Can corruption constrain the size of governments?

This paper analyzes the relationship between government size and the level of corruption. We propose a theoretical model where production decisions and corrupt behavior are endogenously determined. We model corruption assuming production in the formal sector is regulated by public officials who can use their public power for private gain. In this context, the underground economy emerges as an outside option that allows entrepreneurs to avoid dealing with bureaucrats. The fact that investments in the informal sector may influence public finances, introduces the possibility of multiple equilibria with different levels of corruption. Consistent with previous theoretical works and recent empirical evidence, we find out that corruption and the shadow economy are complements as they positively correlate across equilibria, which implies that corruption may limit the size of the public sector.     

Is the Process the Only Punishment?: Racial–Ethnic Disparities in Lower-Level Courts

Although misdemeanors make up the bulk of criminal cases in the United States, the majority of research on court decision-making examines felony sentencing. In contrast to felony courts, lower-level courts are characterized by higher case volumes and increased reliance on informal sanctions, which may contribute to greater racial–ethnic disparities. To assess this possibility, we examine pretrial detention and case processing outcomes for misdemeanants in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Utilizing temporal (detention time) and monetary (bond amount) measures of pretrial detention, we assess whether and to what extent there are racial–ethnic disparities in formal and informal sanctions facing misdemeanants. Results indicate that black defendants, especially black Latinx defendants, face greater informal sanctions (longer detention and higher bond amounts), are more likely to be convicted, and experience more severe formal sanctions than do white non-Latinx defendants. These findings complicate Feeley's (1979) argument about lower-level cases, revealing that black defendants are punished by both the court process and formal sanctions. In this way, “the process is the punishment” for lower-level white and nonwhite defendants, while the punishment is also the punishment for black defendants.     

Public research and the innovation performance of new technology based firms

Assessing the role of publicly funded scientific research in entrepreneurial ecosystems is of great interest for science and entrepreneurship policy. Knowledge from academic research flows into the private sector through publications, patents, and researcher mobility as well as through direct interactions between founders and researchers at public research institutions (PRIs). New technology-based firms (NTBFs) are generally praised for high innovativeness despite their resource constraints and liability of newness. This study therefore investigates the impact of direct interactions with PRIs on NTBFs’ innovation success. In a large sample of NTBFs in Germany, we find that those firms engaging in such knowledge interactions are more likely to introduce new products and services to the market. The strength of this association, however, depends on interaction persistency, internal R&D and the founders’ academic backgrounds. Non-academic start-ups benefit more from continuous informal interactions if they pursue own R&D, which suggests that absorptive capacity matters. In academic start-ups, higher intensities of both formal and informal interactions are associated with greater innovation likelihood. Moreover, continuous informal interactions complement formal ones in the absence of own R&D activity.

     

Lifers on the outside: sex offenders and disintegrative shaming

This article examines the effects of labeling though informal and formal sanctions on sex offender reintegration, using qualitative analysis from a probability sample of 153 registered sex offenders in four counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It also provides an overview of sex offender legislation and literature. Results of the study indicate that the majority of respondents experienced negative treatment because of their status as a sex offender. Results also indicate that formal and informal sanctions are stifling opportunities for sex offenders to be fully reintegrated into society and that treatment programs are not as effective as they could be. Implications for sex offender policy and further research are discussed.     

Help-seeking in a national sample of victimized Latino women: the influence of victimization types

The current study aimed to examine formal and informal help-seeking responses to interpersonal victimization among a national sample of Latino women. In addition, an examination of help-seeking by victimization type was undertaken. Data came from the Sexual Assault Among Latinas (SALAS) study that obtained help-seeking rates among a victimized subsample of Latino women (n = 714; 35.7% of a national sample). Results show a majority (76.6%) of the victimized participants engaged in some form of help-seeking with informal resources (68.9%) more often used than formal (32.5%). Medical attention was the type of formal help-seeking sought most often among victimized women who were injured (34.7%), and parents were the most common source of informal help-seeking (26.6%). However, logistic regression analyses show that help-seeking responses were significantly affected by type of victimization. Latino women who experienced childhood victimization were significantly less likely to engage in formal and informal help-seeking. Latino women who experienced stalking were significantly less likely to engage in formal help-seeking. Victimization with a weapon was significantly related to increased odds of formal help-seeking. Thus, women respond to violence in a way that is shaped by the dynamics of the victimization experience. Practice implications include the need to increase knowledge and availability of formal help-seeking venues.     

Formal and informal pharmaceutical economies in Third World countries: Synergetic, symbiotic or parasitical?

Informal economy functions without any formal social control for lack of a supervisory authority. Within a regulated locality the same activities would have an illegal character, but in that deviating situation those informal activities can thrive because the authorities do not intervene. Globalization of our western mixed market economy implies that also the aspect of government control takes on a global character. The fact that formal economies settle in places where an informal market is the rule leads to a combined action which, eventually, creates new market relations. In the present contribution we study the effects of a meeting between a formal and an informal market on the basis of a concrete case. An analysis of the market of medical products in Third World countries gives an idea of the new relations that arise when an informal market of natural medicines is confronted with a formal market of western medicines. We study both the situation in which there are no regulations and the situation in which the formal market is supported by economic regulations. This text illustrates how those situations can give rise to new opportunities for one group and to exploitation for another.     

Correlates of Formal and Informal Social Control on Crime Prevention: An Exploratory Study among University Students, Andhra Pradesh, India

Societies control crime through a variety of both formal and informal methods, and the balance between these methods varies widely by culture. This exploratory study surveyed a convenience sample of 434 students attending a university in Andhra Pradesh, India, in order to examine their social control views. Although there was strong support for both forms of social control, informal control mechanisms (family, neighbors/neighborhood, and peers) were more likely to be ranked higher in importance than formal control mechanisms (courts, police, and correctional facilities). Ordinary ordinal regression and ordinary least squares regression results indicated that views on shaming and group punishment were related to the views of formal and informal control. Further research is needed to examine the forces that shape the formal and informal crime control views of Indian citizens.     

The Social Norms of Waiting in Line

This article examines the rules and practices of waiting in line as a system of informal order, showing that despite its reputation for drudgery, the queue offers rich insights about social norms and the psychology of cooperation. The article begins by investigating the implicit customs of physical waiting in line, uncovering the surprisingly complex unwritten rules (and exceptions) that give queues stability even in the absence of legal governance or state enforcement. Yet the prevailing norms literature typically explains informal order by reference to close‐knit groups that can impose sanctions on violators of extralegal rules. This raises a puzzle: Why do queue norms repeatedly produce informal, yet reliable, order among total strangers unlikely to interact again? This article answers this question by looking to social‐psychological research showing that people tend to be strong reciprocators rather than selfish utility maximizers. This model makes sense of both our tendency to defer to line norms as well as the disproportionate sanctions with which defectors from these norms meet.     

Guerrilla economics and the wild economy

This paper assesses the latest contributions, by Harding and Jenkins and by Portes, Castells and Benton, to the literature on the informal or hidden economy. It places these works in the context of the now significant body of theoretical and empirical research that has developed over the past 17 years. It traces the emergence of the concept from its roots in economic anthropology, developmental studies, criminology, poverty studies, industrial and urban sociology, and Soviet studies, to its current demand for an interdisciplinary economics. It shows how, what was originally a fragmented polemical critique of the classical model of economic man, dismissed by many as peripheral, even trivial, has emerged as a new approach to the analysis of economic life. This guerrilla interdisciplinary irreverence is forcing a new dialectical vision in which economic life is reveled to be anything but the predictable, rational activity of market forces. Instead we see a wild economy, of formal and informal, market and non-market, as interrelated dimensions of the same whole, a whole permeated by social networks and clusters of workers. Failure to take this development seriously is to be blind to the realities of modern economic life and itself constitutive of the myth that is the formal economy. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AW502012 00002     

A historical institutionalist view on merging LULUCF and REDD+ in a post-2020 climate agreement

In the context of the UNFCCC negotiation process on a global climate agreement, policy makers are looking for approaches on how to significantly raise the mitigation ambition of all relevant sectors, including the land use sector. Aside of the formal negotiations some Parties to the UNFCCC have started an informal dialogue and discuss how to merge the fragmented accounting rules for mitigation relevant land use activities, in particular those concerning forest-sector emissions. Stressing that ‘history matters’, we use a historical institutionalist perspective to assess the institutional pathways of the different accounting rules for developed and developing countries, their mutual relationship, and in how far they are supportive or counterproductive for this endeavour. Our empirical analysis shows that Parties tend to use any modification phase in the negotiation process to water down already achieved agreements, and that negotiating modalities after targets have been agreed is not conducive either. In the efforts of specifying the Paris agreement, merging existing rules into a common accounting framework is likely to further compromise the exisiting weak rules and modalities, and potentially what negotiators consider as ‘environmental integrity’. With this, a formal negotiation of common rules for the accounting of the land use sector may yield an outcome below what has been achieved since the negotiations on a post-2020 agreement started in 2005. We conclude that politically acceptable approaches for the land use sector that also contribute to the overall objective of raising ambition should avoid reopening already agreed decisions on rules and modalities.     

非正式行政行为的内涵——基于比较法视角的初步展开

非正式行政行为的概念在我国学术界有被混淆和误用的现象,迫切需要比较法意义上的澄清。在对抗主义程序观盛行的关国,对抗性要素是否充分,是界分行为正式与非正式的基准;受形式法治主义观影响,日本采取"是否超越立法授权"的分析路径;受法效意思和行为形式论影响的德国,倾向于用"欠缺法律形式"来界定非正式行政行为的内涵。了解其不同内涵旨趣和形成机理,对我国的概念建构和展开这一新型课题的研究具有一定的启发意义。     

行政立法非正式听证研究

行政立法正式听证与非正式听证的实质性区别在于行政立法主体受听证笔录拘束的程度。基于行政立法自身的特点,行政立法应当更多地采用非正式听证。任何行政程序都需要有具体程序制度的支持,因此,应当建立支持行政立法非正式听证的各项具体制度,包括公告制度、评议制度、相对案卷排他制度和效力制度等等。     

Remediation or Problem Translocation: An Ethical Discussion as to the Sustainability of the Remediation Market and Carbon Calculating

Remedial technologies consume energy, produce atmospheric, solid- and liquid-based waste streams and do not always destroy or remove contaminants from the environment. The following discussion reviews those factors associated with the environmental impacts of conducting land quality remediation works with particular focus upon the carbon calculating of different remediation technologies. This work seeks to challenge the conventional paradigm of paying hearsay to the term “sustainability” and challenges the selection of remediation technologies at specific sites in favor of sustainability versus time for non time critical problem holders. By promoting often simple changes to the ways in which we deliver remediation, then added value to society may be delivered while also driving changes in the behavior of market sector thinking.     

Regional Unemployment in Transitional China: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to explain the pattern of regional unemployment in transitional China. A model is developed to explore how urban unemployment in the provinces is influenced by peasants' wages, formal sector wages, and the size of the formal sector. Evidence from panel data suggests that a significant indicator of high unemployment rates is greater Urban–Rural Income Inequality within the province. The hypothesis is that the urban–rural income gap produces migration, and more rural migrants substitute for urban workers, causing further urban unemployment. Since the economic reforms began in 1978, the non-state owned enterprises have been carrying an increasing weight in the economy, and they have contributed significantly to the rapid economic growth of China. Empirical evidence shows that economic reforms have reduced unemployment. The provinces that are still heavily dependent on the state sector are therefore more likely to experience higher unemployment.     

从“非正式帝国主义”到“法律帝国主义”:以近代中国的境遇为例

近代国际法理论框架下的"非正式帝国主义",由最初的"自由贸易"模式扩展至政治、司法等诸般间接控制样式。在"非正式帝国"的塑造中,合乎国际法规范的条约具备去疆界化与再疆界化的意义,即破除正式领土帝国的堡垒,重建非正式帝国的藩篱。法律无疑是实现"非正式帝国主义"不可或缺的重要支撑,而它本身也成就为"非正式帝国主义"的一种典型形式——"法律帝国主义"。以近代中国的境遇为例,法律帝国主义所表达的,正是在政策指引之下,借助条约规定方式,以治外法权为基本实践手段,通过司法机构的跨域构建以及法律职业人士的身体力行,以最终达成西方法播散的整体过程。对此,我们应有清醒的认识。     

Female crime and household control in early modern Frankfurt am Main

This article investigates the way in which informal control by household authorities affected how female crime was prosecuted in early modern Frankfurt am Main. Crime historians have argued that female crime was a particular urban phenomenon during this period. They have attributed this to a relatively high level of independence of women and the existence of many formal social control institutions. This article shows that due to strongly enforced patriarchal ideals concerning household authority in the Holy Roman Empire supposedly ‘rural’ characteristics (low levels of independence and high levels of informal control) could also be found in distinctly urban settings, like Frankfurt am Main. As the household was viewed as the central location for social order, authorities required everyone to reside in an orderly household. Unlike regions in which household control was weaker, the majority of women, including migrants, were therefore incorporated in networks of informal control through their position in the household. This means that strong informal control within the household, which is normally associated with close-knit communities in the countryside, also played a dominant role in the urban community of Frankfurt. The criminal investigation records show that only few domestics were prosecuted formally; rather they were disciplined by their master – leaving a possibly very large dark number of female criminality. Most of the offenders appearing in the criminal investigation records were those that had failed to secure a position within a household. Owing to the reliance on household control, cities like Frankfurt am Main knew a distinct type of urban female offender.     

For Better or Worse? Gender and Perceptions of Formal and Informal Justice Systems in Afghanistan

We draw on survey data from a national probability sample of 6,406 Afghan adults (aged 18 years and older) to explore gender differences in the perceptions of formal and informal justice systems. The study utilizes binary logistic regression to probe whether men and women differ in their attitudes and the extent to which other factors may mediate both within– and across–ethnic group differences. We find that women have more confidence in the formal system than their male counterparts, whereas the opposite is true for the informal system. The scholarly and policy implications of these results are discussed.     

Sensemaking in prison: Inmate identity as a working understanding

This study examines some of the ways in which correctional officers construct, communicate, and defend a shared account of inmate identity in a maximum-security prison. Through sensemaking activities embodied in informal conversational routines, correctional officers produce a working understanding of the prisoner that is a central element in the reproduction of social control in the prison. The data suggest that challenges to the dominant assumptions embodied in key sensemaking categories may be met by a variety of defensive strategies. These strategies are embedded in the informal conversational routines of the group. Through the selective use of official records, by reframing tolerance as a social control strategy, and through participation in acts of ritual insubordination, correctional officers maintain a working understanding of the inmate that is demeaning, derogatory, and ultimately stereotypical. This research contributes to our understanding of occupational culture in the justice system, and to a fuller appreciation of sensemaking processes in formal organizations.     

When Do We Think About Detection? Structural Opportunity and Taxpaying Behavior

Past studies have generally found that perceptions of the likelihood of formal and informal sanctions have lower explanatory power of noncompliance with laws than do internalized norms. Using data from two telephone surveys, we examined a situational characteristic, structural opportunity, that may prod individuals to think about the likelihood of detection from the Internal Revenue Service for underreporting income. Structural opportunity is the degree to which an individual's economic or social situation provides ways to avoid detection. Individuals with high structural opportunity perceived a lower likelihood of IRS detection and indicated that they were less likely to feel guilty if they engaged in tax cheating. Our data also suggested that some individuals with high structural opportunity may be in social networks which condone tax cheating. As expected, structural opportunity provided a condition under which individuals took into consideration the perceived likelihood of formal and informal detection in formulating intentions to engage in tax cheating. Our findings suggest that an examination of the interaction between situational and individual characteristics will provide a more complete understanding of decisions to engage in illegal behavior. Implications for deterrence theory are discussed.     

DENSITY, DELINQUENCY, AND DESIGN Formal and Informal Control and the Built Environment

This study reviews the literature concerning the general impact of the physical environment on social disorganization, crime, and juvenile delinquency, with a specific focus on the relationship between household density, building density-design, and juvenile delinquency. Two perspectives on control are shown to have developed in an environmental context. One emphasizes the capacity of the built environment to impair informal social control, and the other focuses on the attraction of the same environments for agents of formal social control (the police). A path model is presented. showing that building density-design is an independent predictor of marijuana use and supporting the view that the physical environment can affect informal control. The model also shows that building density-design is a significant predictor of police presence. thus giving empirical support to the notion that the physical environment can affect formal control.