The invention that got away

management and public policy at Carnegie-Mellon University's School of Urban and Public Affairs. He is coauthor (with Martin Kenney) ofThe Breakthrough Illusion: Corporate America's Failure to Move from Innovation to Mass Production (Basic Books, 1990) and ofTechnology Review's February/March 1991 cover story on Japanese factories in the US Rust Belt.     

The meaning of regulatory costs

Regulatory costs are an essential aspect of the efficiency and quality of regulations. Moreover, they are a genuine loss of welfare which have a negative impact on national income. Surprisingly, regulatory costs are often neglected or misinterpreted in regulatory assessments, except—though only recently—for administrative compliance costs. One important reason is the lack of a clear and consistent definition as well as a practical and exhaustive typology of regulatory costs. This conceptual paper presents a cost taxonomy that takes into account all costs of regulation. We identify 16 direct and two indirect regulatory cost types. The former are costs borne by society in preparing and implementing regulations. For the government, they consist of information, decision-making, drawing-up, planning, administrative start-up, operational, monitoring, and enforcement costs. Citizens and businesses, on the other hand, incur rent-seeking, information, planning, three types of compliance, delay and enforcement costs. The indirect costs comprise the efficiency loss plus, in the event of poorly designed or market-based regulation, also transaction costs. The neglect of any of these costs may lead to the underestimation of costs in absolute or relative terms and thus to inefficient regulatory choices.     

The medical model versus the just deserts model

This paper traces the history of two models that have been influential in shaping modern views toward criminals. One of these two--the medical model--is based on the concept of rehabilitation, that is, treatment predicated on the attributes of the offender. The second of these two--the just deserts model--centers on retribution, that is, punishment deserved for the seriousness of the crime. Each model has been dominant in various periods of history.     

公平正义价值观的司法解读

保障在全社会实现公平和正义,是我国司法活动和司法改革追求的价值目标。但对公平正义基本内涵的理解和把握影响着司法功能的实现和人们对司法正义的期待。本文结合司法实践的发展现状,对社会正义观在我国的确立及其内涵、司法之于社会的功能定位、司法正义的相对性以及我国通过司法实现正义的制度化途径进行了思考,提出了自己的观点。     

论约定优于法定原则

约定优于法定是合同法的一项重要原则。但在市场经济发展的今天,尤其是在消费合同中,这一原则受到了挑战,完全遵守这一原则会形成合法不合理的情况。因此重新审视这一原则,适时地赋予约定优于法定原则新的内容,就显得十分必要了。文章在探究了约定优于法定原则之后提出在消费合同中应当推行约定有利的原则,以切实保护消费者的权益。     

The use of expensive health technologies in the era of managed care: the remarkable case of neonatal intensive care

The use of neonatal intensive care (NIC) continued to rise rapidly in the 1990s despite the concerns of observers about its cost effectiveness and its successes being mostly in facilities with high volume and capabilities. The objective of this study is to test the effects of insurance type, competition among hospitals, and market pressure from managed care plans on the supply and cost of NIC. The analysis uses logistic and linear models with techniques to avoid bias from (a) market area definitions based on actual patient flows and (b) self-selection of hospitals by patients with unmeasured risk of needing NIC. The data source contains all births in short-term hospitals in New Jersey during 1990 and 1994. Both the number of days and charges for NIC are reported. Key findings are that the decision of a hospital to offer NIC was associated with teaching status, the proportion of infants in the market area with documented high risk, and the market concentration of major competitors. The market share of managed care plans and the concentration of enrollment were not associated with either NIC being offered or with the standardized charges. Whether a particular patient was given to a NIC depended on patient risk factors and whether a NIC unit was present, but not on payer group. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that young insured parents (with the advice of their obstetricians) prefer hospitals with NIC and also are relatively profitable enrollees for health plans. In conclusion: using the results here and in other research, public and private policy makers may consider several ways to strengthen the incentives for health plans to contract for cost-effective birth-related services. The results also raise questions for a number of regulatory and payment policies and call for better public data on costs and outcomes for NIC.     

The perceived relationship between the belief in a just world and sociopolitical ideology

Lerner (1977, 1980) located the origins of the belief in a just world (BJW) in both individual motivational needs and social learning. To address the lack of subsequent research or discussion on possible social origins of the BJW, this paper investigates the social meaning of the BJW in the context of sociopolitical ideology. 173 participants, who defined themselves as politically right-wing, moderate/liberal, or left-wing, completed the BJW scale (Rubin and Peplau, 1975) twice, once from their own viewpoint and once from the perspective of either a right-wing or a left-wing person. Participants differed in their own BJW according to their political beliefs, but were able at the same time to predict consensually another person's just world beliefs on the basis of a political label, independently of their own political orientation. These findings clearly demonstrate social aspects of the belief in a just world and therefore raise the possibility of a normative, socially constructed basis for it.     

临床法医学鉴定损伤系数的研究及展望

在临床法医鉴定和司法实践中 ,对于不同致伤因子、不同性质、不同部位的边缘性和多元性损伤如何评定 ,对《人体重伤鉴定标准》第 93条、《人体轻伤鉴定标准 (试行 )》第 5 3条如何正确理解和运用 ,本文引入“损伤系数”并就损伤系数的概念、公式来源、应用及在法医鉴定中的意义等进行了综述 ,以期对人体损伤的定量评定这一问题的解决有所推动 ,从而更好地运用国家鉴定标准     

Who needs fact when you’ve got narrative? The case of P,C&S vs United Kingdom

Legal arguments and judgements ostensibly rely for their credibility and persuasiveness on the presentation of factual claims and determination of facts through due process. While it should follow that proceedings that are undermined by disregard for facticity and due process should not appear credible or persuasive, in practice this is not always the case. In cases where narratives are not firmly underpinned by factuality and due process a series of narrative techniques and processes can be brought into play to enhance the persuasiveness and credibility of those narratives. These processes include the reliance on a narrative trajectory, the presentation of consensus, drawing on supportive discourses, the privileging of certain narrators and the smoothing over of contradictory evidence. This paper examines these processes in the case of P,C&S vs United Kingdom in which in the absence of fact and due process a local authority and the domestic courts in the UK constructed and confirmed a narrative of a dangerous mother.     

The effects and costs of intimate partner violence for work organizations

This study examines the productivity-related effects and costs of intimate partner violence (IPV) on the workplace. Specifically, it explores whether IPV victims and nonvictims differ in the number of work hours missed due to absenteeism, tardiness, and work distraction and the costs for employers from these missed work hours. The research involved a Web-based survey of 823 male and 1,550 female employees in three midsized organizations. Employees who reported lifetime IPV victimization, but not current victimization, missed more hours of work because of absenteeism than did nonvictims. Current victims, but not lifetime victims, were more likely to be distracted at work than nonvictims. Organization costs due to absenteeism and tardiness were greater for lifetime victims than nonvictims; however, no difference in costs was found for current victims. Overall, we found that IPV has negative effects on organizations, but that the nature and cost of these effects vary by type of victimization.