Besprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Chief executive officers and voluntary environmental performance: Costa Rica's certification for sustainable tourism

This study evaluates whether the education, environmental expertise, and nationality of firms' chief executive officers (CEOs) are associated with greater participation and environmental performance in a voluntary environmental program implemented in a developing nation. Specifically, we collected data from the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program, a voluntary initiative aimed at promoting beyond-compliance environmental performance by hotels operating in Costa Rica. Our findings suggest that CEOs' level of formal education and environmental expertise appear to be significantly associated with higher corporate participation in voluntary programs and also with higher beyond-compliance environmental performance ratings. Contrary to conventional expectations, CEOs from industrialized countries (as opposed to developing countries) do not appear to show a statistically significant association with participation in the CST program and with higher beyond-compliance environmental performance.     

Book reviews

Michael Parenti. Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. 208 pp. Endnotes; index.

Vicente Navarro. Dangerous to Your Health: Capitalism in Health Care. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993. Pp. 127. $10.00 paper.

Mobilizing the Community: Local Politics in the Era of the Global City, (1993), edited by Robert Fisher and Joseph Kling, Urban Affairs Annual Review, v. 41, Newbury Park, Ca.: SAGE.

Howard L. Reiter. Parties and Elections in Corporate America. New York: Longman, 1993. 315p. $26.95 paper.

Marcuse: From the New Left to the Next Left, edited by John Bokina and Timothy J. Lukes. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.     

Would a Value‐Added System of Retention Improve the Distribution of Teacher Quality? A Simulation of Alternative Policies

In this paper, we consider several features of teacher‐retention policies based on value‐added measures of effectiveness under a variety of empirically grounded rules and parameters. We consider the effects of policy design by varying the standard above which satisfactory teachers are expected to perform. We simulate recently adopted policies that remove teachers based on consecutive unsatisfactory performance and compare these to policies that remove teachers based on poor performance on average over a multiyear period. We also consider the precision of the performance measure and the underlying variation in teacher quality on policy effects. Finally, the simulation makes a step forward by incorporating recent empirical findings of a relationship between teacher quality and natural attrition from the profession. Our results indicate that deselection policies based on value‐added measures have the potential to improve teacher quality, although understanding the role of policy design, self‐selected exits, and the underlying variation in teacher quality is essential for determining policy effects.     

Congressional Dominance and the International Trade Commission

This study examines the unfair trade decisions of the InternationalTrade Commission (ITC) and how they have been affected by Congress.It begins by identifying the means Congress can use to influenceITC decisions and then estimates both the extent to which thesemeans have been used and the extent to which they have shaped theITC's behavior. The study reaches two conclusions. First, Congresshas tried to shape the ITC's behavior, but it has not tried tomicromanage this behavior. Second, while the ITC's behavior hasbeen influenced by Congress, congressional influence is not asimportant as other factors, such as statutory criteria.     

更思政治性国际劫机犯罪的司法协作困境——以政治犯不引渡原则为切人

各国意识形态领域的差异以及特定国际事件的国家利益纠葛共同影响了对政治犯不引渡原则的适用．进一步导致了与“政治性目的”有关的国际劫机犯罪的司法协作困境重重。此类劫机事件的困境实质上是各国国家利益、世界人权事业发展与政治自由以及国际打击劫机犯罪等诸多需要的体现。而解决困境的现实方案则是：将具体的“政治性”国际劫机事件所涵括的现实国家利益纠葛作为首要的价值砝码,兼顾事件的人权保护意义与政治自由价值,并在此基础上分类处理。