The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In need of a better performance?

Since the Mexican crisis in 1994, international financial markets are characterised by frequent turbulence. The two most important international organisations in that field, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have been unable to provide sufficient stability. Surprisingly, the World Bank is in deeper trouble than the IMF. The decreasing importance of public capital flows has made the World Bank much less important than it used to be. Globalisation has led to increased private flows to the developing world, primarily in the form of foreign direct investment. In the long run, there will not be an important function for the World Bank any more. The opposite assessment has to be made for the IMF. The more globalisation progresses, the greater the need for an IMF. However, this does not mean that the Fund will survive in its current form. International financial markets have gained in importance, but they still lack many of the features that characterise the national financial sector. If globalisation shall be continued, we need those governance structures, e.g. a lender of last resort, at the international level. Markets need rules and regulations, and today these are often not existent at the international level. The need for an IMF will even rise, but it will have to be a different one.Abbreviations  CCL Contingent Credit Line - IMF International Monetary Fund - LTCM Long-term Capital ManagementSenior Research Associate, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, and Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.     

The interrelationship among stress,anxiety, and depression in law enforcement personnel

The current investigation was designed to explore the interrelationships among stress, anxiety, and depression in a population of law enforcement personnel. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) were administered to police officers from a medium sized police department in Massachusetts (N=43). Correlation coefficients were conducted on the data. Additionally,t-tests were performed on demographic data regarding marital status and exercise to examine possible mediating factors in the development of symptoms. Implications for these findings and possibilities for future research are discussed.     

Eyewitnesses: A comparison of live,video, and photo line-ups

An experiment was conducted in which the effectiveness of three line-up methods (live, video, and photographs) was compared. Participants witnessed a staged event and were subsequently required, by one of the three methods, to identify the target. Both target-present and target-absent line-ups were used. The results showed that all methods led to an equal number of correct identifications (hits). In the target-absent line-ups, participants more often incorrectly identified a person in the video and photographs condition than in the live condition. Presenting photographs simultaneously or sequentially did not affect the number of correct judgments. Dynamic video images, showing locomotion and facial expression, had a marginal significant effect on the number of correct judgments as compared with the static video images. Practical implications are discussed.     

Time and Punishment: Delayed Consequences and Criminal Behavior

This article develops two distinct explanations for the failure of potential consequences to influence behavior. Discounting is the tendency to deliberatively devalue the future. In contrast, poor impulse control refers to the failure to consider the future. The implications of this distinction were investigated with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. The study produced several findings. First, both forms of present-orientation independently predicted a range of problem outcomes among respondents. Second, high discounting was a better predictor of deliberative or future-related problem outcomes, whereas poor impulse control was a better predictor of urge driven behaviors or conduct involving little forethought. Third, only poor impulse control but not high discounting predicted violent offending among respondents. While both forms of present-orientation were associated with property offending, high discounting was a stronger and more consistent predictor. These three findings were far more evident for males than they were for females.     

Sanctions,Perceived Anger,and Criminal Offending

In articulating models of offender decision-making, researchers have tended to focus on either deterrence/rational choice or situational/emotional considerations. In this paper, we merge these two lines of inquiry and examine how rational choice considerations and perceived angry reactions inter-relate in predicting assaultive violence. Using data collected on a random sample of young adults, we assess three hypotheses. First, that both rational choice and perceived anger exhibit additive effects on assault. Second, that perceived anger influences how rational choice considerations are interpreted. Third, that rational choice considerations influence assault under different levels of perceived anger, and in particular, that the effect of sanction threats fall apart under high perceived anger. Future theoretical and empirical directions are outlined.     

How Self-Relevant is Fair Treatment? Social Self-Esteem Moderates Interactional Justice Effects

An organizational field study examined the extent to which fair treatment influences organizational commitment was a function of employees levels of social self-esteem. Following recent research indicating that self-esteem acts as a moderator of procedural fairness effects, we suggested that to examine the relational assumption that self and procedures are related, one should assess the social dimension of self-esteem. In line with predictions, the results indeed showed that fair treatment (assessed by an interactional justice scale) positively influences affective commitment, but only when employees have low social self-esteem. These findings are discussed in light of research on relational models of justice and sociometer theory.     

Attitudes toward sentencing guidelines and simulated sentencing among Missouri circuit court judges

This study examines attitudes toward sentencing guidelines and simulated sentencing practices among Missouri circuit court judges. In addition, the study investigates the efficacy of sentencing workshops by comparing judges who attended or did not attend workshops. All Missouri circuit court judges were mailed surveys and 97 judges responded. Results indicated that judges generally felt positive toward Missouri’s voluntary sentencing guidelines, but often failed to refer to the guidelines when sentencing sample cases. Attendance at a sentencing workshop was not associated with attitudes about Missouri sentencing guidelines or sentencing in simulated cases. Sentencing in simulated cases varied by nature of the crime and circuit type. Judges from metropolitan areas tended to sentence more leniently than judges from rural areas. In their written comments, many judges expressed fear about the possibility of mandatory guidelines. Results suggest that there is ambivalence among Missouri judges over the acceptance and use of sentencing guidelines.     

War Chests as Precautionary Savings

I present a model of campaign spending and saving in repeated elections which yields empirical implications on the creation of war chests. As previous studies disagree whether war chests deter potential challengers from running against incumbents, I present an alternative model that intentionally excludes deterrence as a motivation and formalizes under what circumstances (if any) a war chest would be created for savings. The model predicts that an incumbent creates a war chest when she faces a weaker challenger, i.e. as precautionary savings for future elections. The model yields several other predictions of incumbent fund-raising, spending, and saving behavior. Using incumbents from 1982–1998 U.S. House elections, I find strong empirical support for the predictions of the model.