Interpreting Empirical Estimates of the Effect of Corporate Governance

Empirical studies of corporate governance address potentialendogeneity problems, but fail to place endogeneity in the contextof a model and ignore the possibility of disparate treatmenteffects across companies. This paper tackles these defects.The model and analysis in the paper demonstrate that: (1) Validand positive estimates for the effect of governance can onlyarise if there is random variation in governance and governanceis systematically underproduced, or governance is chosen randomlywithout bias and the randomness under study concerns a subpopulationwith below-average governance. (2) Governance models that correctfor endogeneity using subsamples of firms, fixed effects, orinstrumental variables estimates focus on subpopulations ofcompanies that may have different responses to a governancetreatment than the average firm.     

From terror to public diplomacy: Jibril Rajoub and the Palestinian Authorities’ uses of sport in fragmentary Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Focusing on sport as an arena of struggle in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the current study traces, conceptually and historically, the way in which the Palestinian Authority in general, and Jibril Rajoub in particular, have shifted efforts toward the sporting arena in order to promote global awareness of the Palestinian case. In the current case study, the Palestinians were not successful at drawing attention to their political goals or in suspending Israel from Fédération Internationale de Football Association. However, their attempt emphasizes the ways in which conflicts had changed and the importance of images in the information age we live in. Conflicts today are very much battles of ideas and the information designed by the media. Alongside the military confrontations, an Image War is taking part in which each side tries to justifies its ideas, beliefs and actions.     

Collective and Individual Consciousness in Testimonies of Navy Divers

Sick Israeli Navy divers, who were exposed to chemical sewage during their army service, suspected that this exposure was the cause of their cancer. The divers appealed to the courts and demanded the establishment of an independent committee for the investigation of this issue. This step created strong emotional tension between the sick divers and their former brothers-in-arms from the navy. The aim of this paper is to describe the process by which the tension between the divers' individual and collective consciousness is discursively elaborated in their testimony to the committee. This testimony is described by means of a Bakhtinian/Volosinovian semiotic analysis.     

Deep Interactions with MRP: Election Turnout and Voting Patterns Among Small Electoral Subgroups

Using multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP), we estimate voter turnout and vote choice within deeply interacted subgroups: subsets of the population that are defined by multiple demographic and geographic characteristics. This article lays out the models and statistical procedures we use, along with the steps required to fit the model for the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. Though MRP is an increasingly popular method, we improve upon it in numerous ways: deeper levels of covariate interaction, allowing for nonlinearity and nonmonotonicity, accounting for unequal inclusion probabilities that are conveyed in survey weights, postestimation adjustments to turnout and voting levels, and informative multidimensional graphical displays as a form of model checking. We use a series of examples to demonstrate the flexibility of our method, including an illustration of turnout and vote choice as subgroups become increasingly detailed, and an analysis of both vote choice changes and turnout changes from 2004 to 2008.     

Optimal Trust Design in Mass Tort Bankruptcy

Many firms have filed for bankruptcy to manage mass tort liabilities,most notably asbestos producers. We model a bankruptcy procedurethat optimally balances the liquidity needs of present claimantsand an uncertain number of future claimants. We find that futureclaimants should receive greater awards in expectation thanpresent claimants as compensation for bearing greater futureclaims risk. We also find that allocating more value to contractualcreditors in bankruptcy makes an earlier filing more likely,which may increase overall welfare. Optimal risk-sharing impliesthat creditors should receive equity in a trust fund, with tortclaimants receiving senior debtlike securities.     

In a Double Bind: Conflicts over Education and Mayoral Election Outcomes

Many European countries have decentralised governance structures to local communities with the direct election of mayors by local residents. This article provides a case study from Israel to assess the interplay between education and local politics. It investigates election outcomes for 75 locales, with a focus on the unique tensions involved in the dual loyalties of mayors to local parents, on the one hand, and state officials, on the other. Mayors who developed conflict relationships with both the local parents and state officials were found most likely to leave office. Conflicts over education are a clear indicator of impending political defeat, but amicable relations with parents and state officials are no automatic guarantee for re-election.     

Guidelines for postmortem protocol for ocular investigation of sudden unexplained infant death and suspected physical child abuse

Postmortem examination is a cornerstone in identifying the cause of unexplained sudden death in children. Even in cases of suspected or known abuse, an autopsy may help characterize the nature of the abuse, which is particularly important in the forensic autopsy of children in the first 3 to 4 years of life when inflicted neurotrauma is most common. Forensic examinations are vital in cases that might otherwise be diagnosed as sudden infant death syndrome. The ocular autopsy in particular may demonstrate findings that were not appreciated on antemortem clinical examination. This protocol for postmortem examination of the eyes and orbits was developed to promote more consistent documentation of findings, improved clinical and forensic decision making, and more replicable and coherent research outcomes.     

The Dynamic of Corporate Self-Regulation: ISO 14001, Environmental Commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This article examines the institutional impact of environmental management systems (EMSs), focusing on ISO 14001. It develops a pluralistic framework for thinking about the dynamic of corporate self-regulation that we term the polyphonic model. It argues that the adoption of ISO 14001 can move the firm into a new equilibrium trajectory, which enmeshes together environmental and economic goals and reflects greater sensitivity to ecological concerns. There is a positive reciprocal cycle between the pro-environmental structural changes induced by ISO 14001 and the employees' attitudes toward the firm and the environment. In order to examine ISO 14001 institutional impact, we conducted a series of interviews with managers and administered questionnaires to employees in 24 Israeli firms with and without certification. The findings indicate that the perceived environmental commitment of certified firms was higher than that of noncertified firms and was higher among employees that perceived the EMS as more highly integrated in the firm. Perceptions of the standard's integration were also found to be positively correlated with personal environmental commitment. The results also indicate that the increase in the firm's environmental commitment was positively associated with employees' organizational citizenship behavior within certified firms. Further indications of the pro-environmental dynamic induced by ISO 14001 were found in the in-depth interviews.