Russian 1998–2007 TFP decomposed: some inspiration emerging from inherited Soviet legacy

Using a recently developed stochastic Translog production function frontier model, technical inefficiency, technological progress and returns to scale are examined during Russia’s 1998–2007 cyclical expansion at the branch level including both the market and non-market economy. The service sector plus high skill-intensive goods production is shown to be relatively more efficient than traditional Soviet era goods sectors. Technical efficiency decreases markedly over the expansion while technological progress is quite high (23 %) suggesting an expanding frontier leaving many branches behind as the economy adjusts away from the early transition era. Much greater attention to human capital policies are suggested to foster intensive growth in an environment of low oil and gas prices.     

System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu

This paper presents “strategic hedging” as a way to conceptualize much of the strategic behavior currently employed by second-tier states like China, Russia, Brazil, and France. Hedging is an alternative to strategies like balancing, bandwagoning, and buck-passing. Like those other strategies, hedging is driven by structural incentives associated with the current polarity of the international system and power concentration trends within it. Hedging will be most prevalent in international systems that are defined by a leading state that, while in a position of power preponderance, is also in the process of relative decline. Strategic hedging behavior is effective for second-tier states in such deconcentrating unipolar systems because it avoids outright confrontation with the system leader in the short term, while still increasing the hedging state's ability to survive such a direct military confrontation should it occur in the long run. Strategic hedging behavior can also be used to insure the hedging state against security threats that might result from the loss of public goods or subsidies that are currently being provided by the system leader. In this article, I define strategic hedging behavior, present a mechanism for identifying empirical evidence of strategic hedging, and apply that mechanism to three case studies: the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, Brazil's approach to regional leadership, and French opposition to the 2003 us invasion of Iraq.     

The politics of aboriginal self-government: A Canadian paradox

Abstract: This paper examines the failure and success of aboriginal self-government during the 1982–87 period by focusing on the constitutional talks, their impact on the federal and provincial governments, and the resultant activity of those governments. The paper begins with a brief account of the emergence of aboriginal self-government onto the constitutional table. The paper then analyses the consequences of the emphasis on constitutional change and the use of the first ministers' constitutional conferences for the development of aboriginal self-government. The paper reveals that this emphasis was bound to result in frustration and complication of the pursuit of aboriginal self-government in the constitutional arena. However, the paper concludes that the constitutional process wrought unintentional results that benefited aboriginal communities in Canada. The conferences served as a powerful inducement to the development of the issue in policy areas. Sommaire: Cette étude examine les échecs et les succès dans la recherche d'uii gouverne-ment autonome pour les peuples autochtones durant la période 1982–1987, en analysant principalement les débats constitutionnels, leurs répercussions sur les gouveniements fédéral et provinciaux et les activités qui en ont résulté parmi ces gouvernements. L'étude mon-tre dabord brièvement comment la question de I'autodéterminatioii des peuples autochtones est arrivée à la table des débats constitutionnels, pour ensuite analyser comment I'importance accordée aux changements constitutionnels et aux Conférences con-stitutionnelles des premiers ministres a influé sur I'autodétermination des autochtones. L'autenr révèle qu'en attachant tant d'importance aux changements constitiitioiinels, I'on ne pouvait clue créer des frustrations et des complications dans la recherche d'un gouverne-ment autochtone. Toutefois, elle conclut que le processus constitutionnel a eu indirecte-ment des résultats bénéfiques pour les communautés autochtones au Canada puisqiie les conférences ont puissamment favorisé le progrès de la question dais le domaine des politiques.     

Examining the cognitive interview in a double-test paradigm

Abstract

The Cognitive Interview (CI) was compared with a standard interview protocol (based on the National Transportation Safety Board) to interview witnesses of a videotaped traffic accident. Witnesses were tested twice, five minutes after viewing the accident and again two weeks later. The CI elicited approximately 70% more correct facts than did the standard interview, and at equivalent accuracy rates, at both the first interview and the second interview. The double-testing procedure generated novel data patterns that may allow us to identify incorrect recollections; other results lead us to question some legal assumptions about the diagnosticity of inconsistent recollections.     

Where have all the heroes gone? A rational-choice perspective on heroism

Heroism emerges when individual decisions are coupled with public rewards for heroic actions, making heroism akin to the voluntary provision of a highly specialized public good. In the past 35 years, however, the number of heroes has fallen considerably as reflected by military honors such as the Congressional Medal of Honor. Our model, which seeks to explain heroism in a rational decision-making framework, suggests that an observed decline in heroism can be explained on the basis of optimal individual and social responses, rather than as an arbitrary change in the governmental rewards for heroism.