The Meaning of Yoga

<正>Last year,Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the UN General Assembly to observe June21 as the International Day of Yoga.The date is also important in Hindu philosophy as it is when Lord Shiva,the first yoga practitioner,is said to have begun imparting the knowledge of yoga to the rest of mankind,thus becoming the discipline’s first guru.On June 21,India broke two world records as thousands led by Modi performed yoga at Rajpath,a     

Violence,Guns, and Suicide in New Orleans: Results from a Qualitative Study of Recent Suicide Decedents

Many Americans own guns to protect themselves against other people, but there is evidence that both victimization and gun access increase suicide risk. We conducted qualitative interviews with informants of 17 suicide cases in New Orleans of the 60 who died between January 2015 and April 2016 to understand the relationship between past trauma, gun access and storage, and suicide. Nine cases had experienced a past trauma, including three who had recently had a family member killed by homicide. Eight died via firearm; of those, seven owned the guns they used to take their lives and stored them locked (but loaded) at home or in their cars. Preventing community violence and addressing its sequelae may be important for reducing suicides. A multi‐pronged strategy consisting of policies, education, and marketing will likely be needed to address the risk of suicide conferred by gun access.     

Government fragmentation versus fiscal decentralization and corruption

This research examines the influence of government decentralization on corruption in the United States. Previous research has focused primarily on fiscal decentralization. We address whether the structure of local governments??measured in terms of the scope of services offered and the population served??has a bearing on corruption. Results show that government decentralization does not necessarily reduce corruption??the type of decentralization matters. Specifically, more general-purpose governments contribute to corruption. In contrast, the effect of special-purpose governments is mixed. The findings uniquely reveal the tension between fiscal decentralization and fragmented local governments in terms of impacts on corruption.     

Decentralization in Tanzania: An assessment of local government discretion and accountability

A large part of the decentralization literature is fragmented along political, fiscal, or administrative lines. In this article we employ a diagnostic framework to draw these dimensions together in a coherent manner to focus on analyzing local government discretion and accountability in Tanzania. Tanzania seems to have a deconcentrated local government system with central appointees having large powers at the local level. Centrally‐funded mandates—such as constructing secondary schools—dominate local government plans and budgets. Central control over administrative functions has ensured that administrative decentralization is yet to occur. In the fiscal sphere, progress has been made in transparency and harmonization of transfers in the last 5 years but local governments still have some way to go in raising own revenues, being less reliant on transfers, and ensuring downward accountability. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global corruption and the shadow economy: spatial aspects

Using a large sample of nations, this paper examines the relation between corruption and the shadow economy, focusing especially on geographic spillovers. The results point to complementarity between corruption and the shadow economy. We find evidence of own contagion across nations in both corruption and shadow economy activity, while cross-contagion mostly points to substitution between own shadow economy (corruption) and neighboring corruption (shadow economy). These findings are fairly robust across different estimation techniques and measures of the shadow economy.