Risk terrain modeling for road safety: identifying crash-related environmental factors in the province of Cádiz,Spain

Environmental Criminology has developed a robust framework that provides the scientific support and necessary foundation for crime analysis through crime mapping. This theoretical approach focuses on the situational and temporal characteristics of criminal opportunity rather than on the offender’s behavior for crime prevention. In the scope of road safety and traffic crashes, few studies have adopted this approach. This study used risk terrain modeling (RTM), developed by the Rutgers Center on Public Security, to determine the relative importance of varying environmental risk factors on alcohol-related crashes and traffic accidents. The independent variables consisted of a set of potential environmental risk factors, while the dependent variable comprised all DWI crashes and traffic accidents in the province of Cádiz in 2012. According to the results of the current study, restaurant locations are spatially associated with the occurrence of drunk driving crashes, while proximity restaurants and recreational lodging centers correlate with the sites of traffic accidents.     

The Organizational Consequences of Politics: A Research Agenda for the Study of Bureaucratic Politics in Latin America

The study of the bureaucracy in Latin America, within the study of politics, has long been little more than an afterthought. It is assumed to lie in the realm of public administration, distinct from other regional subfields that have increasingly gained the attention of political scientists. As a result, scholars' understanding of Latin American bureaucratic politics is limited. Here, we conduct a comprehensive survey of peer‐reviewed articles to evaluate the state of this subfield. We find a thematically, analytically, and methodologically splintered discipline, but a prime one for exploitation and new avenues of research. This article summarizes salient trends in the literature, describes advances in the study of bureaucracy in Latin America, and discusses limitations in this scholarship. It suggests a roadmap for scholars by proposing a series of research questions and recommends a series of analytical and methodological approaches to address those questions.     

Legislative Knowledge Networks,Status Quo Complexity,and the Approval of Law Initiatives

In this article, we explore the role of legislative knowledge networks (LKN) in the enactment of tax policy in Argentina. Findings show that legislative innovation follows a hierarchical (power law) structure with a few distinct issue areas dominated by key enacted bills. Taxation in Argentina is well described by three main issue areas: the VAT laws, the income tax, and the revenue‐sharing legislation. We provide evidence that complexity in the status quo, as described by a larger number of important precedent laws, reduces the likelihood of final approval. Our research departs from existing models of delegation by considering complexity in the status quo rather than complexity in the proposal. We argue that more complex status quo should be accounted for when trying to assess whether legislators draft more or less detailed law initiatives.     

Setting the agenda: Social influence in the effects of the Human Rights Committee in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe

Analyzing original data from Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, this article explores the influence of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the United Nations (UN) in the configuration of states' normative agendas and the roles they seek to play. Focusing on the HRC's reporting procedure, the article investigates whether states adjust the substantive content of their periodic reports to mimic the human rights agenda explicitly set by the HRC through its concluding observations reports. The article finds that states take the HRC seriously and play the role of “good,” committed members of the human rights regime, following in their periodic reports the agenda of rights previously set by the HRC. The article, therefore, offers a specific theoretical argument and systematic, original evidence on the potential and the limits of the influence of the organs of the international human rights regime.     

外资银行的进入对发展中国家的影响

本文结合近年来的相关研究文献,探讨外资银行进入发展中国家的影响因素,并通过对实证研究成果的分析考察外资银行的进入对发展中国家银行业的效率和稳定性两方面的影响。在此基础上本文提出对将来研究方向的建议,即在这个问题上的研究更需要着重于外资银行的进入对发展中国家经济增长的影响以及东道国和母国的经济演进和外资银行经营活动之间的互动反应。     

A Uniform, Internationally Oriented Legal Framework for the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan?

The growth in commercial transactions with Mainland China, HongKong Special Administrative Region and the Taiwan region (Taiwan)as well as the economic integration in the entire area havelead to an increase in disputes. Considering the importanceof arbitration as a mechanism for resolving commercial disputesin the area, the paper discusses whether a substantial "clash"between their legal frameworks for the recognition and enforcementof foreign arbitral awards can be observed. After a criticalanalysis, the paper concludes that these frameworks are eithersubject to or modelled on the New York Convention. Yet, eachhas a distinct approach to the implementation, and dissimilaritiesarise. Furthermore, the specific legal framework for the recognitionand enforcement of Mainland China awards in Hong Kong and Taiwan,and vice versa, still raises some concerns and is not fullyreliable.     

Commodity price shocks and the balance sheet effect in emerging economies

Economic Change and Restructuring - We study the role of commodity price shocks in explaining business cycles in emerging economies, but including a financial transmission mechanism that has been...