The impact of a gasoline tax on auto exhaust emissions

The EPA implements its policy of exhaust emission control by setting standards specified in terms of grams of pollutants per mile traveled. As a result, the tax must first restrain the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) if it is to have an impact on emission at all. EPA's choice of miles traveled as the medium through which its policy of pollution control must run is unfortunate, because travel is an activity that people resist giving up. This is reflected in a low long-run price elasticity of travel demand. Consequently, it takes substantial increases in the gasoline tax to make an impact on long-run travel demand. Simulation results show that under an alternative policy option, where EPA's standards are specified in terms of grams of pollutant per gallon of fuel burned, the same long-run reduction in exhaust emissions achievable today can be achieved (at an even higher level of confidence) with less than one-tenth of the increase in gasoline price required under the existing policy regime.     

唯物史观是"以人为本"的历史观--唯物史观再认识

唯物史观“从现实的、有生命的个人本身出发”,即把“从事实际活动的人”当作其理论的出发点,通过对现实的个人的主体价值活动的考察分析,揭示了社会基本矛盾运动的客观规律性,认为社会发展的动力来源于人自身,社会发展的目的是为了实现人的全面而自由的发展。因此,唯物史观本质上就是″以人为本″的历史观,是“关于现实的人及其历史发展的科学”。     

影响缅甸民主化进程的主要政治势力

军人及其所控制的政治势力、民盟及其支持者、少数民族武装和政党在目前缅甸的社会结构中呈三足鼎立之势,但军人占绝对优势,而且后两者不具备取代军人主导缅甸政局的能力。外部势力对缅甸民主化进程的影响很大,但在对缅政策方面,中国、印度、东盟不会采取与以美国为首的西方国家完全一致的行动。因此,相当长时间内,军人将继续直接执政或在幕后主导缅甸政局。     

Newspaper juries

This article reports on a field experiment on the effect of media information on people’s attitudes towards the justice system. For the duration of a year a Dutch local newspaper took small groups of readers, called ‘newspaper jurors’, to court sessions of criminal cases and subsequently reported on their experiences and perceptions. Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined whether an attitude change in the general reader population of this particular local newspaper occurred as a result of the jury’s newspaper reports. Findings show that, after the treatment interval of 1 year, no attitude change in the general reader population could be identified that was absent in the control group.     

Total Innovation Management: a novel paradigm of innovation management in the 21st century

Based on an ecosystem view of innovation management and in-depth case studies of firms in China and abroad, a novel paradigm of innovation management—Total Innovation Management (TIM)—is put forward in this paper. This new paradigm draws on three distinct areas of recent research, namely the innovation theory of the firm, the resource-based view (RBV), and the complexity theory. It introduces the theoretical framework of TIM, and presents a tri-dimensional innovation strategy model, which includes all elements of innovation, all innovators, and innovation in all times and spaces, and aims at value added and created.     

The evolution of European legal integration

This article contributes to the development of theories on European integration by testing and exploring statistical models on the long-term development of legislative activity of the European Commission. Drawing on legal information gained from the European Union’s PreLex database and analyzing it with the help of statistical analyses, we map out growth patterns of EU law between 1976 and 2003. We construct time-series models and models based on non-linear regression. While the performance of models based on the traditional theoretical approaches, intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism, is rather poor, the analysis suggests that nonlinear dynamic models might be an interesting avenue for future conceptualizations of the EU integration process. This article is based on a paper presented at the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union Second Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, “Implications of a Wider Europe: Politics, Institutions and Diversity”, 24–26 June 2004, Bologna, Italy. We would like to thank the seminar participants for useful comments.     

对《票据法》第十七条的解读和思考

依《票据法》第17条的规定,票据时效为消灭时效,时效期间分2年、6个月、3个月不等,时效起算点有出票日、到期日和一定事实发生日三种.出票人的票据责任重于其他票据债务人,但第十七条未规定持票人对付款人的权利时效问题,其关于追索权和再追索权时效起算点的规定是否都合理,有进一步研究的必要.     

Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments

COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how COMPSTAT operates and for understanding the implications of this reform. This article compares two different perspectives on organizations—technical/rational and institutional—to COMPSTAT's adoption and operation in three municipal police departments. Based on fieldwork, our analysis suggests that relative to technical considerations for changing each organization to improve its effectiveness, all three sites adopted COMPSTAT in response to strong institutional pressures to appear progressive and successful. Furthermore, institutional theory better explained the nature of the changes we observed under COMPSTAT than the technical/rational model. The greatest collective emphasis was on those COMPSTAT elements that were most likely to confer legitimacy, and on implementing them in ways that would minimize disruption to existing organizational routines. COMPSTAT was less successful when trying to provide a basis for rigorously assessing organizational performance, and when trying to change those structures and routines widely accepted as being "appropriate." We posit that it will take profound changes in the technical and institutional environments of American police agencies for police departments to restructure in the ways anticipated by a technically efficient COMPSTAT.     

诉权理论的批判与重构

诉权究竟是什么?本文从批判现有几大诉权学说的共同缺陷出发,通过考察诉权与法律的关系、诉权与审判权的关系和诉权的存在形式,提出诉权的人权权源论、诉权的利益保障价值论和诉权的运动状态论,力图从全新的视角探求诉权的本源。