Leaders,Tenure, and the Politics of Sovereign Credit

Sovereign creditworthiness is as much a function of politics as economic fundamentals. Previous research has focused on the relationship between creditworthiness and political factors such as regime type, regional effects, and international organization membership. These factors, while important, often change slowly and do not always capture the more dynamic political determinants of creditworthiness. As an alternative, this study focuses on the role of leaders. We argue that leaders’ tenure reduces uncertainty in the sovereign credit market. Time in power allows leaders to better manage expectations related to sovereign credit policy of both domestic supporters and market actors. As a result, we expect that creditworthiness improves as a leader’s tenure increases. We find supporting evidence for our argument using two distinct empirical approaches: panel data analysis and a natural experiment. Our findings provide a better understanding of the relationship between leaders, politics, and sovereign credit.     

The Political Limitations of Evidence: A Critique of the Electoral Reform Society's It's Good To Talk

The Electoral Reform Society has called for more and better quality information to improve democratic debate in relation to referendums. This article argues that, particularly in relation to the European Union referendum, this would have had a marginal impact, because much of the debate was not reducible to facts and emotional and dispositional factors were of particular significance in the campaign.     

CODIS STR loci data from 41 sample populations

Allele distributions for 12 or 13 CODIS core tetrameric short tandem repeat (STR) loci CSFIPO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, TH01, TPOX, and vWA were determined in 41 population data sets. The major population groups comprise African Americans, U.S. Caucasians, Hispanics, Far East Asians, and Native Americans. There was little evidence for departures from Hardy-Weinberg expectations (HWE) in any of the populations. The FST estimates over all thirteen STR loci are 0.0006 for African Americans, -0.0005 for Caucasians, 0.0021 for Hispanics, 0.0039 for Asians, and 0.0282 for Native Americans.     

Assertions of “Future Dangerousness” at Federal Capital Sentencing: Rates and Correlates of Subsequent Prison Misconduct and Violence

The federal prison disciplinary records of federal capital inmates (n=145) who were sentenced to life without possibility of release (LWOP) by plea bargain, pre-sentencing withdrawal of the death penalty, or jury determination were retrospectively reviewed (M=6.17 years post-admission). Disaggregated prevalence rates were inversely related to infraction severity: serious infraction =0.324, assaultive infraction =0.207, serious assault =0.09, assault with moderate injury =0.007, assault with major injuries or death =0.00. Frequency rates of misconduct were equivalent to other high-security federal inmates (n=18,561), regardless of infraction severity. Government assertions of "future dangerousness" as a nonstatutory aggravating factor were not predictive of prison misconduct. These findings inform federal capital risk assessments and have public policy implications for procedural reliability in death penalty prosecutions.     

The Formal Divide: Customary Rights and the Allocation of Credit to Agriculture in Tanzania

It is generally held that one mechanism to enable inclusive growth in Tanzania is enabling farmers to access credit to raise productivity and incomes. The formalisation of property rights in Tanzania is being undertaken by a multiplicity of actors at great expense to donors, individuals and the government. While there have been a variety of different justifications for allocating Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) to farmers in Tanzania, perhaps the most prominent argument is that it will enable farmers to finally overcome the divide between ‘informal’ customary rights and the formal banking sector. CCROs would provide the collateral that would induce banks to lend money to small-scale farmers. As part of a six-year investigation in Manyara, Mbeya and Dodoma regions, our research team evaluated the impact of formalisation on farmers’ access to credit. The paper will present the results while pointing to the continuing institutional and market imperfections that perpetuate the formal divide.     

Severity of penalty,seriousness of the charge,and mock jurors' verdicts

It has been suggested that jurors in criminal trials are less likely to convict when the penalty is more severe or the charge is more serious. This was explained by Kerr (1975) in terms of a perceived increase in the cost of a Type I error (convicting an innocent person) that resulted in a criterion shift in the amount of evidence jurors required to vote guilty. The previous research found only weak support for the prediction regarding severity but consistent support for the predicted effect of seriousness. However, in the case materials used in these studies, more evidence was legally required to prove guilt on the more serious charges. This article presents studies in which the amount of evidence needed to prove guilt was equated for all charges. Under these circumstances, there was no effect on verdicts of seriousness of charge or severity of penalty and no evidence of a criterion shift due to either variable. There may still be reason to believe that these factors affect real juries, but this belief is not supported by the systematic evidence from mock jury studies.     

Inside the university technology transfer office: mission statement analysis

The focus of our paper is to qualitatively explore the mission statements components of university TTOs using Pearce and David’s (Acad Manag Exec 1(2):109–115, 1987) eight components. Mission statements are the organization’s central defining purpose and focus. In essence an organizations’ raison d’etre. Given the growing importance of the role TTOs now play, understanding components of mission statements is timely, particularly during the first phase of TTO developments. To provide insights concerning these issues our study is set in the Republic of Ireland, which has one of the top performing university and public research organization technology transfer system within the European Union. Using Pearce and David (1987) well established eight mission statement components we analyzed seven Irish university TTO mission statements. We also conducted quantitative analysis on the number of mission statement components and selected variables. We found that university TTO mission statements focused primarily on two mission components—target customers and markets and principal services. From our quantitative analysis we found moderate positive correlations between patents granted and number of mission statement components. Furthermore we found there was a positive correlation between grants granted outside of Ireland and the number of mission components. Our results, albeit they are tempered by a small sample of data, have pertinent implications for TTOs.