The committee assignment process as an optimal contracting problem

This paper adapts a simple model from the optimal contracting literature to explain the relationship between political parties and non-incumbent candidates. The model predicts that legislators with a higher opportunity cost of government service will receive better committee assignments. Using data that spans 12 Congresses (97th to 108th), I find that when the opportunity cost of Senate service is measured by previous occupation, freshmen senators with a high opportunity cost for serving (those who were lawyers) were given good committee assignments, while freshmen senators with a low opportunity cost for serving (professors, and those with relatives already in politics) were given worse committee assignments.     

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE: A SUB‐NATIONAL TEST OF INSTITUTIONAL ANOMIE THEORY*

Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory is grounded in the assumption that relatively higher crime rates in the United States are due to (1) the overwhelming influence of economic motives and institutions in society, and (2) the subjugation of all other social institutions to cultural economic interests (e.g., the American Dream). Our analysis is designed to extend the limited body of empirical research on this theory in several ways. First, we seek to test the utility of institutional anomie theory for predicting crime rates across aggregate units within the United States (counties). Second, we draw out the theory's emphasis on instrumental crime and suggest that measures of noneconomic social, political, familial, religious, and educational institutions will be particularly relevant for explaining instrumental as opposed to expressive violence. Third, in contrast to prior research, we develop conceptual reasons to expect that these factors will primarily mediate (as opposed to moderate) the relationship between economically motivating pressures and instrumental violence. Our negative binomial regression analyses of data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports and various censuses indicate that the measures of noneconomic institutions perform well in explaining both instrumental and expressive homicides, but that these measures mediate the impact of economic pressures (as measured by the Gini coefficient of family income inequality) to commit instrumental violence most strongly. Further, we find only very limited support for the more popular moderation hypothesis.     

The decomposition and graphical analysis of crime and sanctions data: A cross-national application

This article attempts to illustrate the utility of isoquant map analysis from the field of production theory in microeconomics for the analysis of criminal justice data. Cross-national comparisons of aggregate crime and justice data are used to demonstrate the ability of this technique to reveal important patterns that are often obscured by simple rate comparisons and multivariate treatments such as pooled time-series analysis. For each jurisdiction, aggregate trends in criminal justice processing rates are systematically analyzed as a sequence of two-input production processes: gross imprisonment rates (prison population divided by resident population) can be partitioned in terms of the crime rate and punitiveness (prison population divided by the number of offenses); punitiveness can, in turn, be partitioned in terms of severity and certainty of punishment; certainty of punishment can then be partitioned, seriatim, in terms of the incarceration rate, the conviction rate, and the arrest or clearance rate and the rate at which citizens report crimes. Cross-national data collected by Farrington, Langan, and Wikström are used to illustrate the utility of the method for displaying comparisons of the decomposition of aggregate criminal justice data for the United States, England, and Sweden.     

Pain, Impairment, and Disability in the AMA Guides

Physicians use the American Medical Association's Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, 5th edition to evaluate millions of disability applicants each year. As major contributors to the chapter in the Guides devoted to assessing impairment associated with pain, we confronted the difficulties of incorporating pain into the Guides' overall evaluation system. Analysis of these difficulties is complicated by the paucity of research on the Guides, and by ambiguities and contradictions that pervade it. We propose that the ambiguities can be reduced if impairment is consistently defined in terms of organ or body part derangement, and disability in terms of activity limitations at the level of the whole person. We also propose a distinction between objective factors that may influence a person's ability to perform activities following injury. We suggest that when physicians examine disability applicants, they should evaluate both objective measures of organ or body part dysfunction and subjective reports of applicants -- especially ones regarding pain. We conclude that a comprehensive medical evaluation of disability applicant encompasses more than an impairment assessment.     

突出重点注重实效不断提高区社校办学水平

和平区社会主义学校成立于1999年。多年来,在区委、区政府,各民主党派区级组织、区党校和有关部门的关心、支持下,我们坚持以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导,坚持正确的办学方向,充分发挥区社校在统战教育培训中的主阵地作用,开拓进取,努力使区社校成为培养统一战线人     

Suicide by 120 stab wounds of the chest?

The case history of a suicide due to 120 stab wounds of the chest is presented. The victim was a 41 years old man with a paranoid-hallucinative psychosis. The problem to distinguish homicides and suicides is discussed by the well-known criminalistic and forensic-medical criterias. Induced by this very unusual case the autopsy material with stab wounds was analyzed retrospectively (n = 246, out of about 14,000 autopsies at the Institut of Forensic Medicine in Hamburg). Cases with more than 40 single lesions are normally homicides. However, the pattern of the injuries is more important than the number--especially in doubtful cases.     

Group-specific component imaging from trace material using isoelectric focussing and electroblotting

GC-subtyping was carried out on blood stains, that had been made on glass and stored under room temperature-conditions. Using isoelectric focusing in polyacrylamide gel, followed by transfer to nitrocellulose membrane by semi-dry-electroblotting and detection with enzyme-linked antibody complex the GC-detection was possible even after 64 days. Methodical problems are discussed.     

The Present and Future Fiscal Problems of the Two New Yorks: What Happened This Time

The state and city of New York have chronic fiscal difficulties, namely, expenditures that tend to exceed revenues by significant amounts. The deficits were moderate in the 1980s but have become large and acute in the 1990s as the state and city economies have been in a prolonged recession. Deficits are expected to continue well into the future. Supply side factors, particularly high wage levels, are the main causes of the state's deficits. For the city, supply side factors, particularly high employment, and demand side factors are main causes. Federal aid reduction is a minor cause. The city's fiscal condition is compared with that of the thirty other largest U.S. cities in a regression analysis which updates Gramlich's analysis of the period immediately before the famous New York City fiscal crisis of 1975.