The economic tradition and the constitution of science

There has been an institutional turn in the philosophy of science, which has led the discipline to become more concerned with understanding how the scientific process actually works. This paper argues that such a philosophy of science, which lies beyond only proposing a logic of science, has something to learn from economics. Economic thinking can be instrumental in understanding the actual scientific process, and in proposing proper institutions guiding scientific competition. It is, however, also argued that economics would benefit from overcoming the pure logic of choice inherent to the neoclassical approach, by further developing the institutional approach to economics.     

Confessions of a Dinosaur

The old time budget officer has been all but wiped out—the species having been deprived of its natural habitat by the great smoke cloud that began to spread after the great cataclysm of 1974 when the Budget Act began to change all the rules. This, of course, is an overstatement. But it is clear—at least from the perspective of this old dinosaur—that the job of the budget officer has changed over the years, from what many perceived of as a master of financial magic to just another serf (or supervisor) in the bureaucratic feudal system.
This is not a polemic against the Budget Act or the changes that have taken place. The only thing constant about the budget process is change. Rather, it is a discussion of how these changes have affected budget officers over the decades that I have been involved in the budget business.     

Urinary excretion profiles of 11-nor-9-carboxy-Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Study III. A Delta9-THC-COOH to creatinine ratio study

Huestis and Cone reported in [J. Anal. Toxicol. 22 (1998) 445] that serial monitoring of Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine ratios in paired urine specimens collected at least 24h apart could differentiate new drug use from residual Delta(9)-THC-COOH excretion following acute marijuana use in a controlled setting. The best accuracy (85.4%) for predicting new marijuana use was for a Delta(9)-THC-COOH/creatinine ratio > or = 0.5 (dividing the Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine ratio of specimen no. 2 by the specimen no. 1 ratio). In previous studies in this laboratory [J. Anal. Toxicol. 23 (1999) 531 and Forensic Sci. Int. 133 (2003) 26], urine specimens were collected from chronic marijuana users > or = 24 h or > = 48 h apart in an uncontrolled setting. Subjects with a history of chronic marijuana use were screened for cannabinoids with the EMIT II Plus cannabinoids assay (cut-off 50 ng/ml) followed by confirmation for Delta9-THC-COOH by GC-MS (cut-off 15 ng/ml). Creatinine was analyzed as an index of dilution. The objective of the present study was to evaluate whether creatinine corrected specimens could differentiate new marijuana or hashish use from the excretion of residual Delta(9)-THC-COOH in chronic marijuana users based on the Huestis 0.5 ratio. Urine specimens (N=376) were collected from 29 individuals > or = 96 h between urine collections. The mean urinary Delta9-THC-COOH concentration was 464.4 ng/ml, mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine ratio (ng/(ml Delta9-THC-COOH mmoll creatinine)) was 36.8 and the overall mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine ratio of specimen 2/mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine ratio of specimen 1 was 1.37. The Huestis ratio calculation indicated new drug use in 83% of all sequentially paired urine specimens. The data were sub-divided into three groups (Groups A-C) based on mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine values. Interindividual mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine values ranged from 4.7 to 13.4 in Group A where 80% of paired specimens indicated new drug use (N=10) and 20.4-39.6 in Group B where 83.6% of paired specimens indicated new drug use (N=7). Individual mean Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine values ranged from 44.2 to 120.2 in Group C where 84.5% of paired urine specimens indicated new marijuana use (N=12). Correcting Delta9-THC-COOH excretion for urinary dilution and comparing Delta9-THC-COOH/creatinine concentration ratios of sequentially paired specimens (collected > or = 96 h apart) may provide an objective indicator of ongoing marijuana or hashish use in this population.     

Victimized in Amsterdam: The organized reaction

This article deals with the effects of a unique victim assistance project for victimized tourists, the Amsterdam Tourist Assistance Service (ATAS). ATAS intervention turns out to have a direct impact on victims to the extend that the negative consequences or the victims are reduced. Besides, ATAS intervention has a function on repairing Amsterdam's image that probably was damaged aftre the victimization. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Vertical Competition in Unitary States: The Case of Italy

In unitary states – states in whichconstitutional powers are owned by thecentral government – vertical competitioncan generate stable outcomes, that isoutcomes that do not unravel througharbitrary repossessions by the center.Stability is a product of institutionalcommitment devices. Through these ademocratic government, though it cannotbind successor governments, can effectivelyoblige them to respect some of thedecisions it has made. A number of suchcommitment devices exist in Italy; theymake possible stable vertical competitionbetween central and regional governments.     

A Minor Player in the Global Game

The U.S.Department of Treasury’s decision to postpone its mid-April report labeling China a "currency manipulator" was all but expected.Beijing Review reporters Chen Wen and Liu Yunyun     

How Transparent are EU ‘Comitology’ Committees in Practice?

Much of the debate on transparency is normative in nature: more transparency is ‘good’ from the perspective of democratic accountability. After all, without information on what decisions are being taken and by whom, it will not be possible for various accountability forums to hold actors to account. This article goes beyond the rhetoric on the need for more transparency in the political system of the EU and examines, in practice as a matter of empirical research, how much transparency there really is. It also goes beyond a purely legal approach to access to information that depends upon the active participation of citizens and others in challenging refusals by specific institutions to grant access to specific documents. We are interested rather in the question as to what extent the institutions are systematically and pro‐actively providing access to their documents via the internet. We focus on the Register of Comitology of the European Commission as a relatively limited case study and, within this context, limit ourselves further to a study of all the documents published in the latest year for which a benchmark was available—2005. Are all comitology documents that exist in fact made available through this public register?     

Analysing Parliamentary Debate with Computer Assistance

The analysis of parliamentary debates is at the confluence of a number of developments in political science. What light can automated and semi‐automated techniques throw on such analysis? In this paper we compare two such approaches, one semi‐automated (Hamlet) and the other fully automated (Alceste). We use both approaches to identify the prominent themes in debate and to assess how far speakers who favour different positions adopt a distinct pattern of discourse. We seek to assess how far the two approaches yield convergent or divergent analyses. Selecting a second reading debate from the UK House of Commons on a private member's bill on abortion in July 1966, we are able to show similarities of analysis despite the detailed differences between the two approaches. In particular, the analysis in Hamlet al.lows identification of the extent to which individual speakers employ one type of vocabulary rather than another. Alceste is able to provide a statistical basis for the different classes of vocabulary that occur in the debate. However, the two programs rest upon quite different assumptions about the relationship between syntax and meaning, with implications for the practice of political science.