The British whistleblower protection bill

This paper critically examines the first attempt to offer general statutory protection to United Kingdom whistleblowers. Despite some useful provisions, the paper concludes that the bill is retrogressive, unsophisticated and narrow; and that it will be the legal profession not employees of conscience who will benefit from this instrument if it passes into law. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The counterfactual fallacy: Confusing what might have been with what ought to have been

The thesis of this article is that reactions to misfortunes are often biased by the counterfactual fallacy: the tendency to view events that can easily be imagined otherwise as events that ought not to have been. Drawing upon a diverse set of empirical findings we demonstrate that victims' and observers' reactions to misfortunes depend on the extent to which the event prompts them to generate counterfactual thoughts or images of more positive alternatives. We discuss the factors that determine the ease with which a negative event can be imagined otherwise, along with their relevance to a variety of justice-relevant responses, including perceptions of deservingness, recommendations for compensation, and blame assignment.     

The application of expert systems to the management of technology

Technology management must be improved if the US is to cope in an aggressively competitive international marketplace. It is becoming increasingly clear that investing in technologically advanced plant and equipment alone is not enough to compete successfully. To raise levels of efficiency and effectiveness in technology management, firms must develop a multi-dimensional approach to solving problems associated with manufacturing process. A way to capture scenarios for decision-making is through expert systems—programs that have wide bases of knowledge in restricted domains and utilize complex inferential reasoning to perform tasks that human beings could accomplish, but less efficiently. These systems contain a great deal of knowledge about a specific problem areas and disciplines. They also allow expertise to be distributed throughout the firms, raising competence levels and the productivity of non-experts.     

An economic theory of intentional torts

The topic of intentional torts is, at first glance, an unpromising one for economics. ‘Intent’ is not a normal part of the economist's vocabulary and does not appear to correspond to any concept in economics. Perhaps this is why there is so little economic writing on intentional torts as such.¹ We shall argue, however, that the concept of intentional tort can be given a coherent economic meaning and we shall try to show that the common law treatment of intentional torts can be explained on the hypothesis that the common law attempts to promote efficiency.     

DEADLY FORCE AS A POLICY PROBLEM IN LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT: DO ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICES MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

This article examines the impact of six administrative practices on the use of deadly force by police officers in American cities with a population greater than 50,000. Generally, departmental policies demonstrate little association with the frequency of shooting incidents per police officer, or in the number of incidents resulting in fatalities or injuries. It does appear that police departments which issue more traditional sidearms tend to experience fewer incidents than departments which issue heavier firearms. This same lack of association between administrative practices and the use of deadly force is discovered when controlling for city population size arid state legal codes. Notwithstanding that some of the relationships are in the expected direction, their lack of statistical significance suggests that the use of deadly force has its antecedents in sources other than the administrative policies of local police departments.