Red Tape,Rule Burden,and Legitimate Performance Trade-Offs: Results from a Vignette Experiment

Abstract

Goals in the public sector are complex and managers can face situations in which pursuing one legitimate goal necessitates performance trade-offs in other areas. This study tests how knowledge of legitimate performance trade-offs shapes the perception of red tape. Using a vignette experimental design and a sample of university students, between group t-tests and regression analyses suggest that, when evaluating increased rule burden, individuals that are provided with information about how objectively burdensome rules serve alternative values such as equity and effectiveness associate them with lower levels of red tape. A series of Monte Carlo simulations suggest that this effect is substantial.     

论科学发展观视野中的地方政府绩效评价体系的优化

科学发展观的提出受到各界的普遍关注并得到了高度的评价。为确保科学发展观的贯彻落实,地方政府绩效评价体系的优化显得尤其重要。首先,要按照科学发展观的要求,构建科学的评价指标体系;其次,要完善评价主体结构;再次,要开发利用科学的评价技术与方法;最后,必须制定完善的法律法规,规范地方政府绩效评价活动。     

死者生前债务法律处置初探

我国实行限定继承的继承制度,又采取的是直接继承的方式,在缺乏对继承人有效监督的情况下,对债权人的保护极为不利,有必要对继承人予以限制。死者生前和死后都可能达成债务承担协议,实现债务全部或部分转移。由此,极可能引发纠纷。这些问题又恰恰是法律所未规定或规定不全面而为司法实践所常见者。因此从解决实际问题出发,本文对此略作探讨。     

民主生活会上怎样才能"讲真话"

完善民主生活会制度,充分发挥其在发展党内民主、加强党内监督中的作用,是以党内和谐促进社会和谐的迫切需要。民主生活会上不讲真话风气的蔓延,严重影响了民主生活会的质量。因此,坚持“讲真话”的要求不能放松,保护“讲真话”的措施亟待强化,督促“讲真话”的力度必须加大,回应“讲真话”的整改务必到位。     

Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace

The invasion of Iraq has been justified, ex post , as for the purpose of promoting the democratic peace. It does not, however, appear to have been a principal goal ex ante . Most democratic peace theorists, moreover, do not endorse democratic regime change by great-power external military intervention. Success is difficult to achieve (usually at high cost), and the conditions in Iraq were not promising even had the occupation been carried out more competently. Greater success in democratization has been achieved by UN peacekeeping operations, and by various regional international organizations using a variety of peaceful measures to ensure free elections, constrain authoritarian leaders, and empower democratic forces. International organizations, notably those whose membership is largely composed of democracies, are especially likely to succeed in promoting democracy.     

High performance liquid chromatographic determination of alcohols with reference to body distribution of methanol

A method has been developed on reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography for simultaneous determination of methyl, ethyl and isopropyl alcohols under refractive index detection using pure water as the mobile phase. A good separation has been achieved between these alcohols. Detector response was linear with a detection limit of 5 mg/100 ml. Recovery studies were performed by adding known amounts of methyl and ethyl alcohols to blood, lung and liver within the range 80–90%. The reproducibility of the results was always >90%. The quantitative distribution of methyl alcohol in postmortem body tissues and fluids has been reported in three cases of poisoning.     

民主治理与民主巩固——东南亚国家的政治发展困境

东南亚国家独立初期"民主试验"的失败及现阶段民主制度的"危机"和民主制度本身并没有本质的、必然的联系,民主制的发展困境是由于与民主制度相适应的民主治理方式未能有效建立,治理方式不能与民主体制相适应造成的。从"统治"到"治理"不仅是一种范式的变迁,也是国家治理方式的转换。未来东南亚国家的民主巩固进程将是一个艰巨的"双重民主化"进程即实现政治体制和管理方式的双重转型。     

The effect of board size and composition on European bank performance

Banks are “special” financial institutions generating distinct corporate governance challenges. The present paper examines the relationship between two of the most pertinent corporate governance factors—that is, the size of the Board of Directors and the proportion of non-executive directors—and firm performance on a sample of 58 large European banks over the period 2002–2004. The empirical analysis embraces a number of bank-specific variables. Our results reveal that bank profitability is negatively related to the size of the Board of Directors, while the impact of Board composition, although positive in all models, is, in most cases, insignificant. The results are robust after controlling for firm-specific variables.      

Acidic and neutral drugs screen in blood with quantitation using microbore high-performance liquid chromatography–diode array detection and capillary gas chromatography–flame ionization detection

Blood previously acidified with aqueous saturated ammonium chloride solution was extracted with ethyl acetate. The dried extract was subjected to acetonitrile–hexane partition. The acetonitrile portion was analysed for the presence of acidic and neutral drugs by HPLC–DAD (200 mm×2.1 mm I.D. microbore ODS-Hypersil column) and GC–FID (25 m narrow-bore×0.25 mm I.D. HP-5 column with 0.33 μm film thickness). The protocol was found to be suitable for both clinical toxicology (including emergency toxicology) and postmortem toxicology. At least 66 drugs of interest were unequivocally identified by RRTs (HPLC) and UV spectra (DAD) match while another 12 were unequivocally identified by double RRTs match (HPLC and GC). Quantitation was facilitated by incorporating calibration blood standards in each assay batch. The five drugs most commonly encountered in clinical blood specimens (1150 cases) were: paracetamol (47.4% of the cases); chlormezanone (6.6%), theophylline (1.74%), naproxen (1.65%) and mefenamic acid (1.56%). The following drugs were detected in toxicologically significant quantities in postmortem blood specimens (245 cases): phenobarbitone (1.22% of the cases), naproxen (0.82%), chlormezanone (0.82%), theophylline (0.82%), carbamazepine (0.41%) and paracetamol (0.41%).     

稳压电源性能测试仪研制

针对线性稳压电源的性能指标测试过程繁琐、测量结果不理想等问题，我们采用单片机技术实现了全自动测量，将测量中所需的自耦调压器、滑线变阻器、各种测量仪表（交流电压表、精密直流电压表、精密电流表、交流毫伏表）分别设计成智能仪表，自动输出和测量稳压电源需要的工频信号和输出的电压、电流信号，同时进行指标的计算，实时显示稳压电源的性能指标，根据需要可由微型打印机输出测量结果。