employers, consumers, and practitioners as to: (1) what services and items wellness practitioners can offer; (2) whether those practitioners are qualified; and (3) whether they behave in an ethical manner. Some guideposts for these wellness stakeholders would be welcome and may reduce consumer harm. Guideposts for wellness is especially crucial in a time when the Braidwood Management, Inc. v. Becerra case threatens the delivery of preventive care services in the health care sector. As we have learned from the health care sector, the state licensure scheme is confining and not conducive to national practice, particularly in the wake of virtual platform technologies. Thus, instead of state licensure, this article proposes a private Standard Development Organization (SDO) scheme that can create and enforce standards within the wellness industry.

This article explores the UK vote in 2016 to exit the European Union, colloquially known as ‘Brexit’. Brexit has been portrayed as a British backlash against globalisation and a desire for a reassertion of sovereignty by the UK as a nation-state. In this context, a vote to leave the European Union has been regarded by its protagonists as a vote to ‘take back control’ to ‘make our own laws’ and ‘let in [only] who we want’. We take a particular interest in the stance of key ‘Brexiteers’ in the UK towards regulation, with the example of the labour market. The article commences by assessing the notion of Brexit as a means to secure further market liberalisation. This analysis is then followed by an account of migration as a key issue, the withdrawal process and likely future trajectory of Brexit. We argue that in contrast to the expectations of those who voted Leave in 2016, the UK as a mid-sized open economy will be a rule-taker and will either remain in the European regulatory orbit, or otherwise drift into the American one.

In an attempt to respond to recent calls for better understanding the coexistence of multiple business models, we develop the concept of ‘multidexterity’ – the ability to develop, nurture, and execute several distinctive BM strategies simultaneously across different levels and functions of the MNC and its host markets. To illustrate this approach, we describe a European healthcare firm entering the rapidly transforming economy of China and facing regulatory constraints and ambiguities in the application of industry standards. This situation is a generic challenge for MNCs entering rapidly transforming economies, which they help in turn to substantially alter and develop. We argue multidextrous business models are effective entry strategies for MNCs. They also help resolve two conceptual limitations in the BMI literature: (1) the problem of environmental contingencies and (2) the interrelatedness of factors at the macro, meso, and micro levels. We address these problems from a practice approach. We provide some implications for the concept of multidexterity and business models and address managerial challenges and prospects in developing multidextrous organizations.

To what extent does inadequate market regulation contribute to poor health outcomes? A series of prominent scandals involving harmful medical devices has made improving the regulation of these devices an urgent problem for the European Union (EU). This is, however, a specific example of a general phenomenon. The EU remains first and foremost a large and integrated market within which the EU institutions have considerable regulatory authority. Even if there is little EU commitment to a health or social policy agenda, its use of that regulatory authority shapes health care cost and quality and should be understood as health policy. We use data from EU-level and national policy documents to analyse the EU's current regulatory framework for medical devices and assess its likely future efficacy. Despite revising the medical devices directive to require more stringent pre-authorization requirements for high-risk medical devices and improvements in post-market surveillance, the key underlying problems of market fragmentation and patient safety persist. Without strong and consistent support for the implementation of the new directive, the likely result is the status quo, with significant consequences for health in Europe.

Autocrats typically seek public support on the basis of economic growth-promotion and redistribution policies, and China is no exception. As important as these factors are for authoritarian resilience, we argue that economic legitimation is a more complex phenomenon than has previously been acknowledged. Beyond improvements in material well-being, citizens form judgements about the state's effectiveness in carrying out a variety of economic roles beyond growth promotion and they also care about the fairness of these market interventions. In this study, we use original survey data collected in late 2015 and early 2016 to evaluate Chinese citizens’ perceptions of two economic roles of the state that have been hotly debated in recent years: state ownership and market regulation. We find that while citizens view the ideas of state ownership and interventionist regulation in a generally positive light, suggesting a broad level of agreement in Chinese society about what economic functions the state ought to perform, perceptions of how the state actually carries out these roles are more mixed. Our results show that the urban young are especially inclined to critical evaluations, raising the question of how the Chinese Communist Party's legitimation strategy will fare under conditions of inter-generational value change.

International environmental cooperation can impose significant costs on private firms. Yet, in recent years some companies have been supportive of international climate agreements. This suggests that under certain conditions environmental accords can be profitable. In this paper, I seek to explain this puzzle by focusing on the interaction between domestic regulation and decisions at international climate negotiations. I argue that global climate cooperation hurts the profits of polluting firms if domestic governments do not shield them from international compliance costs. Vice versa, if firms are subject to protective (i.e., insufficiently severe) policy instruments at home, firms can materially gain from international climate agreements that sustain expectations about their profitability. I test the argument with an event study of the effect of decisions at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on major European firms that received free carbon permits in the early stages of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The analysis suggests that financial markets carefully follow the international climate negotiations, and reward the regulated firms based on the outcome of UNFCCC decisions. The evidence also indicates the advantageous interplay between certain types of domestic regulations and international regimes for business. More generally, the results show the perils of privately supported policy for the effectiveness of international public good provision.

The battle between the recording industry and those illegal sharing music over the Internet has gripped headlines over the last few years like few others related to the digital age. At its core, it is a battle about the meaning of property and thus a battle over the heart of the emerging information economy. This article critically examines the double punch of law and technology – the simultaneous and interwoven deployment of legal and electronic measures to protect digital content – and asks whether it is merely a defense strategy against piracy, as the industry asserts, or rather an attempt to fundamentally redefine the producer-consumer relationship. Based on some initial evidence for the latter proposition, the article analyzes reasons for concern, outlines the current politics of copyright policymaking that have given producers the upper hand, and sketches elements of a strategy to fight music piracy that does not infringe on basic consumer rights.

To support carbon markets, regulators must engage in a continuous process of learning. This article explores offsets regulation in the compliance markets of Europe, the United States and China, alongside the Clean Development Mechanism, to identify what has been learnt since offsets were initiated. We argue that offsets regulation must learn to work with demands for commercial viability, environmental sustainability and political legitimacy. We find that the learning here recommends greater control of the shares, sectors, sources and standards of offsets than was initially chosen. The findings provide some cautious optimism about the scope for improvements to such market mechanisms.

Minimal constitutional amendment at accession forced constitutional courts in new member states to make great efforts to avoid conflicts with EC and EU law – The importance of expanding the equation of ‘co-operative constitutionalism’ beyond judicial actors, by involving political institutions – The case of constitutional amendment in Estonia and Latvia – The concern over fundamental rights protection versus EC market regulation in Hungary, Estonia and the Czech Republic – Co-operative constitutionalism beyond judicial dialogues.

Probiotics are live micro-organisms that when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. Consumption of yoghurt has been shown to induce measurable health benefits linked to the presence of live bacteria. A number of human studies have clearly demonstrated that yoghurt containing viable bacteria (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii sp. bulgaricus) improves lactose digestion and eliminates symptoms of lactose intolerance. Thus, these cultures clearly fulfil the current concept of probiotics.