International Signaling and Economic Sanctions

Do economic sanctions serve international signaling purposes? A fully structural statistical model that employs a signaling game as a statistical model is used to investigate the existence of signaling effects of sanctions. Estimation results suggest that sanctions fail to work as a costly signal. The cheapness of sanctions prevents a target state from being able to distinguish a resolute sender state from a sender who is bluffing. When sanctions are imposed, a target rarely updates its initial evaluation of the sender state’s resolve, much less than when a military challenge is observed.     

The Clean Development Mechanism: A Bane or a Boon for Developing Countries?

We analyse the gains to developing countries from the participation in the CDM during the Kyoto period (until 2010) in the event an emissions trading (ET) regime exists in the post-Kyoto period (2010–20). We show that the developing countries will always be better-off participating in the CDM if the emissions quota they get in the post-Kyoto period is not linked to their baseline emissions. However if their quota equals (or is related to) their baseline emissions, CDM participation strategy may be a preferred alternative only if the CDM price is high enough to off-set the losses of the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) due to participation in the CDM. We simulate the CDM and ET in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto period and show that with the reduction targets given in the Kyoto Protocol for Annex B countries, participation in the CDM is beneficial to non-Annex B (developing) countries, even if their emissions quota in the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) is determined by their baseline emissions. Abatement supply price in the post-Kyoto period however turns out to be crucial factor in this case.     

An impossibility theorem for spatial models

This paper examines the implications for social welfare functions of restricting the domain of individual preferences to type-one preferences. Type-one preferences assume that each person has a most preferred alternative in a euclidean space and that alternatives are ranked according to their euclidean distance from this point. The result is that if we impose Arrow's conditions of collective rationality, IIA, and the Pareto principle on the social welfare function, then it must be dictatorial. This result may not seem surprising, but it stands in marked contrast to the problem considered by Gibbard and Satterthwaite of finding a social-choice function. With unrestricted domain, under the Gibbard-Satterthwaite hypotheses, choices must be dictatorial. With type-one preferences this result has been previously shown not to be true. This finding identifies a significant difference between the Arrow and Gibbard-Satterthwaite problems.     

Modeling complexity: Using dynamic simulation to link regression and case studies

The success or failure of programs typically depends on how numerous variables interact over time. Individuals adjust their strategies continuously on the basis of prior events. Unintended consequences abound. And the very meaning of success or failure may change over time. Yet the studies that command the most influence in the policy community are typically based on multiple regression, a technique whose capacity to capture these complexities is sharply limited. Accordingly, findings based on regression studies and findings based on the study of individual cases commonly conflict. Dynamic simulation modeling can serve as a methodological bridge between case studies and regression-based studies of policy systems. The results of some early experiments along these lines indicate how the bridge can be fashioned.     

Russo-Japanese Rivalry Over Korean Buffer at the Beginning of the 20th Century and its Implications

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia and Japan could not reach a lasting compromise over Korea. Several rounds of diplomacy for Korean neutrality or spheres of influence did not result in any lasting agreement. Due to the mutual suspicion and opportunistic searches for expansion into Korea and Manchuria, they could not reach an enduring understanding on Korea. Korea also could not play a role as an independent buffer state due to its own weakness. In conjunction with Japan's consistent efforts to establish an exclusive control over the whole of Korea, war broke out in 1904 and Korea became a protectorate of Japan. The developments in the Far East at the beginning of the 20th century hold implications on current northeast Asian security as well.     

Unearthing the realities of rape: Utilising Victorian newspaper reportage to fill in the contextual gaps

This article examines the realities of rape and sexual offences and their treatment through the legal process by use of media reportage, Victorian and modern; using this to contextualise and so to challenge the official record. The starting point is an identification of what constitutes ‹best’ evidence for an exploration of rape and sexual offences – evidence that permits better insights into the impact of such offences on the individuals involved, as well as into the factors governing the ability of the criminal justice process to promote the conviction rate in rape cases. By using a comparative historical perspective, and using media presentations (especially newspaper reportage) this article shows the enduring nature of stereotypes which govern the decisions reached by legal personnel and by jurors – stereotypes which have, since the Victorian period, remained profoundly gendered in ways that are unhelpful to the ‹victims’.     

The Hand Rule and United States v. Carroll Towing Co. Reconsidered

Judge Learned Hand’s opinion in United States v. CarrollTowing Co. (1947) is canonized in the law-and-economics literatureas the first use of cost-benefit analysis for determining negligenceand assigning liability. This article revisits the case in whichthe Hand formula was born and examines whether Judge Hand’sruling in that case would provide correct incentives for efficientlevels of precaution. We argue that the negligence test as usedby Judge Hand is somewhat different from the Hand test as usedby modern law-and-economics theorists. With a game theoreticanalysis of the case, we show that Judge Hand’s negligencetest could in fact produce games with inefficient equilibria,or with liability determinations opposite Judge Hand’s.     

Freedom to do What you are Told: Senior Management Team Autonomy in an NHS Acute Trust

Arguably, the government's aim of using the reward of 'earned autonomy' and Foundation Trust status as an incentive to improve performance in the NHS will only be effective if Trust managers view greater autonomy as both desirable and realistic. This article examines this issue by investigating the extent to which members of an NHS Trust's senior management team perceive themselves as autonomous, the factors most likely to hinder their ability to operate autonomously, and the extent to which managers want greater autonomy. In the event, autonomy was largely restricted by extensive centrally dictated targets. Entrenched professional interests and a lack of managerial skills on the part of clinician managers suggested limitations on the extent to which autonomy can be realistically devolved. Additionally, there was little belief among managers that greater autonomy would enable healthcare services to be delivered more effectively.