Local governments’ environmental emphasis and corporate green innovation: evidence from China

Economic Change and Restructuring - To study the effect of green industrial policies comprehensively, this paper takes uses a sample of Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from...     

Stepping Up to the Plate: Minor Leaguers Attempt to Remedy their Unconscionable Plight

Professional baseball players are often thought of as making multi-million-dollar salaries, but most professional baseball players have recently made under $15,000 a year. Minor league players toiled under an onerous system resulting from baseball's judicially created antitrust exemption and lobbying efforts that exempted them from minimum wage and overtime. These factors allowed teams to impose a uniform player contract (UPC) on players with numerous unconscionable provisions for years. However, a late-night Tweet in August of 2022 sent shockwaves through the sports and labor world, announcing that the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) was sending out authorization cards to represent minor league players. After years of fighting to maintain the authority to impose conditions on minor league players, through lobbying and litigation, Major League Baseball (MLB) turned over a new leaf and recognized the unionization of minor league players under the MLBPA less than three weeks later. In light of this long sought-after recognition, this article takes a novel approach. First, it provides historical context for baseball's unique ability to impose working conditions on minor leaguers without significant concern for legal ramifications. Second, it provides an overview of the doctrine of contractual unconscionability and analyzes the prior UPC as an unconscionable agreement. Finally, it details the historic unionization process and makes detailed recommendations to ameliorate the unconscionable conditions minor league players have faced when they negotiate with MLB owners to draft their initial collective bargaining agreement.     

收入平等的制度基础:主体行为的视角

制度广义上包括个体的思想意识和政府的政策规定。缓解收入不平等,既应注重微观个体的意识重构,又应侧重政府层面的政策设计,因此,从主体行为的角度分析收入分配结构的调整和经济发展方式的转变是一种涉及制度基础的、追根溯源式的创新性尝试。文章的观点是:第一,缓解收入不平等应遵循一种“合理有效的平等机制”,即经济个体都可以而且应该充分利用其所拥有的和可获得的资源禀赋,去实现自由发展;第二,在不同收入阶层中,低收入者既应合理地看待不平等现象,又应通过积极努力以实现向上流动;高收入者则应有效地降低社会阶层间的心理割裂,同时又应主动地补偿低收入者的资源耗损;第三,政府应设计并遵循“合理有效的平等机制”,应搭建经济个体充分发挥资源禀赋的发展平台。     

“Complete Labelling” and Domestic Prosecutions for Crimes Against Humanity

Criminal Law Forum - Fair labelling is an established principle of criminal justice that scrutinises the way that States use language in labelling criminal defendants and their conduct. I argue...     

什么样的“闹大”成功了?--基于40个案例的定性比较分析

社会中层出不穷的"闹大"是公共治理状况的一面"镜子",也是转型时期政策议程建构的重要路径。本文采用清晰集定性比较分析(csQCA),对2003-2019年发生的40个"闹大"案例进行比较研究。研究结果表明,上级(层)政府支持是"闹大"成功的必要条件。推动"闹大"成功的充分条件组合共有八种,可具体归纳为制度框架使用模式、集体施压模式、专家引导模式和暴力强推模式等四种解释模型。公民"闹大"成功是多个条件组合的结果,在核心条件发挥基础作用的前提下,适当的辅助条件更容易触发政策议程,推动问题解决。文章为公民"闹大"的行动逻辑提供了新的因果解释机制,也为理解形形色色的"闹大"现象提供了新的理论工具。     

德国宪法史上的一次二元民主制探索及其思想意义

作为十一月革命产物的魏玛制宪面临着两难困境,革命后的国际国内政治环境倒逼德国民主化,然而,无论“作为政治观念的民主”还是“作为统治形式的民主”,在德国都缺少历史与社会根基,魏玛制宪能依凭的民主传统与思想资源非常单薄。以民主主义政治理论家普罗伊斯为灵魂人物的制宪者代表德国人民作出一个根本政治决断,即为了德国免于苏维埃化就必须立即建立以议会民主制为根基的“人民国家”。为回应国内反议会民主制的强大政治意见,制宪者又引入全民公投与直选总统这两种准民粹主义民主制。魏玛宪法由此呈现出古典代议制民主与民粹主义民主并置的二元民主制模式。这个模式被认为是魏玛宪法的结构性缺陷和德国首个民主共和政体失败的宪制原因之一。德国宪制史上经历的民主制度与民主思想争锋,作为产生了世界性正反历史影响的典型事态,对当代思考宪法与议会制民主、民粹式民主、防御性民主的复杂关系,界定民主宪制的规范语义场依旧有镜鉴意义。     

Metric forensic anthropology decisions: Reliability and biasability of sectioning-point-based sex estimates

Subjective decisions make human cognitive processes more susceptible to bias and error. Specifically, research indicates that additional context biases forensic anthropologists’ morphological analyses. To address whether metric analyses are also subject to bias, we conducted a pilot study in which 52 experienced osteologists measured a difficult-to-classify human femur, with or without additional contextual information. Using a metric sectioning-point sex-estimation method, participants provided a sex estimate for individual skeletal element(s) and, when given multiple elements, the combined skeletal assemblage. Control group participants (n = 24) measured only the femur. In addition to the femur, bias group participants (n = 28) either measured a female humerus and viewed a female-biasing photograph (n = 14) or measured a male humerus and viewed a male-biasing photograph (n = 14). We explored whether the experts in the different groups would differ in: (1) femoral measurements; (2) femoral sex-estimation conclusions; and (3) final sex-estimation conclusions for the skeletal assemblage. Although the femoral measurements and femoral sex estimates were comparable across groups, the overall sex estimates in the female-biased group were impacted by contextual information—differing from both the control and male-biased groups (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that cognitive bias can occur even in metric sex-estimation conclusions. Specifically, this occurred when the metric data and single-element sex estimates were synthesized into an overall estimate. Thus, our results suggest that metric methods are most vulnerable to bias when data are synthesized into an overall conclusion, highlighting the need for bias countermeasures and comprehensive statistical frameworks for synthesizing metric data to mitigate the effects of cognitive bias.     

Observer determination of the make,model, and year of questioned vehicles

Often, criminal acts involving a vehicle are caught on digital video surveillance systems. While potentially useful for an investigation, the recording conditions are typically less than optimal for the extraction of key information for the identification of the perpetrator, such as a license plate. Providing the make, model and year of a questioned vehicle is a common request for examiners, to narrow the field of potential suspect vehicles. This study seeks to compare the performance of a nonpeer-reviewed make, model, and year determination between two separate groups, specifically, trained forensic image examiners and nontrained individuals. Results show that even with varied image capture conditions and quality, the trained forensic image examiners more correctly and completely identified the test group of questioned vehicles make, model, and year.