Rules and Speeches: How Parliamentary Rules Affect Legislators' Speech‐Making Behavior

By extending existing theories of legislative speech making, this study explores the importance of parliamentary rules governing floor debates for government and opposition parties. An original data set including speeches of members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 2001 and 2006 is used to test two hypotheses under different institutional scenarios, that is, rules either restricting or granting open access to the floor. Parliamentary rules are found to affect allocation of speaking time within both governing and opposition parties. Governing parties' leaders exploit their agenda control to a higher degree when allocating speaking time. Under restrictive rules, government party leaders control their MPs by essentially limiting the number of speeches and allocating them to frontbenchers. Restrictive rules give opposition party leaders an important chance to select MPs who are closer to their own position.     

Legal Needs of The Poor: Problems,Priorities and Attitudes*

The Legal Services Corporation is faced with the problem of allocating limited resources in order to meet the legal needs of the poor. It is forced into the dilemma of setting priorities, creating workable regulations to meet an ambiguously defined and elusive concept of legal need. Recently enacted regulations require annual reports by legal services programs that are based, in part, on the assessment of eligible clients' needs as expressed by their attitudes. These regulations are premised on unarticulated implicit assumptions relating attitudes, problems experienced, and legal need. This study examines these assumptions in an analysis of perceived problems, help seeking behavior, attitudes toward the allocation of legal services resources, and how these have changed over time for the eligible client population of one legal service program in California.     

The National Partnership for Environmental Priorities Program

The National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) program was created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to reduce or eliminate the nation's production of hazardous wastes and products. The NPEP is a voluntary program that provides incentives to public, private, and federal organizations that minimize their use and generation of thirty-one priority chemicals. These chemicals are considered to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic in the environment and present health risks to human and ecological receptors. The USEPA estimates that 90 percent of priority chemicals are used or produced during manufacturing of various household and industrial products and, as a result, end up in municipal and industrial waste streams. Ultimately, these chemicals find their way back into the environment through wastewater discharges, incineration, or other disposal practices. The NPEP program supports the goals of the National Waste Minimalization Program by encouraging simple waste minimalization solutions such as recycling, replacement, or elimination of wastes or products that contain priority chemicals, and cradle-to-cradle management of waste. Although the USEPA does not limit waste minimalization practices to only the priority chemicals, the program has set specific goals to track the elimination of these thirty-one chemicals to the environment on an annual basis.     

Structural Determinants of Homicide: The Big Three

Building upon and expanding the previous research into structural determinants of homicide, particularly the work of Land, McCall, and Cohen (1990), the current paper introduces a multilevel theoretical framework that outlines the influences of three major structural forces on homicidal violence. The Big Three are poverty/low education, racial composition, and the disruption of family structure. These three factors exert their effects on violence at the following levels: neighborhood/community level, family/social interpersonal level, and individual level. It is shown algebraically how individual-level and aggregate-level effects contribute to the size of regression coefficients in aggregate-level analyses. In the empirical part of the study, the presented theoretical model is tested using county-level data to estimate separate effects of each of the Big Three factors on homicide at two time periods: 1950–1960 and 1995–2005 (chosen to be as far removed from one another as the availability of data allows). All major variables typically used in homicide research are included as statistical controls. The results of analyses show that the effects of the three major structural forces—poverty/low education, race, and divorce rates—on homicide rates in US counties are remarkably strong. Moreover, the effect sizes of each of the Big Three are found to be identical for both time periods despite profound changes in the economic and social situation in the United States over the past half-century. This remarkable stability in the effect sizes implies the stability of homicidal violence in response to certain structural conditions.     

公司法规则的回应力——一个政策性的边缘理解

法律现实主义者十分关注法律的回应力。按照法律回应力的分析工具,最佳的公司法模式是有很强"回应性的公司法"。全球公司法的回应力模型可以区分为私人方向的回应模型和公共方向的回应模型,中国大体居于一种中间主义的状态。公司法的回应力取决于利益主体的识别、利益机制的设计以及回应成本、回应时机的考量。按照法律分工的模式,中国公司法的回应力应更集中于公司、股东以及董事、高管的利益调整,淡化其他的回应需求;要细分不同利益主体的利益层次;在回应成本和回应时机上进行改良,强化立法性、民间性、司法性回应机制,成立公司法改革检讨委员会、承认公司内部解决纠纷的能力、成立专门的公司法审判庭或者商事法院、促使裁判文书公共化。不同的公司法回应力政策会产生不同的系统性效应,导致不同的"习惯性沉淀"。要使沉淀的"法律资本"有用武之地,公司法必须持续保持其回应力。     

依法治理的客体、内容和重点

对于依法治理的客体、内容和重点,理论界有不同的学术观点,实际工作者也有不同的理解和把握。有的学术文章对客体与内容分不很清,有的把内容和重点混为一谈,对依法治理实践带来一些消极影响,有必要进行澄清。一、依法治理的客体依法治理是依法治国的实践推进。依法治国就是人民群众在中国共产党的领导下,依照宪法和法律的规定,通过各种途径和形式,管理国家事务,管理经济和文化事业,管理社会事务,逐步实现社会主义民主的法律化、制度化,使这种法律和制度不因领导人的改变而改变,不因领导人注意力的改变而改变。根据对依法治国的这一科学概括,…     

The Determinants of Capital Structure: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

This paper attempts to investigate the determinants of the capital structure of a sample of 972 listed companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China in 2003. Various theories, namely, the trade-off, pecking order and agency theories, are deployed to explain and predict the signs and significance of each factor identified by Ragan and Zingales (1995) and Booth et al. (2001). Furthermore, we include institutional shareholdings, including state agency shareholdings, state-owned shareholdings and privately owned shareholdings, as corporate governance variables to examine the effects of corporate structure on the debt financing behaviours. As well documented, we find that profitability is negatively related to capital structure at a highly significant level. The size and risk of the firms are positively related to the debt ratio – but only in term of market value measures of capital structure. The years of the companies being listed on stock markets are positively related to capital structure, indicating the access of the firms to debt finance is more easily judged by book value. Tax is not a factor in influencing debt ratio. Ownership structure has a negative effect on the capital structure. The firms with higher institutional shareholdings tend to avoid using debt financing, a behaviour that can be explained by entrenchment effects. A further classification of the institutional shareholders reveals that, among the three groups of institutional shareholding, the state institutions, including state agency and state-owned institutions, were more averse to debt financing, particularly for state-owned institutions. There is no strong evidence indicating debt-averse behaviour by domestic institutional shareholders.     

政治权利概念的多维解读

学术概念意义上的政治权利的内涵可被描述为公民以积极作为的方式参与或接近国家权力成立和运作的、反映公民对国家的能动地位的权利。它是由产生国家权力的政治权利、直接参与行使国家权力的政治权利、监督国家权力的政治权利、了解国家事务及对其发表意见的政治权利、组织性的政治权利、抵抗性的政治权利等六项子权利构成的复合性权利。同时,欲全面廓清政治权利的概念,还需比较其与参政权、民主权利、公权利、政治自由等概念之间的异同。     

美国科技成果转化优先序研究

美国作为全球科技创新大国,科技成果转化率很高。从政府的角度来看,美国有一个精密的系统,来根据社会、国家和城市的需要确定科技成果转化的优先序列。这个优先序列在一定时期内会具有一定的稳定性,也会随着社会需要的变化做出调整。政府通过科技政策和立法中确定的各种保障措施,推动它们的优先转化。这对我国有一定的借鉴意义。     

The Institutional Determinants of International Female Crime

In this article the author estimates the relative influences of the four broad social institutions of education, politics, family, and economy, plus the process of modernization upon proportionate female crime by using international data for 1974 derived from Interpol statistics. Each of the institutions is operationalized into three empirical indices, as is modernization, using data from the Handbook of International Data on Women. Then these 15 independent variables are intercorrelated with 7 specific categories of female offenses plus total female crime, each rendered in proportionate form as a ratio of female crime to all crime detected by the police in each category. The correlational analysis is constructed so as to constitute a test of three competing theories of female crime: the violence-prone “new female criminal,” the theory of economic need, and economc opportunity theory. The data provide only weak support for the theory of the “new female criminal,” but considerably stronger support for both the economic need and economic opportunity theories. It is not possible to choose unambiguously between the need and opportunity theories with the evidence at hand.     

Determinants of judicial efficiency: a survey

Court delay has been much lamented about the world over. Judicial efficiency is one important element in keeping it under control. This paper surveys the available evidence concerning the determinants of differences in judges’ output. It points out weaknesses in the literature and makes a number of proposals how these could be relieved.     

监狱刑罚执行性质的多维度思索

监狱刑罚执行的性质可以从多个维度进行分析.从权力性质上分析,监狱刑罚执行权应是行政权而不是司法权;从法律关系角度分析,监狱刑罚执行法律关系应是刑事法律关系而不是行政法律关系;从行为性质分析,监狱刑罚执行行为既是执行行为,又是管理行为;从行为的可诉性角度分析,监狱刑罚执行行为是一种可诉行为.     

非诉行政执行制度的多向度审思

非诉行政执行制度有其自身的优势,但近年也受到一些非议.从法治社会和传统法理的层面考察非诉行政执行制度,设立该制度是必要的.非诉行政执行制度相比行政救济制度,它最大化地保证了行政相对人的合法权益,与行政强制执行制度相比,它又具有约束过分膨胀的行政权力的作用.建议将非诉行政执行制度和行政强制执行制度结合起来使用.     

The Determinants of Trade Credit in Transition Countries

The paper investigates the determinants of trade credit in transition countries. Traditional theories of trade credit extension suggest that both financial and commercial motives may induce non-financial companies to assume a role of financial intermediation. Furthermore, specific conditions of financing for companies in transition countries may reserve to trade credit an important role in financial structure. We test the determinants of accounts receivable and accounts payable on a sample of about 9300 companies from nine Central and Eastern European Countries. Results suggest that both financial and commercial motives explain the credit behaviour of firms. However, we do not find generalised patterns in the use of trade credit among all transition countries.     

Freedom and Futures: Personal Priorities, Institutional Demands and Freedom of Religion

How should one define the legitimate reach of individuals' institutional obligations in the light of their right to freedom of religion? The most divisive settings for this question involve exclusions from certain jobs and schools. At the same time, some fundamental issues of ethics and law lie in the background. One of the most central concerns choice. On one approach, if there are other sources of work or education that do not make the same demands on the objector then she should choose between conforming and taking up that alternative. On another approach, even if there are such alternatives, people should not be confronted with such a dilemma: they should be entitled to stay in their preferred institution, which must make its best effort to accommodate them. The conflict between these two views arises from underlying differences concerning the nature of free choice itself; about the obligations borne by institutions in civil society; and about basic rights. The connections between these notions are investigated, and a way through the disagreement is suggested.     

Empathic Deficits Among Male Batterers: A Multidimensional Approach

Although recent literature has focused considerable attention on the link between empathic deficits and violence in studies of childhood aggression and sexual assault, relatively few studies have directly examined the relationship of empathic deficits to domestic violence. This study examined a multimodal construct of empathy as proposed by M. H. Davis (1980) and it's relationship to frequency of various types of intimate partner violence in a sample of domestically violent male perpetrators (n = 104). Preliminary results suggest that multiplicative patterns of empathic ability correspond to different types of violence. Moreover, patterns of empathic ability were more useful in predicting various expressions of intimate partner violence than were the empathic factors when considered individually.     

农民耐用消费品的购买行为的决定因素研究

在探讨农民耐用消费品购买行为决定因素的基础上构建其概念模型,再将相关的抽样调查数据拟合结构方程模型进行分析,可以发现:农民购买行为过程中的购买意愿更多的是受到服务保证的影响,同时购物导向和品牌资产也都具有显著的正向促进作用;在农民购物过程中购买导向、品牌资产和服务保证对农民的购前评价具有显著的正向作用,但是品牌资产的影响要大于购买导向和服务保证;购买意愿和购前评价对农民购物可能具有显著的正向作用,但是购买意愿的促进作用更大一些;购时状态反映了农民购物的满意感,购物状态对购后评价也具有显著的促进作用。     

RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN LEGAL SERVICES: Individual Attorney Decisions in Work Priorities

This article explores the issues of professional decision-making in legal resource allocation by examining theoretical models of professional decision-making, and applying them in the provision of legal services for the poor. Data collected from time sheets completed by attorneys in an urban legal services program suggest the relative importance of bureaucratic, external, client-centered, ideology, personal, and role concept factors in allocating time for practice routines. The implications of these findings for the rational (i.e., cost benefit) determination of the value of legal services are discussed.