A matter of timing: The religious factor and morality policies

The question of whether or not religion accounts for variance in the governance of moral issues, between and within countries over time, has long been debated but never conclusively answered. A novel data set encompassing innovative measurements of state regulation of “life‐and‐death” issues and of the religious stratification of society enables us to answer why previous studies reached contradictory results. The time‐series cross‐sectional analysis of 26 countries over 50 years reveals that dominant religious denominations in society indeed influence state governance approaches regarding the issues of abortion and euthanasia. This denominational effect is shown to be contingent on the religiosity of a country's population, but independent from the formal state–church relationship. Lastly, it is shown that the religious effect has an inverse U‐shaped relationship with time, exposing the timeframe of analysis as decisive for inferences drawn in the study of morality policy.     

Market Instruments for a Sustainable Economy: Environmental Fiscal Policy and Manifest Divergences

The introduction of environmental taxation policies had reached most European countries by the late 1990s. The pricing of activities considered harmful to the environment has given rise to the design of various economic instruments, such as environmental taxes, aimed at promoting environmental responsibility and at enabling the Kyoto Protocol targets to be met, and at the same time generating a marked increase in tax revenues. The aim of this article is to examine whether convergence in environmental taxation has taken place among 27 EU countries, doing so by analyzing time series and applying unit root tests. Our findings show there has been no such convergence, overall, despite the existence of groups of countries with common patterns of behavior.     

Financial and Political Factors Motivating the Privatisation of Municipal Water Services

Financial and political factors are widely considered to be an explanatory factor of the privatisation of public services. However, the empirical evidence in this respect is not convincing. This paper considers elements of long-term financial condition and ideological and political strength, together with other socio-economic factors and the effects of the current global financial crisis, to address the financial stress–privatisation relationship, with respect to urban water services, observed during the period 2002–2012 in Spanish municipalities. A discrete time survival model is applied, and the results obtained show that certain elements of financial condition, together with political and ideological factors, are decisive influences in decisions to privatise urban water services. We also highlight the major impact of the Great Recession and its effect on the financial stress–privatisation relationship.     

Informality and Profitability: Evidence from a New Firm Survey in Ecuador

This article estimates the impact of informality on profits using a new survey administered to 1,200 firms with less than 50 employees in four cities in Ecuador. The article proposes a novel definition of informality which explicitly recognises that most firms comply with some regulations but not others. Accounting for firm selection and controlling for a large set of firm, owner and location characteristics, the article finds that more formal firms tend to be more profitable and have higher output per worker. This impact operates, inter alia, through improved access to credit and higher sales through issuance of tax receipts.     

Border Problems: Mapping the Third Border

The Internet has become the site of economically relevant objects, events and actions, as well as the source of potential risks to the financial systems. This article builds on a metaphor of ‘border problems’ in financial regulation, exploring a ‘third border’ between the ‘real world’ and ‘cyberspace’—a virtual domain of human interaction facilitated and conditioned by digital communications systems. Reviewing the ‘cyber-sovereignty’ debate and surveying the divergent approaches now emerging along geo-political faultlines, we argue that sovereign states still have a unique and irreplaceable role in guarding financial stability which must be reflected in the law of Internet jurisdiction: an emerging lex cryptographica financiera. We conclude with a few observations on how this could affect the design of financial regulation in the coming decade.     

Participatory communication for development in practice: the case of community media

Since it emerged, the field of communication for development has undergone a constant process of redefinition. Since the 1990s, the importance of participation in social and communicative processes has been stressed, and studies carried out during those years focused on participation as an important component to be considered. The so-called community media are privileged forces driving the participatory communication for development approach. Since their emergence and up to the recent studies, community media have been characterised by the centrality of citizenship participation in the creation of widespread messages, and in the processes of social change that they promote.

Communication participative pour le développement dans la pratique : le cas des médias communautaires

Depuis son apparition, le domaine de la communication pour le développement a traversé un processus constant de redéfinition. Depuis les années 1990, l'importance de la participation aux processus sociaux et de communication a été soulignée, et des études effectuées durant cette période-là se sont concentrées sur la participation comme élément important à prendre en compte. Ces « médias communautaires » sont des forces privilégiées qui impulsent l'approche participative pour la communication pour le développement. Depuis leur naissance et jusqu'aux récentes études effectuées, les médias communautaires se sont caractérisés par la position centrale de la participation citoyenne à la création de messages généralisés, et aux processus de changement social qu'ils promeuvent.

Comunicación participativa para el desarrollo en la práctica: el caso de los medios comunitarios

Desde que inició, el ámbito de la comunicación para el desarrollo ha experimentado un proceso constante de redefinición. A partir de los años noventa, ha comenzado a insistirse en la importancia de participar en los procesos sociales y comunicacionales. Los estudios realizados durante esa década, se centraron en la participación como componente primordial que debía ser tenido en cuenta. Los llamados medios comunitarios constituyen fuerzas privilegiadas que impulsan el enfoque de la comunicación participativa para el desarrollo. Desde que iniciaron sus actividades y hasta las últimas investigaciones realizadas al respecto, los medios comunitarios se caracterizaron por la significación otorgada a la participación ciudadana en la creación de mensajes de amplia difusión y en el proceso de cambio social promovido por dichos mensajes.

Comunicação participativa para o desenvolvimento na prática: o caso da mídia comunitária

Desde que surgiu, a área de comunicação para o desenvolvimento tem passado por um processo constante de redefinição. Desde a década de 1990, a importância da participação em processos sociais e comunicativos tem sido ressaltada e estudos têm sido realizados durante estes anos tendo como foco a participação como componente importante a ser considerado. A chamada mídia comunitária constitui-se em forças privilegiadas que dirigem a comunicação participativa para a abordagem de desenvolvimento. Desde o seu surgimento até estudos recentes, a mídia comunitária tem se caracterizado pela ênfase na participação dos cidadãos na criação de mensagens disseminadas e nos processos de mudança social que elas promovem.     

Identification of Human Remains by DNA Analysis of the Gastrointestinal Contents of Fly Larvae

Dipterous fly larvae (maggots) are frequently collected from a corpse during a criminal investigation. Previous studies showed that DNA analysis of the gastrointestinal contents of maggots might be used to reveal the identity of a victim. However, this approach has not been used to date in legal investigations, and thus its practical usefulness is unknown. A badly burned body was discovered with its face and neck colonized by fly larvae. Given the condition of the body, identification was not possible. Short tandem repeat (STR) typing was performed using the gastrointestinal contents of maggots collected from the victim and was compared to STR profiles obtained from the alleged father. The probability of paternity was 99.685%. Thus, this comparative DNA test enabled the conclusive identification of the remains. This is the first reported case of analysis of human DNA isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of maggots used to identify a victim in a criminal case.     

Are bar associations anticompetitive? An empirical analysis of recommended prices for legal services in Spain

The European Commission Report on Competition in Professional Services found that recommended prices by professional bodies have a significant negative effect on competition since they may facilitate the coordination of prices between service providers and/or mislead consumers about reasonable price levels. Professional associations argue, first, that a fee schedule may help their members to properly calculate the cost of services avoiding excessive charges and reducing consumers’ searching costs and, second, that recommended prices are very useful for cost appraisal if a litigant is condemned to pay the legal expenses of the opposing party. Thus, recommended fee schedules could be justified to some extent if they represented the cost of providing the services. We test this hypothesis using cross-section data on a subset of recommended prices by 83 Spanish bar associations and cost data on their territorial jurisdictions. Our empirical results indicate that prices recommended by bar associations are unrelated to the cost of legal services. Therefore, we conclude that fee schedules are not playing the role of providing useful cost information to practitioners and therefore this efficiency justification is weak.     

Does tenure in office affect regional growth? The role of?public capital productivity

We study the impact of tenure in office on economic performance. We evaluate the relationships between tenure in office and GDP growth, public capital growth, and public capital productivity using data for Spanish regions during the period 1980?C1998. We find that tenure decreases the impact of public capital growth on GDP growth. Our results suggest that tenure affects GDP growth negatively through a decrease in public capital productivity.     

Effects of Institutional Reforms on Women's Representation in Colombia, 1960–2014

Starting in the 1990s, reforms aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women have been implemented in Colombia. However, research on the consequences of these reforms has been inconclusive. This article analyzes the influence of institutional variables on the proportion of nominated and elected women in Colombia between 1962 and 2014, at both the national and local levels of government, in three different institutional environments. Results confirm the influence of institutional change, indicating that decentralizing reforms and the introduction of the gender quota have had a positive impact on the proportion of women's candidacies and elections, but that the adoption of the open list negatively affected the percentage of elected women.