Integration in small steps: The European commission and member‐state aid to industry

Member states of the European Union traditionally have used a variety of aids to industry to develop national champions, rescue major enterprises in financial trouble, and to make industry more competitive internationally. Yet making the single European market operational and sustaining cohesion across member states with different abilities to aid their industrial enterprises requires that the European Commission monitor state aid closely. Most accounts of this tension point to the weak record of the Commission in rejecting aid packages proposed by member states. This article argues that the rate of rejection of aids by the Commission is a highly misleading indicator of the Commission's influence in this policy area. In fact, the Commission has developed substantial capacities to regulate state aid relative to the constraints within which it operates.     

State-Owned Enterprises in Less Developed Countries: Privatization and Alternative Reform Strategies

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have typically played a much larger role in the economies of developing countries than developed countries. However, empirical evidence on the economic performance of SOEs generally yields negative results and suggests that SOEs are a major tax on the economies of developing countries reflected in the large operating subsidies required to sustain them. These inefficiencies seem in part attributable to ownership effects and partly to lack of competition effects. Empirical evidence on the effect of privatization of state-owned enterprises in both developed and developing countries suggests that this is often likely to lead to major improvement in economic performance. However, where privatization is not politically feasible, SOE reform alternatives such as management contracts, performance contracts, and greater exposure to competition may, in some contexts, enhance SOE performance, although typically they are second-best policy options to privatization.     

Police Complaints and Criminal Prosecutions

The police complaints process is the sole means by which criminal proceedings are initiated against police officers after allegations by members of the public that they were the victim of an offence committed by officers when in the execution or purported execution of their duty. Yet this state of the law has hardly figured in recent debate, which has seen the complaints process examined almost exclusively as the preliminary stage of the disciplinary process. This paper considers police complaints, the criminal liability of the officer and the implications for reform of the process after incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights.     

The Relationship of Alternative Negligence Rules to Litigation Behavior and Tort Claim Disposition

Recently most states have abandoned the traditional tort defense of contributory negligence and substituted a form of comparative negligence. Using an extensive data set of auto accident injury claims, we provide evidence on the relationship between negligence rules and claimants' litigation decisions to retain attorneys, file lawsuits and litigate versus settle out of court. Litigation choices appear to be rational responses to the varying incentives created by alternative tort standards. We find that in contrast to comparative negligence, claims arising under comparative negligence are associated with greater probabilities of attorney involvement, higher average award levels, and longer delays in securing payment. Only 37% of claims involving attorneys in contributory negligence states result in a lawsuit being filed compared to 49% and 47% under the pure and modified forms of comparative negligence, respectively. The study provides the first statistical evidence on the litigation costs of the new forms of comparative negligence.     

Time and academic achievement

In questionnaire and achievement-test data from 1584 seventh- and ninth-grade students, relationships between academic achievement and amounts of time devoted to various uses related to school, family, peers, and the mass media are examined, with relevant demographic factors controlled. Multiple regression analyses support hypotheses of (a) a negative relationship among ninth graders between achievement and time spent listening to radio and records, (c) an interaction between parental occupation and time spent watching television, with trends toward positive association between achievement and TV time when occupational status is low and negative association when it is high, and (d) a positive relationship between reading and overall achievement and time spent on leisure reading. Hypotheses of positive relationships between achievement and time spent on homework in this age range and mere time spent with the parent receive no support. The relationship between achievement and time spent on household chores is explored without a hypothesis, and the relationship is found to be negative. The findings are discussed in terms of the impact of the adolescent subculture and in terms of the family, school, peer group, and mass media as agencies of socialization relevant to academic achievement.Professor Smith has a Ph.D. in sociology and a history of research on parental influence and parent-adolescent relations. Currently, he is conducting research on the antecedents of academic achievement.