What do forensic analysts consider relevant to their decision making?

In response to research demonstrating that irrelevant contextual information can bias forensic science analyses, authorities have increasingly urged laboratories to limit analysts' access to irrelevant and potentially biasing information (Dror and Cole (2010) [3]; National Academy of Sciences (2009) [18]; President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2016) [22]; UK Forensic Science Regulator (2015) [26]). However, a great challenge in implementing this reform is determining which information is task-relevant and which is task-irrelevant. In the current study, we surveyed 183 forensic analysts to examine what they consider relevant versus irrelevant in their forensic analyses. Results revealed that analysts generally do not regard information regarding the suspect or victim as essential to their analytic tasks. However, there was significant variability among analysts within and between disciplines. Findings suggest that forensic science disciplines need to agree on what they regard as task-relevant before context management procedures can be properly implemented. The lack of consensus about what is relevant information not only leaves room for biasing information, but also reveals foundational gaps in what analysts consider crucial in forensic decision making.     

Parliamentary Prorogation in Comparative Context

This paper examines the power to prorogue (or suspend) Parliament following the 2019 prorogation controversy in the UK. We outline the legal basis of prerogative-based prorogation, survey its uses in the UK and other Westminster systems, and compare it with equivalent rules in other European parliamentary democracies. The comparative perspective highlights the outlier status of the UK among comparable European democracies. In the UK, the absence of explicit legal limits on the use of prorogation gives the executive exceptional scope to employ the power for political purposes to sidestep Parliament. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for current discussions about the desirability of reforming the UK’s prorogation rules and placing express legal limits on the executive’s power.     

Directors’ duties under the 2019 Companies Act of Ghana

The scope of directors’ duties forms perhaps the most important part of corporate governance. This paper considers the trajectory of the regulation of directors’ duties under Ghanaian company law from the Companies Act, 1963 (Act 179) to the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992). Using the 2017 to 2019 financial institutions’ insolvencies in Ghana as a backdrop, it considers whether the scope, formulation and structure of directors’ duties within the new legislation is capable of promoting corporately-beneficial director behaviour. It also discusses whether the framework is apt to deal with similar lapses in corporate governance marked by reckless and opportunistic director behaviour. It discovers that Act 992 places a greater reliance on specific rules while retaining the largely principles-based regulatory technique adopted for regulating director conduct under Act 179. The overall tenor of the framework of directors’ duties under the new Act points to a firmer legislative view of the serious consequences of reckless director conduct. The paper concludes that the language of the framework regulating director conduct is capable of promoting corporately beneficially director behaviour and is also apt to deal with the kind of lapses in corporate governance which led to mass financial sector insolvencies in Ghana.     

Sebastian Heilmann,Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy Making Facilitated China’s Rise

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Assessing the Performance of the Price Cap Plan for Local Exchange Carriers in the United States

In 1991 the FCC implemented a price cap plan for local exchange carriers' interstate access service designed to deal with the regulatory boundaries problem arising from the breakup of AT&T in 1984. The experience with the price cap plan demonstrates the difficulty of predicting productivity growth accurately and makes clear that regulators cannot depend upon a pure price cap plan to keep prices within a reasonable range of costs. With periodic reviews to readjust plan parameters, however, a price cap plan can maintain the rate-of-return close to the target rate-of-return without diminishing the price cap plan's incentives for efficient production. A simple method of recalculating the X-factor based on the rate-of-return over the previous three years worked well in simulations. If this procedure had been used over the price cap period 1991 to 2000, prices would have been 20 percent lower and expenditures on LECs' telecommunications service subject to a price cap would have been $3.8 billion lower.     

The Effect of Negotiation Practices on the Relationship between Suppliers and Customers

This article examines the effects of negotiation practices, such as coercion and contract formality, on how suppliers and customers perceived the resulting business relationship. We conducted a purchasing negotiation simulation with students in a classroom setting in which participants competed for resources in a mock supply-chain context. The participants were surveyed at key stages of the ongoing negotiation in order to measure their behaviors as a customer–supplier relationship developed. The data were used to test several hypotheses developed from the marketing and purchasing literature. The hypotheses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results demonstrated that the use of coercive techniques by negotiators during negotiation had a negative effect on satisfaction. In addition, the findings showed that, as expected, negotiators entering a negotiation with a cooperative orientation would tend to avoid the use of coercive practices during negotiation. The cooperative orientation also exhibited an unexpected positive effect on the formalization of the design of the contract between the parties. This study contributes to the current knowledge base focusing on the creation of agreements between companies and will, we hope, encourage the integration of suppliers and customers in an operating context within a supply-chain setting.