After Rio: Measuring the Effectiveness of the International Response*

The Framework Convention on Climate Change, opened for signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), formally begins a process for countries jointly to limit the long-term risk of climate change. The near-term effectiveness of the Framework Convention will be limited, due to ambiguities in language, uncertainties regarding the magnitude and location of sources and sinks, the difference between biological and industrial emissions, uncertainty about the relative importance of the various greenhouse gases and selection of a weighting system, and concerns about equity. Action in the near term will likely cover either CO₂ alone or just those gases resulting from the use of fossil fuels in the industrialized world. Based on this limitation, it is projected that by 2036 the earth will be committed to a 2.2^oC temperature increase. The effectiveness of the Convention need not be as limited as this analysis suggests; it is an evolving document, tailored to be flexible and to respond to the most recent scientific knowledge.     

THE IMPACT OF ENHANCED PRISON TERMS FOR FELONIES COMMITTED WITH GUNS*

Legislation mandating minimum sentences or additions to sentences for crimes committed with guns is a frequent response to gun problems. We compiled these state laws and estimated their impact on state prison populations, prison admissions, UCR crime rates, and gun use in homicides, assaults and robberies. We employed a multiple time series research design, with data for nearly all states over the past 16 to 24 years, such that for any one state the remaining states operated as controls. Several small-scale studies have suggested that the laws might reduce some types of gun crime. We found that the laws produced such an impact in no more than a few states and that there is little evidence that the laws generally reduce crime or increase prison populations.     

SPECIFICATION PROBLEMS,POLICE LEVELS,AND CRIME RATES*

Research on the relationship between police and crime, like many criminological topics, is subject to uncertain causal direction and omitted controls. We recommend procedures that mitigate these problems: the Granger causality test, proxies for missing variables, robustness checks, and making data available to other researchers. Because specification problems are common in the social sciences, this strategy has applicability beyond the issue of police and crime. We analyze yearly police data and UCR crime rates, at the state and city levels, pooled over two decades. We find Granger causation in both directions. The impact of crime on the number of police is slight, but the impact of police on most crime types is substantial. The latter result is more robust at the city level.     

The Line‐Item Veto in Georgia: Fiscal Restraint or Inter‐Branch Politics?

This article about use of the line‐item veto in Georgia concludes that the item veto has been used not as an instrument for reducing the budget total or the size of state government, but as an instrument for protecting the executive budget. Using appropriations data and drawing upon interviews with participants in the budget process, including seven governors, the authors present evidence that in Georgia the item veto (1) is not frequently used, (2) when used, is more likely to remove legislative language than delete dollar amounts, and (3) enables the spending priorities and fiscal policy preferences of the governor to prevail as state policy.