Privatization, Competition, and Budget Constraints: Disciplining Enterprises in Russia

We investigate whether privatization, competitive forces, and the hardening of budget constraints played efficiency-enhancing roles in Russia in the immediate post-privatization period. We find evidence of a positive impact of privatization on labor productivity: a 10% point increase in private share ownership raises real sales per employee by 3–5%. The evidence on product market competition is weaker, depending on model specification. Soft budget constraints are usually found to reduce restructuring but the effect is small and insignificant. We find that in terms of their impacts on productivity, privatization and subsidy reduction are substitutes; privatization and competition (measured as the geographic scope of markets) are complements; and that competition and subsidy reduction are independent.     

Physicians as criminal defendants

Contrary to the commonly held notion that high occupational status shields a deviant individual from sanctions, some theorists have proposed a negative relationship between punishment and status when the offending behavior is of low to moderate seriousness, but a positive relationship when it is of high seriousness. This phenomenon has been termed “status liability,” and previous research suggests that physicians are especially vulnerable to its effect. The present study examines status liability in terms of diverse medical specialties to determine whether status differences among specialists produce measurably different public reactions to deviance. Results follow the pattern predicted by the status liability hypothesis. The findings also suggest policy implications in such judicial areas as voir dire, Medicaid, fraud enforcement, and malpractice litigation.     

Physicians, unions, and antitrust

The increasing consolidation of our healthcare delivery systems and the concomitant push for perceived efficiencies, speed, and profits has laid the foundation for a renewed interest in unionization by many physicians. This Article analyzes the barriers to such unionization that are posed by the antitrust laws, and provides an analysis of how to proceed with unionization without violating those laws. The Article also analyzes the current status of physician ability to unionize, and surveys the present status of physician unions.     

Research With Cognitively Impaired Participants

Illnesses that cause cognitive impairment are a considerable health problem in the United States. These include Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's chorea, cerebrovascular disease, psychiatric disorders, chronic alcoholism, and AIDS dementia complex. Illness associated with cognitive impairment may cause great suffering to the affected patients and their families. Research involving individuals who may be at risk for or have cognitive impairment is necessary to improve our understanding of these illnesses. For example, this may occur during efforts to develop effective therapies to treat them. However, research with participants who have cognitive impairment presents additional ethical concerns because they may be vulnerable to coercion. Therefore, nurse researchers must not only understand the principles of informed consent (i.e., autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice), but also the additional safeguards provided in the common rule to protect cognitively impaired participants in research. These safeguards include advanced informed consent, legal representative, and assent. Gaps exist in federal regulations related to adhering to these safeguards such as how to assess for decision-making capacity and variations on who can be a legal representative. The nurse researchers have potential roles as educators and advocates in research involving participants with cognitive impairment.     

Medical criminals: Physicians and white-collar offenses

Lawbreaking by professionals remains an understudied area in the field of white-collar crime. This article presents a review of crime in the practice of medicine, focusing on the misdeeds of physicians. The role of physician power in producing such acts is analyzed from both historical and theoretical perspectives, and a brief inventory of forms of medical wrongdoing is presented. The article also considers the ways in which formal medical training can influence later wrongdoing, and discusses issues related to the control of medical crime.     

Canadian news. Physicians dislike new medical marijuana regulations

Associations representing physicians are concerned about the medical declaration physicians are required to complete under new Health Canada regulations relating to applications for the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Some physicians are refusing to complete parts of the declaration.     

论"责令管教"的法律后果——预防未成年人犯罪的新视角

我国刑法第17条第4款前半句规定了管教处分为未成年人不满16周岁不予刑事处罚时的处遇方式.关注管教处分旨在转换人们关于预防未成年人违法犯罪的视角.管教处分与收容教养之间具有因果关系."责令管教"是行政命令,违反该命令理应受到行政处罚,危害后果严重时甚至追究刑事责任.入罪的方式之一为增设监护人不履行管教义务罪,方式之二是对现有的遗弃罪做扩张解释,将"扶养"解释为身体上和精神上两个方面.     

Physicians as gatekeepers: illness certification as a rationing device

Illness or disability is often used as an eligibility criterion by public programs that distribute money, services, privileges, and exemptions. Physicians then play a central role in the allocation process. But physicians are caught between a large pool of applicants who want some benefit, on the one hand, and an organization with limited resources to distribute, on the other hand. Three conflicts are engendered in this gatekeeping role: the tension between trusting and mistrusting information provided by the patient, the tension between erring on the false positive side and the false negative side in diagnostic decision-making, and the tension between doing everything possible for each patient and allocating limited resources among several needy clients. Several non-medical factors influence the ultimate outcome of this allocation process, which, in theory, rests on clinical decision-making: the specificity and restrictiveness of the formal definitions of illness and disability used by a program; the structure of the determination process; the overall policy of the organization on distribution of benefits; and the ability of the organization to use administrative review, direct incentives, and written standards to control the certifying behavior of physicians.