Eurasian Economic Union: present and future perspectives

This paper analyzes the economic and political situation in the Eurasian Economic Union. The basic question is why it was created after the failure of all previous integration projects in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Central Asian region? The paper examines the effects and opportunities for the regional economy of economic sanctions imposed on Russia and of Russian counter-sanctions. It also analyzes relations between the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union and draws perspectives and policy implications for their future relations.     

Race-Based Peremptory Challenges: An Empirical Analysis of Litigation from the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2002–2006

This paper examines race-based peremptory challenges. Such challenges occur during the voir dire jury selection process. The process allows both the defense and the prosecution to strike jurors who they believe will not decide cases fairly. However, in the case of Batson v. Kentucky 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that race could not be used as a factor in eliminating prospective jurors. This paper examines federal litigation for five years in which it was alleged that race was used as a factor in removing a juror. An examination of the cases revealed that most of the cases involved sole male litigants who allege that there were multiple race-based peremptory challenges used in their cases. Moreover, most of the cases that led to the allegations involved violent offenses. Other case characteristics are noted, but of most significance was the finding that most appellants lost their cases. As such, the courts felt that most of the challenges were, in fact, race neutral. The implications of this research are discussed. This study was funded by an undergraduate research grant from Penn State University.     

The “Science of Science Policy”: reflections on the important questions and the challenges they present

Developing the “Science of Science Policy” will require data collection and analysis related to the processes of innovation and technological change, and the effects of government policy on those processes. There has been much work on these topics in the last three decades, but there remain difficult problems of finding proxies for subtle concepts, endogeneity, distinguishing private and social returns, untangling cumulative effects, measuring the impact of government programs in a true “but for” sense, and sorting out national and global effects. I offer observations on how to think about these issues. This paper was presented as the Keynote Address at the NSF Workshop on Advancing Measures of Innovation: Knowledge Flows, Business Metrics, and Measurement Strategies, Arlington, VA, June 2006.