Incentives for pollution abatement: Regulation,regulatory threats,and non‐governmental pressures

In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have received increasing attention from both policymakers and scholars. This article discusses polluters' incentives to reduce their releases. In particular, using data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory, it examines the impacts of conventional regulation, threats of regulation, and non‐governmental pressures facilitated by public dissemination of information about pollutant releases. The vast majority of reductions reported to the inventory to date were found not to be voluntary, as has often been assumed, but are, rather, the result of direct regulation of a relatively small number of polluters. Strong effects of federal regulation were found among other sources, as well, with much weaker responses to the mere threat of regulation. However, of concern are the growth of less visible waste streams—such as land disposal and underground injection—as well as transfers of wastes to other communities. Finally, evidence is reported that some waste streams are increasing in toxicity, an effect that may outweigh the benefits of reductions in releases. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Partnering for e‐government: Challenges for public administrators

Abstract: Governments around the world are spending huge sums of money implementing electronic government. Public‐private partnerships with information and communication technology firms have emerged as the vehicle of choice for implementing e‐government strategies. Concerns are raised about the capacity of governments to manage these complex, multi‐year, often multi‐partner relationships that involve considerable sharing of authority, responsibility, financial resources, information and risks. The management challenges manifest themselves in the core partnering tasks: establishing a management framework for partnering; finding the right partners and making the right partnering arrangement; the management of relationships with partners in a network setting; and the measurement of the performance of e‐government partnerships. The article reviews progress being made by governments in building capacity to deal with these core partnering tasks. It concludes that many new initiatives at the central agency and departmental/ministry level seem designed to centralize control of e‐government projects and wrap them in a complex web of bureaucratic structures and processes that are, for the most part, antithetical or, at best, indifferent to the creation of strong partnerships and the business valuethat e‐government public‐private partnerships promise.     

An Analysis of Miranda Warnings and Waivers: Comprehension and Coverage

Miranda warnings enshrine the constitutional rights of custodial suspects against self-incrimination. However, the wording and sentence complexity of Miranda warnings and waivers vary dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This study is the first extensive investigation of Miranda warning variations examining 560 Miranda warnings from across the United States. With Flesch-Kincaid reading comprehension as a useful metric, Miranda warnings varied from very simple comprehension (i.e., grade 2.8) to requiring postgraduate education. Miranda warnings are composed of five components (e.g., silence and evidence against you); marked variations were also observed in the comprehensibility of individual components. On average, the Miranda warning component on "continuing rights" requires a reading comprehension level six grades higher than the comparatively simple expression of the right to silence. Similar analyses were conducted on Miranda waivers. The content of these warnings differed on such issues as communicating (a) when access to an attorney would be granted (e.g., 45.9% specified only "during questioning") and (b) explicitly that indigent legal services were free (e.g., 31.8% directly informed suspects). Finally, the study identified representative Miranda components at different levels of reading comprehension as a template for further research.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Commentary</Emphasis>: A Critical Review of Published Competency-to-Confess Measures

The development of standardized assessments for competency-to-confess evaluations has remained largely neglected for the last several decades. Groundbreaking research was conducted on Miranda waivers during the late 1970s, but researchers have failed to sustain programmatic research. This critical review focuses on four published Miranda measures (Comprehension of Miranda Rights, Comprehension of Miranda Rights-Recognition, Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary, and Function of Rights in Interrogation). When evaluated by contemporary standards, the validation of these measures is very limited. Major improvements are needed for interrater reliability, test–retest reliability, content validity, construct validity, and criterion-related validity.     

Perceptional inequality and preferential judgements: An empirical examination of distributional axioms

There are two categories of income distribution evaluations: first, the more-or-less “value-free” perception of income inequality as a statistical dispersion; and second, the valuation of income distributions according to an explicit social welfare function which is meant to capture all of society's value judgements. These societal value judgements can be expressed in the form of preferences. Whereas the inequality perception of income distributions appeals to an observer's sober judgement, the revelation of preferences with respect to specific income distributions appeals to his or her sentiments. This paper is an empirical analysis which investigates the juxtaposition of preferences with respect to income distributions and corresponding perceptions of distributional inequality. We do this through a questionnaire in which attitudes towards various distributional axioms are tested. The source of our data is 1773 completed questionnaires collected from five German universities. Based on our data, we observe that individuals' preference orderings over the set of income distributionssubstantially deviate from their perceptions of distributional inequality. In fact, our test responses showed that even when some income distribution is judged to be more unequal than another, that distribution might be preferred, as it accords higher incomes to each individual. We hold that the preference for these greater incomes expresses a compensation for the increased degree of inequality. This explanation applies both to equiproportional and to equal fixed-sum increases in incomes, which implies a support of Paretian ethics.     

Glycine toxicity and unexpected intra-operative death

A rare complication of the use of glycine irrigation fluid during prostatic surgery in a 69-year-old man is described. Following cystolithopexy and transurethral resection of the prostate for benign prostatomegaly, abdominal distension developed with increasing ventilatory pressures. Despite retroperitoneal fluid evacuation at subsequent urgent laparotomy, cardiac arrest occurred that was not amenable to resuscitation. At autopsy a traumatic defect in the posterior bladder wall filled with calculus debris was confirmed that did not communicate with the peritoneal cavity. Hyponatremia with markedly elevated levels of blood, urine, and body fluid glycine were demonstrated. Death was, therefore, attributed to glycine toxicity following tracking of glycine through a surgical defect in the posterior bladder wall. Careful dissection of surgical sites is required in such cases to demonstrate any additional trauma that may be associated with the fatal episode. Analysis of body fluids for glycine and electrolytes is also necessary to assist in the determination of possible mechanisms of death.