Understanding success and failure of anti-corruption initiatives

This paper focuses on the success and failure of anti-corruption initiatives; focusing mainly on those in developing countries. Through a review of extant evidence, it finds a very mixed picture within which there is widespread failure; albeit sometimes only partial failure. As a result, anti-corruption as a field can struggle to gain attention and resources among competing development initiatives. In reviewing that field we find that, while some progress has been made ?C for example in integrating risk assessments into programs and in learning from political economy analysis ?C there is little actual focus on the ??missing middle??: the interventions themselves and how they can be made to work better. In analyzing those interventions, we argue that projects mostly fail because of over-large ??design-reality gaps??; that is, too great a mismatch between the expectations built into their design as compared to on-the-ground realities in the context of their implementation. Successful initiatives find ways to minimize or close these gaps. Effective design and implementation processes enable gap closure and improve the likelihood of success.     

Altersdiskriminierung aus verfassungs-, verwaltungs- und europarechtlicher Sicht

Fragen der Altersdiskriminierung als spezielle Form einer Ungleichbehandlung bestimmter Personengruppen aufgrund ihres Alters rücken immer mehr in den Mittelpunkt der rechtlichen und rechtspolitischen Diskussion. Dabei handelt es sich um Aspekte, die nicht aus einer ausschlie?lichen innerstaatlich verfassungsrechtlichen Perspektive, sondern mehr und mehr in ihrer unionsrechtlichen Dimension betrachtet werden müssen. Die Problematik der Altersdiskriminierung ist zudem an einer Schnittstelle unterschiedlicher Zielrichtungen einzelner Verwaltungsrechtsbereiche angesiedelt.     

New autopsy signs in violent death

In forensic medicine subtle observation has often resulted in the detection of single findings which are of great significance regarding the mechanisms of development of the incidence or its vitality. Thus, empiricism is an accepted method to gain new insights. Nevertheless the value and the significance of empirically gained insights have to be proven either by retrospective or prospective analysis of important case series or by experiments. It is often a long and difficult way from observation to proof. But without a detailed and evidence-based scientific argumentation the level of empirical methods could not be exceeded.     

What can we learn from the first community-based epidemiological study on stalking in Germany?

There is a lack of community-based studies on prevalence rates of stalking and the impact of stalking on victims in continental European countries. The authors published the first community-based epidemiological study on stalking in Germany. The purpose of this paper is to discuss possible implications of these epidemiological data for the mental health system, forensic psychiatry and legal regulations in Germany. For these reasons some data of our epidemiological study are outlined and reanalyzed. To examine lifetime and point prevalence rates of stalking, behavioural and psychological consequences for victims and the impact of stalking on current psychological well-being in a German community sample, a postal survey was conducted with 2000 inhabitants randomly selected from Mannheim (response rate 34.2%, n=679). The survey included a stalking questionnaire and the WHO-5 well-being scale. Almost 12% of the respondents reported having been stalked. This study identified a high lifetime prevalence of stalking in the community. Effects on victims' psychological health were significant and there was a high rate of physical (31%) and sexual (19%) violence in the context of stalking. Our data suggest that the phenomenon deserves more attention in future forensic psychiatric research and practice. Implications for forensic psychiatric assessment and treatment of stalkers as well as for management of stalking victims are discussed.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Die nächste Elbvertiefung – insbesondere die Berücksichtigung von Alternativen nach § 25 a WHG

Ausbauvorhaben von Bundeswasserstra?en sind, soweit sie zu einer Verschlechterung des Gew?sserzustands führen, nur zul?ssig, wenn keine alternativen L?sungen vorhanden sind. In dem Beitrag wird ausgeführt, dass nach § 25a WHG auch solche alternativen L?sungen berücksichtigt werden müssen, mit denen zwar nicht die regionalwirtschaftlichen Vorgaben, wohl aber die gleichen volkswirtschaftlichen Ziele verwirklicht werden k?nnen. In Bezug auf die n?chste Elbvertiefung bedeutet dies, dass auch der Ausbau anderer H?fen (Cuxhaven oder Wilhelmshaven) oder anderer Wasserstra?en (Weser) als Alternativen berücksichtigt werden müssen. Das gilt auch für die Berücksichtigung von Alternativen bei der strategischen Umweltprüfung des Bundesverkehrswegeplans.     

Reimbursement schemes for hospitals, malpractice liability, and intrinsic motivation

We develop a simple multi-task principal-agent model to analyze the interplay between optimal reimbursement schemes for hospitals and liability rules (basic model). We then extend our model and assume that the hospital is intrinsically motivated to exert positive effort for quality and cost reduction. This effort, however, is biased towards quality. Moreover, the intrinsic motivation may be crowded out by monetary incentives. In such a setting, we find that a pure prospective payment system (PPS) that has become widespread in recent years can only be optimal in the unlikely case where malpractice liability holds hospitals fully responsible for expected harm. For other cases, we confirm the prejudice that PPS may lead to inefficiently low quality. Then, the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) system is superior if the intrinsic motivation is high and relatively little biased towards quality, whereas mixed systems should be chosen otherwise. Our model sheds light on why countries like the USA with a tough liability system haven been less reluctant to switch from FFS to PPS than Germany, for instance.