Entry barriers and medical board funding autonomy

In this paper we develop and test the hypothesis that institutional funding arrangments affect the extent to which public agencies are influenced by special interests. We test this hypothesis using data on state medical boards. In 1989, medical boards in twenty-one states received budget appropriations from their legislatures. The remaining boards operated independent of legislative control, financing their activities from fees and other revenues. We find that budgetary autonomy does influence agency decisions. The ability of physicians to restrict entry is enhanced where licensing boards are self-financed.     

Variation in state education policies and effects on student performance

There have been few systematic studies of the effects that education policies adopted at the state level have on the quality of schooling within the state. This article, building on a framework developed by Eric Hanushek and Lori Taylor, measures the effects of state policies—in particular, the effects of state teacher certification requirements on SAT performance across states. In an examination of SAT data from 1972 to 1990, the results suggest that students in states with a master's degree requirement for teacher certification had lower SAT scores than students in states without a master's requirement. The empirical model accounts for inputs such as family background and other school factors typically used in education production functions.     

The influence of the rulings of the Constitutional Court on the development of health law in Lithuania

This article highlights some recent developments in the constitutional doctrine of the right to health care in Lithuania, and more in particular the impact of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania on the development of health law. The right to health care, enshrined in the Constitution, is both an obligation of the state and an individual right. The Constitutional Court has developed a doctrine of the right to health care, as well a doctrine of certain other constitutional social rights, which is based on the understanding of the close interrelation between the different constitutional rights, the principle of indivisibility and equal importance of these rights, and the presumption of justiciability of social rights. The analysis is based on the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. Two cases on the disputes of the legal regulation concerning the pharmaceutical activities are presented in more detail.     

Brave New Fathers for a Brave New World? Fathers as Caregivers in an Evolving European Union

This article focuses on the role that fathers play when it comes to family responsibility, in particular the care of young children, and how EU policy and legislation have contributed to it. This is important for several reasons. From a theoretical perspective, access to care for fathers represents the other side of the access to paid employment for mothers debate, and completes the deconstruction of the two‐sphere structure. From a more practical point of view, including fathers in the work/family life reconciliation debate is essential for the achievement of important EU policies, such as employment and gender equality. Although society is ready for a change, the legislator has been slow to address it, thus fathers are still missing from the EU's reconciliation policy and legislation. Against this background, the decision of the Court of Justice in Roca Álvarez has, potentially, laid down the basis for a new model of fatherhood.     

Interviewing to Detect Deception: When to Disclose the Evidence?

Research shows that there are few objective cues to deception. However, it may be possible to create such cues by strategic interviewing techniques. Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) is one such technique. The basic premise of the SUE technique is that liars and truth tellers employ different counter-interrogation strategies, and that the evidence against the suspect can be used to exploit these differences in strategies. This study examined the effect of the timing of evidence disclosure (early vs. late vs. gradual) on verbal cues to deception. We predicted that late disclosure would be most effective in differentiating between liars and truth-tellers, and that cues to deception in the gradual disclosure condition would progressively disappear due to the suspects’ realization that evidence against them exists. That is, we expected that liars in the gradual presentation condition would become more consistent with the evidence over time. A sample of 86 undergraduate students went through a mock-terrorism paradigm (half innocent, half guilty), and were subsequently interviewed using one of three disclosure strategies: early, gradual, and late disclosure. We measured statement-evidence inconsistencies as cues to deception . Results supported our predictions in that cues to deception were most pronounced in the late disclosure condition. Contrary to our expectations, the results suggested that presenting the evidence gradually may put innocent suspects at a higher risk of misclassification as they seem to adopt a strategy that is more similar to guilty suspects.     

The Impact of EU Export Refunds on the African Continent: An Impact Assessment

The EU’s export refund policy has long been a source of controversy for its perceived impacts on third country markets. However, the EU Commission maintain that these concerns are largely historic as CAP reforms mean that export refunds are now used infrequently. The purpose of this article is therefore to assess the impacts of refunds in the wake of the 2003 reform of the CAP using two complementary analyses: first, an analysis using a computable general equilibrium model and second, two case studies to assess the potential impact of export refunds in selected African developing countries.