The price of virtue

This article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. unwed birth rates from 1981 to 1990. We show that illegitimacy rates are positively and significantly correlated with payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program over a period in which real AFDC payments declined. We attribute this result to a decline in the social sanctions for illegitimacy. Because social sanctions declined, so did the cost of deviance, as well as the price for which unwed women sold their virtue.     

Dictators, development, and the virtue of political instability

A large body of literature stresses the benefits of regime stability for economic growth in poor countries. This view, however, discounts the gains from threats to regime security when populations living under dictatorial regimes cannot benefit from the disciplining of political competition available to voters in democracies. This paper applies a model of economic growth to study the sources of the differences in economic performance and repression policy among dictatorships as well as the parallel in dictatorial regimes of the benefits achieved through political competition in democracies. Threats to the security of dictatorial regimes are shown to be a means of benefiting the population through the responses of the regime.     

Publishing as Prostitution? – Choosing Between One's Own Ideas and Academic Success

Survival in academia depends on publications in refereedjournals. Authors only get their papers accepted if theyintellectually prostitute themselves by slavishly followingthe demands made by anonymous referees who have no propertyrights to the journals they advise. Intellectual prostitutionis neither beneficial to suppliers nor consumers. But it isavoidable. The editor (with property rights to the journal)should make the basic decision of whether a paper is worthpublishing or not. The referees should only offer suggestionsfor improvement. The author may disregard this advice. Thisreduces intellectual prostitution and produces more originalpublications.     

论"以德治国"的实现途径

探讨江总书记"以德治国"思想的实现途径,是本文的立意所在.为此,笔者运用马克思主义的基本观点和邓小平同志的有关理论,结合我国改革开放以来在国家治理问题上的某些经验教训,从理论和实践的结合上,提出、分析和论述了如何实现江总书记这一思想的四种途径.     

Unveiling the Price of Obscenity: Evidence From Closing Prostitution Windows in Amsterdam

Does legitimating sinful activities have a cost? This paper examines the relationship between housing demand and overt prostitution in Amsterdam. In our empirical design, we exploit the spatial discontinuity in the location of brothel windows created by canals, combined with a policy that forcibly closed some of the windows near these canals. To pin down their effect on housing prices, we apply a difference-in-discontinuity (DiD) estimator, which controls for the precise location of brothel windows and the effect of other policies and local developments. Our results show that the housing prices are discontinuous at the bordering canals, and this discontinuity nearly disappears after closures. The discontinuity is also found to decrease with the distance to brothels, disappearing after 300 yards. Our estimates indicate that homes right next to sex workers were 30 percent cheaper before the closures. This result seems unrelated to the presence of other businesses, such as bars and cannabis shops. Instead, the price discount is partly explained by petty crimes. However, 73 percent of the effect remains unexplained after controlling for many forms of crime and risk perception. Our findings suggest that households tend to be against the visible presence of sex workers and related nuisances, reaffirming their marginalization.     

略议我国当前卖淫问题研究中的主要缺陷

当前我国卖淫问题研究中的主要缺陷思辨式言说始终不离窠臼,宏观调查仅限于定性描述,规范的个案研究了了无几,对逍遥法外者缺乏深入调查,对性交易中的买方知之甚少,对幕后策划者的了解尤其不够.     

Signaling virtue: voluntary accountability programs among nonprofit organizations

This article examines the structure of nonprofit voluntary accountability and standard-setting programs, arguing that these programs can be understood as collective action institutions designed to address information asymmetries between nonprofits and their stakeholders. Club theory and the economics of certification suggest that such programs have the potential to provide a signal of quality by setting high standards and fees and rigorously verifying compliance. Such mechanisms can signal quality because higher participation costs may allow only high-quality organizations to join. The article examines the implications of signaling theory using an original dataset on the structure of 32 nonprofit accountability programs across the globe. While many programs set high standards for compliance, the key distinction between strong and weak programs is the use of disclosure or verification mechanisms to enforce compliance. Contrary to theoretical expectations, compliance standards and verification do not appear to be substitutes in creating stronger voluntary programs.

德治与法治关系再辨析

德治和法治的关系是一个古老而崭新的话题,古往今来,有关的论述不胜枚举,本文试从二者所具有的一致性、兼容性、互补性和互济性等四个方面来进一步辨析二者的关系,从而为我国正在实施的德法兼治提供理论依据.     

孔子德治思想评述

孔子的德治思想,从汉代儒家逐渐取得独尊地位以后开始影响我国两千余年。在这期间我国自君主以下都十分重视自身的道德修养。同时执政者也将德治思想运用到具体的治国实践中。在德治思想的影响下,政府在选拔官吏上也特别注重候选者的道德修养。在此思想刺激下,我国曾经出现了一大批德才兼备的士大夫。随着时代的发展,古代德主刑辅的思想也必须随之改变,形成以法治为主,德治为辅的现代国家制度。让德治适应新形势的发展,从而做出更大的贡献,这样才能使德治思想继续发挥积极作用。     

Multilateral CBMs on the Korean Peninsula: Making a virtue out of necessity

Abstract

As its economy has become near to collapse, North Korea has tried to avoid direct contacts with South Korea because of the ‘absorption phobia’. Instead, the North has made continuous efforts to improve its relations only with the United States, seeking a guarantee for its survival. Given this circumstance, this paper argues that useful multilateral approaches such as KEDO and Four‐Party Talks will contribute to improving inter‐Korean relations. Thus, it would be sensible to explore every possible way (even through multilateral mechanisms) until both Koreas make a breakthrough for the deadlocked inter‐Korean CBMs. But the multilateral CBMs constitute a transitional and complementary role as South and North Korea should be primarily responsible for addressing major problems such as reunification. Among the multilateral approaches, the Four‐Party Talks will be a most useful mechanism which will enable the two Koreas to resume dialogue for the peace and reunification on the Korean Peninsula. In this peace process, more positive roles of major powers are also requested.     

以人文关怀促高职院校师德建设

新时期高职院校加强师德建设应突破机制制约和规范管理的层面,重视教师个人的成长发展和个体价值实现,将行为规范的养成和道德品性的完善两个方面结合起来重新构建师德建设的目标。且以培养道德品性为主,遵守基本规范为辅,树立以人文关怀促进师德建设的理念,采取以人为本的制度建设和触摸幸福的人文关怀两大手段改善师德建设环境,促进师德目标实现。以人为本的制度文化建设促进教师规范的养成,帮助教师触摸到职业的幸福,有助于教师德行的完善。     

艾滋病患者保外就医问题探讨——对"重庆艾滋女保外就医卖淫事件"的反思

当前,伴随着艾滋病病毒感染者和病人数量的上升,艾滋病患者违法犯罪逐渐成为社会广泛关注的问题。实践中对艾滋病罪犯和艾滋病吸毒人员进行保外就医的做法影响社会公众的安全感,严重威胁社会秩序稳定。艾滋病患者原则上不应适用保外就医;对于违法犯罪的艾滋病患者,应建立专门监管场所进行集中关押和治疗。在现有条件下,对保外就医的艾滋病患者,应形成监所监狱、检察机关、公安机关、基层组织各负其责、齐抓共管的监管体系。     

Europeanization and Institutional Change in Vocational Education and Training in Austria and Germany

This article analyzes how the EU's vocational education and training (VET) policy is reflected in domestic reforms in Germany and Austria. It perceives Europeanization as a heuristic concept to disentangle a twofold process of institutional change: The first process, the "Europeanized" arena of change, concerns change initiated by the reactions of domestic actors to EU initiatives; the second process of change—the "domestic" arena of change—concerns the ongoing incremental endogenous change in domestic institutions beneath and independent from the Europeanized arena of institutional change. This procedure allows us to differentiate between two modes of Europeanization: In Germany, Europeanization occurs as reform policies and politics; in Austria, Europeanization occurs more as institutional change by default, hence without strategically enacted reform initiatives shaped by the EU and as domestic institutional change that occurs anyway. The article combines the case-oriented method of difference with process tracing.     

Turnout determinants in democracies and in non-democracies

Elections are celebrated in democracies as well as in non-democracies. Studies on the factors explaining turnout normally focus, however, only on democracies. Are turnout patterns different in non-democracies? If so, how different are those? In this paper I address this issue with a unique dataset covering 1251 elections −678 democratic (in 107 countries) and 250 nondemocratic elections (in 81 countries) for the lower house and 209 democratic (in 57 countries) and 114 nondemocratic (in 60 countries)- for the period 1961–2008. I find that the turnout determinants are contingent upon the regimes and that the most important differences lay in the institutional and in the political factors.     

Rhetoric and Action in Regulating the Public Schools in Norway and Sweden

In the past few decades, Norway and Sweden, like the rest of the Western world, have attempted to restructure and deregulate education. In both countries, the established governing models were threatened due to lack of legitimacy and efficiency. This article discusses the extent to which the different explanations of stability and institutional change address what happened when Management by Objectives and Results (MbOR) was introduced in Norway and Sweden. However, both the content and the course of change were different in the two countries. More specifically, one can talk about processes combining lock‐in mechanism and layering in the Norwegian course of development. In Sweden, the process of change was characterized by sudden and radical decisions. A decision made in 1991 could be explained as a state of punctuated equilibrium, as strong forces produced a situation where nothing else was to be done except make a radical change, turning the centralized system into a decentralized one. The period has parallels to the concept of ‘critical juncture’, representing a moment of openness to and possibility for different and new actors to influence a new constitution. In Norway, the transformation of policy tools for education purposes has thus far dominated the process and direction of change. In Sweden, through processes of conversion, the policy tool has gained a more dominating influence over education policy. Accordingly, there was a stronger emphasis on MbOR in its original version in Sweden than in Norway, which has transformed and defined the concept in line with educational purposes. This article outlines two cases of institutional change that combine elements of lock in with new developments. In neither Norway nor Sweden was the development pushed further in the same trajectory, rather it was transformed and, in the case of Sweden, radically changed within a larger nationally specific framework of sequence of events, values, norms and traditions of policy making.