Growth and the Welfare State in the EU: A Causality Analysis

In this paper, we test for causality between GDP growth andsocial protection expenditure in the European Union. To that end,we apply Hsiao's (1981) sequential procedure to data for twelveEU countries along the 1970–1994 period. Our results suggestthat, for Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,Portugal, and Spain, causality runs only from social protectiongrowth to GDP growth, while for Denmark, France, Greece, Italy,and the United Kingdom, no causality is found between socialprotection growth and GDP growth.     

我国政府绩效评估指标体系构建的新趋向与新要求

近年来,我国政界与学界围绕政府绩效评估指标体系的构建进行了多方面的探索与研究。对我国政府绩效评估指标体系构建的新趋向与新要求可着重从以下几方面作一简单归纳总结与展望:其一,基于科学发展观的要求,充分体现政府绩效评估指标体系的科学性和全面性;其二,树立"公众为本"的绩效评估观,强化政府绩效评估指标体系构建中的公众参与:其三,注重"四大结合",不断改进政府绩效评估指标体系设计的方法与技术。     

论人民警察与群众沟通的艺术

人民警察的职业特点决定了其与群众沟通的重要性。沟通是一门艺术,如果人民警察不懂得恰当使用沟通,会给人民警察的工作带来很大麻烦。如果人民警察懂得使用一些与群众沟通的技巧、有意识地改变自己平时的沟通方式。在说、听、问和看等方面有所转变,并学会摆正自己的角色等．会达到与群众更好沟通的效果。     

贩卖毒品案件言词证据问题探讨

毒品的贩卖是毒品从制造到消费过程的主渠道和中心环节,故贩卖毒品罪是毒品犯罪中涉及范围最广的一种犯罪。证据是案件的生命和灵魂,实践中如何针对贩卖毒品案件言词证据的特点,正确充分地收集、审查、判断贩卖毒品案的言词证据,并依据言词证据定案,成为公诉工作中值得探讨的课题。     

公安院校在专业课教学中应渗透思想政治教育

公安院校在专业课教学过程中渗透思想政治教育,是提高学员思想政治素质的有效途径。在专业课中渗透思想政治教育是必要的,同时也是可行的。教师结合该专业的特点、认真钻研教材、灵活设计教学环节,能够挖掘出在专业课中的德育内涵。公安院校应通过建立专业课教师育人激励机制与管理机制,不断提高专业课教师育人的积极性,为思想政治教育工作拓宽平台。     

从区域治理的差异性看我国政府回应性的构建——基于我国东中西部的实证比较

政府的回应性关乎政府的公共形象,关乎社会和谐.本文从区域治理的视角,通过对我国东中西部地方政府行为的实证调查研究,利用SPSS软件计算出东中西部的平均分、标准差、差异系数和综合评定值,由此探讨我国政府在公共服务中应对公众诉求中存在的问题,并提出从善治的视角提高政府回应能力的政策建议.     

The Crime Kuznets Curve

Objectives

Criminologists have long studied the relationship between economic conditions and crime. Empirical evidence is inconclusive, pointing at different directions. This may reflect the conflicting theoretical predictions on the relationship between these phenomena, but also the prevailing methodological choice which focuses on linear relationships even though nonlinearities are plausible theoretically.

Methods

In this paper, we revisit the empirical relationship between economic conditions and crime by exploring potential nonlinearities. We look at flexible parametric specifications that include up to a cubic term of per capita income (or one dummy for each income quintile) and nonparametric and semi-parametric specifications (such as General Additive Models). Our results are robust to controlling for the standard socioeconomic, demographic, and policy determinants of crime, as well as to including a lagged dependent variable or state and time fixed effects.

Results

We document the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between crime and income within US states for the period 1970-2011. Crime increases with per capita income until it reaches a maximum, and then decreases as income keeps rising. This “Crime Kuznets Curve” (CKC) exists for property crime and for categories of violent crime that can be related to economic appropriation, like robbery, and is less robust for violent crimes not connected to economic incentives. We show that this pattern cannot be explained by correlated changes in economic inequality or by changes in law enforcement.

Conclusions

In addition to providing robust evidence of the existence of a CKC, our findings lay the groundwork for studies exploring the underlying theoretical mechanisms. These should go beyond income inequality or law enforcement, and should explain why the results hold more clearly for property than for violent crime. Our findings and subsequent research to understand the underlying drivers are relevant for policy, as they suggest that violent conflict cannot be tackled solely by the trickle-down forces of economic growth.

     

Credit,crisis and contract enforcement: evidence from the Spanish loan market

A number of theoretical and empirical studies have shown that the development of credit markets is affected by the efficacy of enforcement institutions. A less explored question in this context is how these institutions interact with turns in the economic cycle and the impact of different types of legal procedures on credit market performance. This paper fills these gaps by analyzing how differences in the availability of credit and the evolution of non-performing loans ratios may be partially explained by regional variations in the quality of loan contract enforcement during recent periods of sustained growth (2001–2007) and recession (since 2008) in the Spanish economy. This research concludes that a rise in the clearance rate of executions (i.e., when a judge enforces the repayment of a debt) increases the ratio of total credit to GDP. However, the declaratory stage of the procedure (i.e., when a debt is firstly verified by a judge) does not seem to be statistically significant. A possible explanation to this finding is that, throughout the economic cycle, a relevant proportion of the defaults that take place are strategic (i.e., defaults by a solvent debtor). Furthermore, it is observed that, in regions where declaratory procedures are more efficient, less credit is declared as non-performing. The latter effect, however, is only observed after the onset of the “Great Recession” in 2008. This may be related to the increase of non-strategic defaults during a downturn.