Introduction: White-Collar and Corporate Crime in Asia

In this introduction to this special issue of the Journal we broadly consider the problem of white-collar and corporate crime in Asia. Official reports from China show the pervasiveness of current problems and the inherent dangers underlying continued economic growth and reforms. We also consider evidence bearing on the idea that Japan’s remarkably low rate of common crime is likely eclipsed by the level of white-collar and corporate crime, and briefly discuss the institutionalization of economic crime in South Korea. Issues related to the lack of study of white-collar and corporate lawbreaking in Asia are also addressed. Finally, we introduce the papers and topics of this special issue, which include comparative research on cybercrime, the enforcement of intellectual property violations, accounting fraud, financial crime, and offenses in the mutual fund industry.     

Executive functioning profiles of adult and juvenile male sexual offenders: A systematic review

Evidence regarding biological correlates of sexual offending, which might enhance the understanding, research, and treatment of these offenders, is rather emerging or in the embryonic stage. In this study, our main objective is to identify specific executive functioning (EF) processes that are commonly impaired in sexual offenders, and to further determine whether these differ as a function of offender subtypes. A search is conducted in ProQuest, Criminal Justice Abstract, EBSCOhost, and Social Science Citation Index electronic journal databases for studies published spanning the period 1990–2015. Google Scholar and Google search engines were also searched and the reference lists of the retrieved papers were searched for additional papers. A total of 1303 papers were retained for consideration. After removing duplicates, and subjecting the retrieved papers to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 24 papers (19 published and 5 unpublished) were deemed appropriate for the review. While several EF processes have been investigated, the available evidence implicates deficits in cognitive flexibility and inhibition of interference as commonly reported among adult male sexual offenders. This finding may be due to the sensitivity of tests of cognitive flexibility (e.g. the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and inhibition of interference (e.g. the Stroop Test) to frontal lobe lesions, and also because these tests are among the most frequently administered EF tests as revealed by this study. Juvenile sexual offenders, however, exhibit no distinct EF profiles. The findings of the study, implications for treatment, and recommendations for future studies are succinctly discussed.     

Technology Policy and Programs at a crossroads

Following a period of tinkering with various approaches to designing technology programs, and in the wake of recent elections, it appears that government interventions in technology development and transfer must be carefully crafted and mindful of political minefields and economic limits. In this article, the Director of the Southern Technology Council comes down from the mountain with Ten Commandments of Wise Technology Programs and Policy Making.     

Revisiting the Thermal Development of Latent Fingerprints on Porous Surfaces: New Aspects and Refinements*

Abstract: Although the ability to develop latent fingerprints on paper using heat alone has been noted previously, it has been considered impractical for casework and inferior to other techniques. Here a new refinement of the technique is demonstrated for the high quality development of latent fingerprints on porous surfaces such as paper. Fingerprints deposited on various papers were developed by exposing them to hot air with a temperature in the vicinity of 300°C, for periods of c. 10–20 sec. Several different heating methods were tested. The novel observation was made that after shorter heating times, fluorescent prints could be observed. These became visible after longer heating times, as noted by earlier workers, but with greatly improved contrast compared with their results. Prints from various donors (and aged prints) were developed with excellent ridge contrast. Direct heating methods (such as with a hot plate or press) produced inferior results. The refined technique, which is simple, safe and inexpensive compared with conventional methods, has great potential for use in forensic laboratories.     

How Much Can We Trust Causal Interpretations of Fixed-Effects Estimators in the Context of Criminality?

Researchers are often interested in estimating the causal effect of some treatment on individual criminality. For example, two recent relatively prominent papers have attempted to estimate the respective direct effects of marriage and gang participation on individual criminal activity. One difficulty to overcome is that the treatment is often largely the product of individual choice. This issue can cloud causal interpretations of correlations between the treatment and criminality since those choosing the treatment (e.g. marriage or gang membership) may have differed in their criminality from those who did not even in the absence of the treatment. To overcome this potential for selection bias researchers have often used various forms of individual fixed-effects estimators. While such fixed-effects estimators may be an improvement on basic cross-sectional methods, they are still quite limited when it comes to uncovering a true causal effect of the treatment on individual criminality because they may fail to account for the possibility of dynamic selection. Using data from the NSLY97, I show that such dynamic selection can potentially be quite large when it comes to criminality, and may even be exacerbated when using more advanced fixed-effects methods such as Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting (IPTW). Therefore substantial care must be taken when it comes to interpreting the results arising from fixed-effects methods.     

Experience Versus Expectation: Economic Insecurity,the Great Recession,and Support for the Death Penalty

Scholars have theorized that people who report past economic hardship and those who forecast future economic instability will be more likely to support punitive criminal justice policies than those who do not. Only recently have researchers begun to empirically examine this association, and the findings from this small literature have been highly inconsistent. The current study contributes to this line of inquiry by investigating a uniquely rich set of economic insecurity measures included in a very large national survey (N = 9,060) fielded during a time period of special theoretical salience: the Great Recession of 2007–2009. Specifically, using survey data from the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, we explore the effects of experienced and expected personal, vicarious, and societal economic insecurity on support for the death penalty. Contrary to the hypotheses, expectations of future economic insecurity are negatively associated with death penalty support, but this relationship is conditional on respondents’ demographics.     

Collusion and Facilitating Practices: A New Perspective in Antitrust Analysis

A systematic revision of the notion of facilitating practices is put forward in this paper, with the purpose of relaxing the long-debated tension between economic and legal perspectives on oligopoly. Whereas the law knows of just one collusive illegal conduct, namely agreements, in economic theory the focus on internal enforcement makes the distinction between agreements and other behaviour resulting in the collusive outcome irrelevant. However, the tension may be relaxed, at least in a number of relevant circumstances, provided the focus of competition law shifts from straightforward co-ordination on market strategies to the firms' concerted efforts in the design and implementation of given organisational arrangements of the oligopolistic industry, to which an anticompetitive object can be attached. The theoretical analysis is extensively supported by examples drawn from some recent decisions of the European Commission and the Italian Competition Authority.     

Introduction: Public Participation and Involvement in the Criminal Justice System in Asia

In this introduction to this special issue of the Asian Journal of Criminology, we pay special attention to public participation and involvement in the criminal justice system in Asia. Public support, participation, and involvement in various forms are crucial to normal functioning and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. Given the centralized and often non-democratic nature of the legal system in many Asian nations, studies in this field have lagged behind their Western counterparts. Based on empirical and theoretical studies from China, India, Japan, Macao, and South Korea, papers in this special issue address several key aspects of public participation and involvement in these Asian nations and regions, including the public’s role in crime reduction and prevention, the public’s fear of crime, the public’s involvement with the police in dealing with juvenile delinquencies, the police’s perception of civilian oversight of police work, public opinion on criminal trial procedures, and a comprehensive crime prevention strategy.     

Client participation in paid sex markets under alternative regulatory regimes

To help inform the design and review of alternative public regulatory policies towards paid adult sex markets, this study uses economic reasoning to explore the nature of client participation. This is a timely focus given the increasing consideration and movement towards a greater role for demand-side policies and regulation that has emerged in some countries to complement, or, in some cases, even replace elements of supply-side regulation and policy. The analysis is based upon a time allocation model that characterises the nature and balance of incentives facing clients under various public regulatory regimes. The regimes considered range from the status quo in England, Wales and Scotland, to varying levels of state involvement or direction, featuring, inter alia, supplier registration, public health inspections and locational restrictions. All of these are shown to affect in various ways the extent to which risk, income and other factors can influence the pattern and intensity of leisure time usage, which is a key requirement for client participation in paid sex markets.     

中国法学引证研究之省思

The methodological basis of legal cytology is empirical positivism, i.e., the social empirical investigation method is employed to make a quantitative analysis on legal research papers. Cytology has limitation in methodology, behind which a complicated “knowledge-power” structure exists. Considering the matter in China’s present legal citation researches, the real quality of legal papers shall not be evaluated by the citation rate simply, but establishing a localized academic evaluation system to scale it comprehensively. Liu Lei, Ph.D of law, works at Suzhou University. His publications include Executing the deferment of prosecution with discretion (Chinese Journal of Law, 28(4), 2006), Spontaneous order: A puzzled analysis on Hayek’s liberty theory (Law & Social Development, 12(2), 2006), Reflections on the rule of mere-indictment-information in pretrial procedure (Global Law Review, 29(2), 2007), Recognition of local acknowledge from Chinese jurisprudence (Law & Social Development, 13(4), 2007), On the structure of the criminal trial in criminal appeal (Chinese Criminal Science, (4), 2007), An examination of criminal detention power from the perspective of the principle of separation of powers (Global Law Review, 30(3), 2008).     

Publication rates of abstracts presented at the annual scientific meetings held by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 2011 and 2016

Prior research evaluating the papers presented in forensic sciences in international meetings is scant. This study determines the possible predictions concerning publications by comparing the publication rates, publication years, and presentation types, time until publication, participating countries, and criteria of the published journals in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS). The publication rates of abstracts presented at scientific meetings of AAFS, a prestigious forensic science organization, along with the aforementioned components and the extent of their contribution in 2011 and 2016 were investigated. The abstracts presented at the AAFS meetings in 2011 and 2016 were reviewed retrospectively within the scope of this study. The Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases were searched using a specified process that included the title, first and last author surnames, and keywords. Results revealed that approximately 21% and 24% of the papers presented at the 2011 and 2016 AAFS meetings, respectively, were published. Considering the publication rates of abstracts according to sections, the publication rates for the 2011 AAFS meeting ranged from 4% (questioned documents) to 31% (anthropology) and from 5% (questioned documents) to 32% (pathology/biology), on average, for the 2016 AAFS meeting. It was determined that the papers were largely published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences for both annual scientific meetings. Future studies should concentrate on the obstacles to the publication of papers presented at such prestigious organizations and strategies to facilitate the publication process such that they do not lose their value over time.     

Introduction 15th annual conference of the european association of law and economics, utrecht, the netherlands, september 1998

This issue of the International Review of Law and Economics contains a selection of papers presented at the 15^th Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics (EALE). It was the first time that the annual conference of the EALE was held in the Netherlands. It took place at Utrecht, in September 1998.Approximately 40 papers were presented at the conference. Many of these papers were submitted to this issue of the International Review of Law and Economics, and we were obliged to face the difficult task of selection. In this task we were helped by anonymous referees, who deserve much credit for their delicate task. The issue opens with the text of the invited lecture by Chief Judge Richard Posner on “Employment Discrimination: Age Discrimination and Sexual Harassment.” After this lecture, seven refereed papers are published. They cover a wide range of topics and include theoretical and empirical approaches.The first two articles are empirical studies. In their article “The Dynamics of Pretrial Negotiation in France: Is there a Deadline Effect in the French Legal System?,” Bruno Deffains and Myriam Doriat provide empirical evidence on pretrial negotiation in France with the primary goal being to determine whether there is a deadline effect. Theoretical and experimental studies generally show that in pretrial litigation most claims are settled just before the negotiation deadline, i.e., at the door of the court. Using data on civil law conflicts in France, the authors demonstrate that although the out-of-court settlement rate is relatively low, a deadline effect exists in the French legal system. The article complements the theoretical and experimental literature in the field of pretrial negotiation and provides additional insights into the functioning of the legal system.The article “Modeling Crime and the Law Enforcement System” by Frank van Tulder and Abraham van der Torre presents a macroeconomic model of the Dutch criminal justice system. The empirical estimations show that demographic, social, and economic factors and the results of the law enforcement system influence the number of crimes. It is found that a rise in the clear-up rate reduces the crime rate, whereas the average term of imprisonment has a negative impact on violence. A growth in the number of young men, divorced persons, unemployed, drug addicts, and motor vehicles—each per capita—and a rise in income inequalities have a boosting effect on one or more types of crime.The third article by Michael Faure and Paul Fenn is concerned with the costs and benefits of making liability for accidents retroactive, given the availability of liability insurance. The authors distinguish between the injurer’s perceived risk that the standard of care applied by the courts will differ from his chosen level of care, where this perceived risk is based on precedent or current practice, and the genuine uncertainty that the standard of care may change in the future as a result of unknown developments in the technology of care. While the injurer’s probability distribution over liability may be the same in each of these cases, he may be far less confident about the reliability of the probability distribution as a guide to choice in the latter case. In principle, the risk of liability arising from an unknown standard of care could be transferred to a liability insurer through the purchase of occurrence coverage. However, in addition to the usual source of difficulty for insurance markets as a result of information asymmetry, insurers also may have distaste for ambiguity. The authors show that this could in some circumstances lead to market failure in the provision of occurrence policies. These welfare losses from inefficient risk sharing as a consequence of retroactivity must, therefore, be set against the potential welfare gains from improved incentives for injurers to seek out information on care technology, as well as the concerns over distributive justice.In their article “Unitary States and Peripheral Regions: A Model of Heterogeneous Spatial Clubs” Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano develop an analytical framework for understanding the limits of constitutional unity. Their microeconomic model of unitary states deals with two kinds of heterogeneity. First, preference distance or physical distance account for decreasing net benefits from expansion. Second, heterogeneity may involve a discontinuity in the spatial pattern of preferences: “Peripheral behaviors” threaten unity. The authors integrate such behaviors into the model and draw some lessons as to the nature of an optimal constitutional area, discussing in particular the status of peripheral regions.The fifth article by Benito Arrunada, entitled “The Provision of Non-Audit Services by Auditors: Let the Market Evolve and Decide,” searches for and defines efficient regulation of the provision of non-audit services by auditors to their audit clients. From an examination of the particular problems posed by these services, it is concluded that they reduce total costs, increase technical competence, and stimulate more intense competition. Furthermore, they do not necessarily damage auditor independence or the quality of non-audit services. This assessment leads to recommending that legislative policy should aim at facilitating the development and use of the safeguards provided by the free action of market forces. Particular emphasis is placed on the role played by fee income diversification and the enhancement, through disclosure rules, of market incentives to diversify. A rule of mandatory disclosure of client diversification is examined to facilitate the task of the market with regard to achieving the optimal degree of auditor independence.In the next article, Antony Dnes applies the economic analysis of law to examine recent proposals in England and Wales for the reform of the law affecting financial settlement following divorce. Two specific measures have been proposed to reduce judicial discretion: a mathematical formula (such as a rebuttable presumption to divide equally the whole pool of assets during divorce) to be applied in the absence of agreement between the parties, or the enforcement of prenuptial agreements. The author concludes that these measures should be welfare improving but would need to be forward looking and applied to marriages, rather than divorces.The last article by Niva Elkin-Koren and Eli Salzberger provides a look at the changing world of law with the emergence of cyberspace from the perspective of the economic approach to law. The authors argue that the Chicago paradigm cannot be of much help to analyze law in and of cyberspace. While cyberspace reduces the traditional causes of monopolies, it introduces new types of monopolies that are the consequence of control over technologies rather than of price and demand curves. Second, the strict correlation between markets and states does not exist in cyberspace. The authors equally point at the weaknesses of transaction cost analysis. The Coaseian analysis assumes a given state of technology and overlooks the correlation and reciprocity between technological developments and legal rules. The authors consider neoinstitutional law and economics as the most suitable framework for examining the changing world of cyberspace, but they suggest some refinements. Cyberspace invites a reassessment of the borders between markets and hierarchies and poses special challenges to the paradigmatic assumption of rational behavior.     

Autonomy and private ordering in contract law

This essay reviews Michael J. Trebilcock's book,The Limits of Freedom of Contract (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), examining crucial and controversial social issues within the rigorous framework of the law and economics of contract. The idea that private markets are the primary institutions for the allocation of limited resources is central to any private ordering model of contract law. Yet such a premise leaves a number of fundamental questions unanswered. Trebilcock is critical of the insufficiency and ambiguity of current contract theory in addressing fundamental legal issues relating to the limits of freedom of contract. Pushing the frontiers of current legal theory, Trebilcock revisits the slippery notion of freedom of contract and tests the actual reach of economic analysis in providing a coherent answer to compelling social questions. The author pursues his ambitious task by examining the conclusions reached by competing paradigms of analysis. In spite of his declared trust in the economic approach to law, Trebilcock pays close attention to alternative analytical traditions, comparing the conclusions of various intellectual perspectives with those suggested by an economic framework of private ordering. The book objectively examines strengths and weaknesses of competing views, affording the reader a balanced position from which to conclude for herself, by illustrating the practical implications of the various approaches. In a number of instances, Trebilcock shows how different theoretical premises may indeed be conducive to similar institutional outcomes.Associate Professor of Law, George Mason University. The support of the Sarah Scaife Foundation and of the John M. Olin Foundation is gratefully acknowledged, as are the helpful comments of Jonathan C. Harris and Charles K. Rowley. Extensive remarks received from Michael J. Trebilcock prior to publication allowed me to remedy earlier omissions.     

From worker to self‐entrepreneur: The transformation of homo economicus and the freedom of movement in the European Union

This paper seeks to make a contribution to the study of personhood in EU free movement law by linking a historical and doctrinal analysis with the internal transformation of the homo economicus in economic liberalism. It is argued that a shift can be observed in the government of mobility from “freeing up” the ability of the worker as a relatively passive subject tied to external economic mechanisms to the targeting of the individual him/herself as a responsible, active bearer of economic capability or “human capital”, whereby past socio‐economic conduct and prospective economic activity serve as the thresholds for the entitlement to rights. The essence of the “new” homo economicus of EU free movement law is situated at the intersection of the social and economic, serving as a rational frame for the government of the European mover on the basis of a mutual responsibility between the Union citizen and his/her host Member State towards social and economic activity, self‐sufficiency and integration.     

WHITE COLLAR AND ECONOMIC CRIME: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In recent years increased attention has been paid by various international forums to the dangerous upsurge in internationally oriented white collar and economic criminality. At the same time, organs like the United Nations or the Council of Europe are attempting to effectively deal with economic crime occurring on national levels. The author traces the development of international efforts in the field by focusing on the relevant United Nations resolutions and agreements, as well as on documents adopted by the Council of Europe. It is demonstrated that the use of terminology which is not substantially different from theories of white collar crime developed on national levels, as well as indirect references to Sutherland's ideas, constitute the conceptual link between the international instruments dealing with white collar crime (including specific United Nations agreements and codes, and the work undertaken by the Council of Europe), and traditional, nationally-oriented theories. This similarity has far-reaching practical implications: except for purely international white collar crimes, many of which are of very recent origin, white collar crime theory can be applied in combating international crime occurring within national boundaries, the seriousness of which is evident from an examination of the relevant documents. The author advances a theory of international white collar crime and suggests that its increase necessitates the adoption of new theoretical horizons and new practical methods for dealing with this dangerous form of law-breaking which defies traditional notions of “crime” and “criminal”.     

Family strategy of economic inequality among brothers in Korean rural society, 1690–1795

This article examines how inequality among brothers was practised as a family strategy in Korean south-eastern rural society from the end of the seventeenth to the late eighteenth century as a response to local economic changes. The Wolchon area experienced a process of downward levelling in this period. Using the household registers and land registers, the authors reconstituted 58 families with brothers who held land and 406 families who possessed nobi (‘serfs’ or ‘slaves’) for further examination. As a family strategy, most of these families attempted a strategy of unequal inheritance that resulted in maintaining high economic status for only one of the children among all the brothers. This child, in most cases, would be the eldest son, but also could be another son. The degree of inequality among brothers with regard to nobi-holding declined over time. Most families successfully maintained inequality, and through this family status, by efficiently practising the unequal inheritance strategy, while some families failed to keep the same level of inequality by the end of the eighteenth century. The degree of inequality among brothers is intimately connected to family property size. Each family sought its own strategy to suit the actual economic condition of the family. While very wealthy families attempted to give a similar inheritance to all brothers to provide an equal chance to each of them, less wealthy families reduced the survival chances of some children by the concentration of property given to only one child.     

The transfer of public science to patented technology: A case study in agricultural science

One of the most difficult challenges in technology transfer is to measure the movement of knowledge from basic scientific research to industrial technology. This paper will report on a study of the linkage between science supported by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and patented technology. This study traced the citations from U.S. patents issued in 1987–88 and 1993–94 to scientific research papers linked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The number of patent citations to ARS papers, and to other USDA-supported papers has increased fourfold over the six-year period. A distinct difference also exists between the patent-cited ARS papers and patent-cited extramural USDA-supported papers: ARS papers are in more agriculturally related journals, while the extramural papers were in more basic and biomedical journals. USDA-supported papers were overwhelmingly cited by U.S.-invented patents (in a patent system in which half the patents are foreign-invented). In the primary field of ARS papers (Biology), they are cited much more often by patents than Biology papers from any other publishing organization. Since the publishing organizations and support sources of all the papers cited in these patents have now been identified, we can study the transfer of scientific results to patented technology by institution, by agency, or by any other category of patent or paper holder. The authors thank the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agricultural, especially Dr. Richard Parry, for this paper' use of the study performed for them by CHI Research, Inc. (Grant number 59-0790-6-054)     

The Limits of the Economic Analysis of Regulation: An Empirical Case and a Case for Empiricism*

Can the tools of the economic analysis of law be used to identify the optimal level of stringency in regulatory standards? Data on the costs of nursing home regulatory compliance suggest that in this domain such models could only produce wildly false estimates of the optimal level of stringency. Among the reasons for this are that: (a) actual costs of compliance explain only 19 percent of the variance in the subjectively expected costs that should inform rational choices; and (b) while there is a powerful effect of expected cost on compliance disaggregated by standard, this is not a monotonic increasing effect but a parabolic relationship. The reason for the finding that almost half the nursing homes lie on the wrong side of the turning point of this parabola is that these homes tend to be run by managers who are “disengagers” from the regulatory culture. Their behavior is not to be understood in terms of rational game playing but in terms of dropping out of the regulatory game. The disengagers are in the regulatory system but not of it and certainly not economically calculative about it.     

Criminal Punishment,Labor Market Outcomes,and Economic Inequality: Devah Pager's Marked: Race,Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration

A growing empirical literature examines the role of incarceration in labor market outcomes and economic inequality more broadly. Devah Pager's book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration (2007), offers compelling evidence that employment opportunities for former prisoners—especially black former prisoners—are bleak. I review Pager's methods and findings, place them in the context of previous work, and discuss the relation of race to a criminal record. I then explore several lines of related research that investigate the increasing reach of criminal punishment into various social realms. One goal of this essay is to draw research on economic inequality into the law and society literature.     

Facing the Fear: A Free Market Approach for Economic Expression

Commentators differ on whether a diminished constitutional status for profit-driven speech is consistent with free speech theory. Most recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission largely embraced an unfettered marketplace approach for political speech financed by corporate treasuries. Given the harm a free market approach is said to have produced in the economic realm, is this approach useful for structuring the constitutional protection economic expression receives? This article discusses the placement of economic expression within First Amendment theory and contends that restrictions on economic speech should be aimed at combating deceptive economic activities while overall regulatory goals should focus on requirements that enrich the supply of accurate and timely information.