Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence

Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effectof capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life inprison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behaviorthan the death penalty. Using state-level panel data coveringthe period 1950–90, we demonstrate that the death rateamong prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions)is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence.This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, thereis little systematic evidence that the execution rate influencescrime rates in this time period.     

The Taiwan Strait: A Continuing Status Quo of Deadlock?

Relations across the Taiwan Strait have demonstrated over the past 50 years a cyclical nature, revolving between states of limited tension or conflict and generally peaceful and politically acceptable stalemate. Individual policy directions followed by all of the three main actors in cross-Strait relations--China, Taiwan and the United States--continue to be pursued with a high degree of ambivalence, as countervailing political imperatives mean that any policy contains within itself the seeds for its own reversal. Any equilibrium is consequently inherently unstable, yet also drives relations back to a status quo of deadlock from which a new cycle can again commence. Given the full range of objectives on all sides, there is little likelihood of the presently existing deadlocked status quo moving towards a stable resolution. The state of neither war nor peace will continue in the Taiwan Strait, but the margin for error in probable future cycles of tension and stability remains very small.     

Regulator-Required Corporate Compliance Program Audits

This paper critically examines the ability of compliance program audits to provide adequate assurance of compliance system performance. The empirical evidence comes from the use of compliance program audits in monitoring compliance with enforceable undertakings agreed upon between companies (that have allegedly breached the law) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The evidence suggests that the primary value of compliance program audits in this context is as a management review that induces better compliance. Nevertheless, it may be the formal regulatory expectation of verification (and the belief that it is possible) that gives the compliance review its power to encourage management to listen and respond to auditors' recommendations for improvement.
The danger is that the review aspect of the audit will be captured by management concerns. This is evident in a tendency for the audit methodology to focus on management systems at the expense of forensic investigation of harm done (or likely to be done) to consumers and investors, and in a failure to seek out public opinion and input. This style of audit undermines the basic regulatory objective of democratic accountability for corporate responsibility. I conclude by using the literature on critical social audits to show that there is, nonetheless, significant potential for compliance program audits to open corporate management to democracy, and to make some suggestions as to how this might be possible.     

The Greater Yellowstone policy debate: What is the policy problem?

Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding mountainous region comprise the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), a 19 million acre area that is one of the few relatively intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states. Conservationists believe that continuation of present land management practices in the region will disrupt the ecological integrity of the GYE. Many authors have identified and described these threats, but as yet there has been no sustained effort to make sense of these threats in the context of the ongoing dynamic policy debate. We develop the foundation for such understanding by examining the implicit problem definitions that have emerged from this debate. They fall into three general categories: 1) a scientific definition, 2) an economic definition, and 3) a bureaucratic definition. This process produces an exploratory definition of the policy problem, which suggests a strategy for better understanding and policy design. We propose several intervention points at which substantive, one-the-ground improvements in the management of the GYE are possible.     

STATESMEN IN DISGUISE*

It is a daunting honour to tread in the illustrious footsteps of those who have previously delivered this Oration. It is also a personal pleasure, because Sir Robert Garran was the gracious and tolerant chairman of the Canberra University College Council that gave me my first academic post. Impressive but totally unpretentious, Sir Robert was a man that I could look up to, literally as well as figuratively. In 1938, however, I was scarcely aware that Garran had been the first Commonwealth public servant, a permanent head for thirty-one years and, as Attorney-General John (later Sir John) Latham put it a few days after Garran retired in January 1932, "guide, philosopher and friend to every Federal Cabinet" during those years¹