The re-occurrence of violations in occupational safety and health administration inspections

How well do firms in the United States maintain compliance with occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) standards after being cited for a violation? How and why does this vary among standards? This paper identifies serious violations of 91 frequently cited standards at manufacturing plants during 1992–2002 and tracks compliance with that standard in later inspections over 10 years. While formal measures of Repeat violations are quite low, we find considerably higher re-violation rates for some standards once we look separately at how often health standards are cited in later health inspections and safety standards cited in later safety inspections. Characteristics of the standards affect re-violation rates, but not always in the expected direction. Standards whose violations are rated as more hazardous or which received higher initial penalties tend to have more re-violations. These findings could reflect inspector behavior, with those standards getting more attention and thus being cited more frequently. When, as in the case of OSHA and other enforcement agencies, we know about violations only when inspectors cite them, we need to consider bureaucratic behavior as well as employers' incentives.     

Projectile Wound to Head from Modified Electronic Cigarette Explosion

One of the dangers of a rapidly growing technology industry is the risk involved in being intimately close to lithium-ion batteries. When exposed to improper conditions, lithium-ion batteries in a variety of devices have been reported to ignite and, in some cases, explode. With the rise of electronic cigarette use and modifications, the lithium-ion batteries in these devices are subject to a higher risk of malfunction. This is a retrograde analysis of a 38-year-old man who experienced fatal penetrating head trauma while using a modified electronic cigarette device. The findings suggest that the trauma from the explosion was caused by the thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery in the modified e-cigarette.     

The politics of contract allocation in the World Bank

Scholarship on informal politics in multilateral aid organizations investigates all stages of the allocation process - from project identification to aid disbursement and project evaluation. Yet, one area remains almost entirely overlooked in the literature - allocation of aid-financed contracts. This article aims to address the shortcoming of the existing research and develops a theory of contract allocation in a prominent multilateral aid organization – the World Bank. The theoretical argument explores the relationship between formal procurement arrangements and recipients’ control over contract allocation, and the role of this relationship in explaining patterns of contract allocation. My empirical analyses using data on the World Bank’s contracts provide evidence of recipients’ ability to allocate contracts in favor of domestic companies, as well as bilateral aid donors.     

Poisson-Based Regression Analysis of Aggregate Crime Rates

This article introduces the use of regression models based on the Poissondistribution as a tool for resolving common problems in analyzing aggregatecrime rates. When the population size of an aggregate unit is small relativeto the offense rate, crime rates must be computed from a small number ofoffenses. Such data are ill-suited to least-squares analysis. Poisson-basedregression models of counts of offenses are preferable because they arebuilt on assumptions about error distributions that are consistent withthe nature of event counts. A simple elaboration transforms the Poissonmodel of offense counts to a model of per capita offense rates. Todemonstrate the use and advantages of this method, this article presentsanalyses of juvenile arrest rates for robbery in 264 nonmetropolitancounties in four states. The negative binomial variant of Poisson regressioneffectively resolved difficulties that arise in ordinary least-squaresanalyses.     

Understanding research methods,limitations, and applications of drug data collected by the National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS-Drug)

The National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) is a drug surveillance program of the US Drug Enforcement Administration that systematically collects data on drugs that are seized by law enforcement and submitted to and analyzed by the Nation's forensic laboratories (NFLIS-Drug). NFLIS-Drug data are increasingly used in predictive modeling and drug surveillance to examine drug availability patterns. Given the complexity of the data and data collection, there are some common methodological pitfalls that we highlight with the aim of helping researchers avoid these concerns. The analysis done for this Technical Note is based on a review of the scientific literature that includes 428 unique, refereed article citations in 182 distinct journals published between January 1, 2005, and April 30, 2021. Each article was analyzed according to how NFLIS-Drug data were mentioned and whether NFLIS-Drug data were included. A sample of 37 articles was studied in-depth, and data issues were summarized. Using examples from the literature, this Technical Note highlights eight broad concerns that have important implications for the proper applications, interpretations, and limitations of NFLIS-Drug data with suggestions for improving research methods and accurate reporting of forensic drug data. NFLIS-Drug data are timely and provide key information to inform drug use trends across the United States; however, our present analysis shows that NFLIS-Drug data are misunderstood and represented in the literature. In addition to highlighting these issues, DEA has created several resources to assist NFLIS data users and researchers, which are summarized in the discussion.     

Turkish economic development: The first five year plan, 1963–67

This article evaluates the effectiveness of Turkey's First Five Year Development Plan (1963–67) in achieving both its domestic and its international objectives.

A target of 7 per cent for the G.N.P. growth rate was nearly achieved, but individual sectors diverged from the plan. Agricultural and manufacturing output increased only about three‐quarters as fast as planned, while the construction and service industries exceeded the planned rate. In agriculture, neither new investment nor, more important, the dissemination of new techniques proceeded as rapidly as expected. Insufficient amounts of well‐organized investment projects, foreign exchange, and domestic savings (especially in the public sector) impeded the full achievement of the desired manufacturing capacity. In addition to failing to raise public revenue as much as planned, the principal shortcomings in policy formulation and execution were an overvalued currency which necessitated exchange controls and distorted the allocation of resources, the continued reliance on price regulation, and the failure to reform adequately the State Economic Enterprises. Reliance on foreign aid was reduced, but more aid will still be required before sustained growth is achieved.

In spite of these shortcomings, substantial progress was accomplished during the First Plan without the inflationary pressures and other imbalances which characterized the 1950s. However, Turkey could be developed more rapidly if more appropriate policies were followed.     

Ideologies in Law Time: The Oxford History of the Laws of England

In the introduction to the new Oxford History of the Laws of England 1820–1914, the authors suggest that their task is to tell the “history of the law itself.” This review essay examines what can be learned from a history told from law's internal point of view rather than through the perspectives of other disciplines, such as economics or philosophy. It considers whether and how the common law responded to industrialization and laissez‐faire ideology, the influence of salient philosophical movements—such as utilitarianism—on statutory change, and how all history is an exercise in ideology. In considering the public sphere, it suggests that this work should form the inspiration for further inquiry.