Rational choice attitudinalism?

This essay reviews Epstein, Landes, and Posner’s The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice. Their book systematically asks how the role of ideology varies across the tiers of the federal judicial hierarchy. A major finding is that the impact of ideology increases from the bottom to the top of the judicial hierarchy. Their typical methodology formulates an ex ante measure of judicial ideology such as the political party of the appointing president, and demonstrates that this measure correlates with later judicial behavior, often voting on case dispositions. Along the way, they investigate a multitude of topics, including some quite under‐explored ones. We argue that ELP’s theory is only weakly connected to their empirical practice, for the latter focuses on the role of ideology in judging while the former says almost nothing about that relationship. In fact, though, their empirical practice does embed a theory of law and ideology, but one quite different from that suggested by the book’s rhetoric. In the penultimate section of the essay, we explore this disconnection between ELP’s theory, practice, and interpretation. Its origin (we argue) lies in an extremely thin conceptualization of law. We conclude with the issue posed in ELP’s final chapter, “The Way Forward,” but suggest a rather different path.     

The relationship between corporate governance characteristics and credit risk exposure in banks: implications for financial regulation

This article analyses board structures in listed Danish banks in the years prior to the financial crisis by exploring the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and credit risk exposure. The article presents a novel approach as it relies on a newly developed risk metric entitled the “Supervision Diamond” introduced by the Danish FSA, which “external” board directors must address. It contains five thresholds for measuring a bank’s exposure to credit risks i.e. the proportion of large customers, lending growth, the ratio of lending/deposits, liquidity buffer and the proportion of real estate loans. By employing quantitative governance variables the article finds that increased executive director remuneration is associated with increased credit risk posed by the bank’s borrowers. On the other hand, increasing the number of executive/“inside” directors is associated with a lower credit risk exposure. It is argued that more “inside” directors on the executive board constitutes a stronger “checks and balance” system. The article also documents that the probability of obtaining state capital from the Danish credit bailout package is negatively related to larger boards as well as higher executive director remuneration. The policy implication is that financial authorities should be increasingly aware of insufficient corporate governance characteristics in order to prevent excessive credit risk exposure. Moreover, the article provides important insights on which corporate governance variables have a significant impact on a bank’s credit risk exposure. This knowledge is valuable for financial authorities/policy makers considering future regulatory initiatives and how they should administer bank monitoring.     

Domestic judicial defiance and the authority of international legal regimes

Tensions and occasional overt defiance of international courts suggest that compliance with international regimes is not a self-evident choice for domestic judges. I develop a formal theory of domestic judicial defiance in which domestic and supranational judges vie for jurisprudential authority in a non-hierarchical setting. The model emphasises the role of domestic non-compliance costs and power asymmetries in determining the conduct of domestic and international judges. I argue that the EU represents a special case of a particularly effective international regime. Weak domestic courts have little to gain from an escalated conflict with the European court of Justice. But even domestic judicial superpowers like the German Federal Constitutional Court have strong incentives to seek mutual accommodation with European judges. The analysis also yields new insights into concepts, such as “judicial dialogue” and “constitutional pluralism” that have featured prominently in the legal literature, and suggests new hypotheses for empirical research.     

(Close) the Door,the King (is Going): The Development of Elliptical Resolution in Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā

This paper examines three commentaries on the ?abdapariccheda in Kumārila Bha??a’s ?lokavārttika, along with the the seventeenth century Bhā??a Mīmā?sā work, the Mānameyodaya. The focus is the Mīmā?sā principle that only sentences communicate qualified meanings and Kumārila’s discussion of a potential counter-example to this claim–single words which appear to communicate such content. I argue that there is some conflict among commentators over precisely what Kumārila describes with the phrase sāmarthyād anumeyetvād, although he is most likely describing ellipsis completion through arthāpatti. The paper attempts both a cogent exegesis and philosophical evaluation of the Bhā??a Mīmā?sā view of ellipsis completion, arguing that there remain internal tensions in the account of ellipsis preferred by the Bhā??a, tensions which are not entirely resolved even by the late date of the Mānameyodaya.     

Psychometric Investigation of the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory in Mothers on Opioid Substitution Therapy

The identification of potential child maltreatment using reliable and valid screening instruments is of particular importance in high risk populations. The current study investigates the psychometric properties of the Brief Child Abuse Potential (BCAP) Inventory in mothers enrolled in opioid substitution therapy. The BCAP Risk Abuse scale had strong internal reliability. Comparisons between valid and invalid protocols (≥ 4 on the Lie scale, > 1 Random Responding) failed to find systematic differences across most variables although those with a faking good profile had significantly lower scores on psychological well being. A six-factor solution was obtained and was conceptually strong. Subsequent analyses suggested Rigidity may be an independent subscale that needs further investigation. These results add further evidence for the potential utility of the BCAP as a measure of child abuse potential. Replication studies are needed to ascertain whether the subscales derived have convergent and predictive utility.     

Understanding the Relationship between Attachment,Caregiving, and Same Sex Intimate Partner Violence

Despite the well documented prevalence of same sex intimate partner violence (SSIPV), its dynamics remain relatively poorly understood. Building on the established value of attachment theory’s contribution to understanding heterosexual intimate partner violence, we provide a detailed examination of the relationship between the attachment system and SSIPV, while broadening our scope to include the caregiving system. A total of 310 American and Canadian individuals involved in same sex romantic relationships participated in an online survey. Hierarchical regressions revealed that attachment and caregiving variables shared significant amounts of variance with SSIPV, with avoidance of intimacy and proximity making independent contributions. Based on significant overlap between the attachment and caregiving dimensions, subsequent analyses were conducted to provide composite variables used to predict SSIPV.     

The Crime Kuznets Curve

Objectives

Criminologists have long studied the relationship between economic conditions and crime. Empirical evidence is inconclusive, pointing at different directions. This may reflect the conflicting theoretical predictions on the relationship between these phenomena, but also the prevailing methodological choice which focuses on linear relationships even though nonlinearities are plausible theoretically.

Methods

In this paper, we revisit the empirical relationship between economic conditions and crime by exploring potential nonlinearities. We look at flexible parametric specifications that include up to a cubic term of per capita income (or one dummy for each income quintile) and nonparametric and semi-parametric specifications (such as General Additive Models). Our results are robust to controlling for the standard socioeconomic, demographic, and policy determinants of crime, as well as to including a lagged dependent variable or state and time fixed effects.

Results

We document the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between crime and income within US states for the period 1970-2011. Crime increases with per capita income until it reaches a maximum, and then decreases as income keeps rising. This “Crime Kuznets Curve” (CKC) exists for property crime and for categories of violent crime that can be related to economic appropriation, like robbery, and is less robust for violent crimes not connected to economic incentives. We show that this pattern cannot be explained by correlated changes in economic inequality or by changes in law enforcement.

Conclusions

In addition to providing robust evidence of the existence of a CKC, our findings lay the groundwork for studies exploring the underlying theoretical mechanisms. These should go beyond income inequality or law enforcement, and should explain why the results hold more clearly for property than for violent crime. Our findings and subsequent research to understand the underlying drivers are relevant for policy, as they suggest that violent conflict cannot be tackled solely by the trickle-down forces of economic growth.

     

Measuring the Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Police Proactivity

Objectives

To measure where officers engage in proactive, self-initiated activities, how much time they spend being proactive, and whether their proactive activities coincide with crime patterns.

Methods

This study uses Andresen’s Spatial Point Pattern Test to compare the spatial similarity between police proactivity and crime, as well as regression modeling to explore the relationship between proactivity and crime and the time spent on proactivity and crime.

Results

In the jurisdiction examined, high levels of proactivity are noted. This proactive activity is more likely to occur in places where crime is most concentrated. Additionally, the number of proactive calls and the proactive time spent per crime-and-disorder call remain high and stable across spatial scales. For each crime call received at a street block, police initiated 0.7 proactive activities and spent approximately 28 min carrying out proactive works.

Conclusions

This study develops a way of measuring proactive activity by patrol officers using calls for service data. We find that not only do officers in this jurisdiction exhibit higher levels of proactivity to prevent crime (compared to reacting to crime), but they also do so in targeted, micro-place ways. Agencies may consider using similar techniques to gauge the levels of proactivity in their agencies if proactive activity is a goal.

     

Sustainability of patent-based competitive advantage in the U.S. communications services industry

Patents have long been assumed to provide firms with competitive advantage, but longitudinal results suggest that some types of patent content provide more enduring advantage than others do. The duration of advantage appeared to wane with time in the highly-dynamic U.S. communications-services industry during a period when technological changes occurred rapidly within it (1998–2012). Results suggest patents integrating technology streams that were different from the technologies of focal-patents’ grants contributed more to sustaining firms’ profit margins during this period than did focal patents that exploited extant technological knowledge. We found that firms who continually pushed their organization’s knowledge envelope outward to incorporate more unknown technologies sustained higher profit margins for a longer duration of time than did firms whose patented inventions were predominantlyincremental—even within difficult settings where competition grew so intense that firms’ average operating margins were deteriorating.     

Our Democracy,Our Identity,Our Anxiety

The Brexit referendum result has given focus to and amplified a series of anxieties: the successful campaign gave visibility to anxiety about immigration and loss of sovereignty, while also creating anxiety about illiberal populism. This anxiety about national identity, current and prospective (both from supporters of Brexit and its opponents), about Brexit, as caused by anxiety and cause of anxiety, has provoked a debate even about the merits of democracy, if ‘the voice and will of the people’ disrupts the traditional constitutional assumptions regarding checks and balances and becomes despotic. Reference to the tradition of anxiety about democracy, exemplified by Kierkegaard and Kant, establishes a context here for a discussion of the Brexit political debate in terms derived from Lyotard’s investigation of, on the one hand, an appeal to mythic narrative to stabilise a claim of identity, and, on the other hand, narratives of emancipation embodied in a future-oriented deliberative process, which can be analysed in terms of seven different types of language game at play. Particular reference to the image of ‘triggering’ used in the Supreme Court’s judgments in the (R (on the application of Miller and another) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5) case in relation to Article 50 and the UK’s exit from the EU is made to illustrate the significance of figures of speech within discourse. The conclusion draws on Lyotard’s distinction between a litigation and a differend in order to better understand the politics of Brexit.