The Frequency of Excess Auto Personal Injury Claims

This study analyzes auto personal injury claims across the statesto estimate the frequency of claims for nonexistent or preexistinginjuries. We develop a series of hypotheses regarding the specificclaiming patterns that would signal the presence of excess claims.We draw on a nationally representative sample of auto-accidentinjury claims closed during 1987 to test these hypotheses. Theresults strongly support the hypotheses. We conclude that approximately42% of reported soft-injury claims in the dollar-threshold andtort states are for nonexistent or preexisting injuries.     

On the Fragility of the Western Achievement

The weight of evidence from evolutionary psychology suggests that human behavior is largely self-regarding. This implies that social structure will change as do the prevailing patterns of opportunities to pursue self-interested goals. Throughout the greater part of history the most rewarding opportunities have involved the coercive extraction of surplus production, “takers” living off “makers”. The Western achievement, the huge explosion of production and creativity that marks modernity, is the result of a highly anomalous set of circumstances whereby Western “makers” were able to throw off the “taking” yoke and make theirs the most successful strategy. This, however, created a further set of anomalies which have been progressively undermining the institutions of classical liberalism that the triumphant “makers” put in place. “Taking”, in revamped guises, may be on the way to reasserting its long-time hegemony as a life strategy, thus threatening the Western achievement.     

Exploring the Impact of Child Sex Offender Suicide

This paper explores the issues and widespread impact surrounding child sex offenders (CSO) who commit suicide after learning they are under criminal investigation. This phenomenon, which has received scant attention in the literature, affects family, friends, and victims of offenders who may experience a range of conflicting emotions including anger, guilt, confusion, betrayal, and loss. Involved law enforcement may, likewise, experience a range of complex reactions. Law enforcement personnel are neither trained nor required to assess offenders’ suicidality. However, awareness of how CSOs are impacted by an investigation may mitigate the risk of suicide and enhance operational strategies, including officer safety.     

Visualizing nanotechnology research in Canada: evidence from publication activities, 1990–2009

Over the last two decades the scientific community has witnessed unprecedented growth of nanotechnology research in Canada. Although recent studies have shown that Canada consistently maintains a position in the first tier of productive countries in terms of its share of the world??s nano-publications, a number of key questions remain unanswered. Using a unique nano-related publication dataset, this paper combines bibliometric analysis and science overlay mapping to visualize the ??invisible college?? of Canadian nano research. The present analysis finds that the rapid growth of nanotechnology research in Canada is, for the most part, externally driven. In recent years, research content has shifted toward nanobiotechnology fields. The geographical distribution of Canadian domestic nanotechnology research is characterized by regional imbalance: most research hubs are located near US?CCanadian borders. Canadian nanotechnology scientists have collaborated with a variety of countries, but Chinese scholars in particular play a leading role in Canada??s research exchange across national borders.     

Incentives, criminal defence lawyers and plea bargaining

Plea bargaining has become a central feature of criminal procedure in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. This paper explores an area seldom discussed in the economic literature on plea bargaining: the influence of the defence lawyer's fee contract on the terms of the bargain. In particular, it uses data from one jurisdiction of the impact on case trajectories of changes in publicly funded defence lawyers’ contracts to test the proposition that the nature of the lawyer's contract influences how cases are managed. An event study methodology on a pooled time-series cross-section data set of case trajectories before and after the change in the nature of the contract is used to examine whether the new payment regime significantly changed the trajectories of cases through the summary criminal justice system. Overall the results seem to suggest that the behaviour of defence lawyers may be influenced by financial incentives. This implies that the terms of plea bargains reached between prosecution and defence lawyers may be affected by the defence lawyer's remuneration contract. Consequently, the authors conclude that the role of defence lawyers has been under-researched in the literature on the economics of plea bargaining.