Can work alter welfare recipients' beliefs?

A common argument in support of work‐based welfare reform is that exposure to work will lead welfare recipients to revise their beliefs about how they will be treated in the labor market. This paper explores the analytical and empirical basis for this argument. The difficulty in testing the assumption that work leads to a change in beliefs is that there is an inherent simultaneity between work and beliefs. Welfare recipients who work may have different beliefs because they learn about the world of work once they enter the labor market. Alternatively, welfare recipients who have a more positive view of work are the ones who are more likely to work. We use a unique data set that helps solve this simultaneity problem. We find that exogenous increases in work induced by an experimental tax credit led to the predicted change in beliefs among younger workers. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Stage model for female criminals: business school students’ perceptions of white-collar offenders

We know that half of the population in Norway is female, and we know that females represent 6% of the white-collar crime prison population. In the stage model overview, we derive percentages from the literature into the gender model to explain stepwise reduction from 50% to 6%. In our empirical research, we asked two groups of business school students to come up with their own estimates for the stages in the model for female criminals. While estimates from executive students resulted in 3% women in prison, bachelor students’ estimates resulted in 10% women in prison. The most obvious discrepancy between the research literature and our two survey groups is related to relative convictions. Based on the literature, we suggested that female defendants receive more serious convictions because they may perceive and feel more guilt for a crime, for example in terms of regret, shame and depression. Thus women may have a tendency to confess more easily. Both executive students and bachelor students disagree with this estimate of 140%, as they suggest 62% and 69% respectively. One reason for their suggestion of less serious convictions for female white-collar criminals – sometimes labelled pink-collar criminals – might be that family situation and other elements are taken into account before a verdict is passed on a woman. Another substantial discrepancy is related to detection risk. The literature suggests a low detection risk for women, but may be not as low as we estimated at 30%. Both executive and bachelor students believe that the gender difference in detection likelihood is not that formidable, as they suggest 75% and 65% respectively.     

Are bribe payments in Tanzania “grease” or “grit”?

This article uses empirical evidence from Tanzania to show that bribes there are not “greasing” but instead encumber economic transactions. The evidence suggests that bribe payments promote contacts with service providers, result in lower satisfaction with public service delivery, and result in less efficient public services. Further evidence against bribes as ‘facilitators’ is presented in the form of opinion polls and actions taken to reduce bribe payments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The distribution of health care financing in the overall population and among the elderly

This paper focuses on the distribution of health care costs among the elderly. Four revenue sources are considered: income taxes, payroll taxes, user fees, and insurance premiums. The empirical work shows that the heavy reliance on direct payments as a means of collecting revenues among the elderly makes their contribution to the health care financing structure more regressive than for the nonelderly.     

Sharp Force Homicide in Denmark 1992–2016

Sharp force trauma is a common homicide method. The weapon is typically a knife, which is easily accessible and does not require special skills. We have analyzed all 471 sharp force homicides in Denmark during 1992–2016 with special focus on aspects that are relevant to forensic pathologists, including the distribution of wounds and organ injuries. Most homicides were committed inside with a kitchen knife. The front left thorax was the most common area to be affected by sharp force trauma. In 18.9% of the victims, there was only one sharp injury, the majority on the thorax. The most common trajectory for stab wounds was directly posterior with no deviation to the sides or up/down followed by directly anterior. The heart (including pericardium) and lungs (including hemo- and pneumothorax) had injuries in more than 75% of the victims. 67% of victims were males. Female victims had more sharp force injuries and defense wounds than male victims. Most females were killed in domestic homicides (73.7%), most commonly in partner killings (56.4%). In contrast, many male victims were killed in a setting of nightlife/intoxication (34.0%) most by a friend/acquaintance delivering a few stab wounds. The results clearly show strong sex differences in both victims and offenders. This could be useful for shaping policies and public opinion, and as a route for understanding the developments in interpersonal violence. In the narrow setting of death investigation, our results will provide an evidence-based approach to understanding the injury patterns in sharp force homicide.     

Assessing the relevance of self-reported ADHD symptoms and cognitive functioning for psychopathy using the PCL-R and the TriPM

Psychopathy and ADHD are highly comorbid disorders, possibly linked to the underlying trait of impulsivity. It is therefore likely that ADHD symptoms are also of importance when studying cognitive functioning linked to psychopathy. Few studies of psychopathy and cognitive functioning have taken ADHD symptoms into account. In this cross-sectional study, male offenders (n = 201 of whom 105 were neuropsychologically tested) were recruited from all high security correctional facilities in Sweden. The aim of the study was to investigate if self-reported ADHD symptoms and cognitive functioning could predict specific subcomponents of psychopathy in offenders. Results showed that self-rated ADHD symptoms (ASRS) and psychopathy were highly correlated. Furthermore, the associations of ASRS and PCL-R Facet 3, as well as TriPM Disinhibition, were remarkably high. As expected, ASRS was not related to either Facet 1 or 2 of the PCL-R, or to TriPM Boldness. Cognitive functioning did not contribute in predicting psychopathy beyond the effect of ASRS. The high overlap in reported symptoms highlights the importance of thorough clinical assessments to be able to distinguish psychopathic personality traits from ADHD and lessen the risk of misdiagnosis. Further, it points to the need of finding discriminative measures possibly linked to etiological underpinnings.     

Impact of public seed-funding on academic spin-offs

In the entrepreneurial economy of today, it is not the multinational firms which are the predominant driver in the creation of new knowledge, but the individual entrepreneur. Correspondingly, new ventures of small size are leading in commercializing new knowledge and transferring it to the market. This economic shift has been reflected by broad entrepreneurship policies, which aim at supporting the individual on the challenge of a high-growth start-up. However, prior experience shows that uniform entrepreneurship policies do not address the individual needs in different countries and ecosystems adequately. In this paper, we study the performance of academic spin-offs that received public funding from the German EXIST Business Start-Up Grant, a support program which aims at increasing the number of innovative start-ups from academia. Using a control group matching approach, we provide evidence that these start-ups are smaller by two full time equivalent employees, generate 1.7 times higher losses and have a nearly three times lower return on capital than science-based entrepreneurial firms with comparable characteristics in the first 5 years after foundation. We interpret these results to be primarily caused by the inferior financial contracting structure of the program compared to private venture capital funding and by the resulting adverse selection and incentive effects on the entrepreneurs. The evidence calls for rethinking public interventions in a national system of entrepreneurship.