Helpful Governments

This paper provides an alternative way of testing the theory of legal origins, one based on a firm's perception of how helpful the government is for doing business. The author argues that an approach based on firm perceptions offers a number of advantages over existing studies. Specifically, the analysis demonstrates that heavier regulation in civil law compared with common law countries is not viewed by businesses as an efficient and socially desirable response to disorder. Further, the findings show a strong effect of legal tradition on government helpfulness even after controlling for various institutional measures known to be correlated with the legal tradition of countries. This suggests that there is more to legal tradition than what existing studies have unearthed.National Governance,Legal Products,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Governance Indicators,Debt Markets

Telegram from Hensler Helpful Club to Senator Langer Regarding Garrison Dam, December 12, 1946

This telegram dated December 12, 1946, from the Hensler Helpful Club of Oliver County, North Dakota, to United States Senator William Langer, states that the Club is against the proposed relocation site for the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation as a result of the Garrison Dam. The letter goes on to state that the Club would favor an alternative land resettlement plan or a cash reimbursement for the Fort Berthold residents. See also: Telegram from Senator Langer to Hensler Helpful Club Regarding Garrison Dam, December 12, 1946https://commons.und.edu/langer-papers/1460/thumbnail.jp

Is error detection helpful on IBM 5Q chips ?

This paper reports on experiments realized on several IBM 5Q chips which show evidence for the advantage of using error detection and fault-tolerant design of quantum circuits. We show an average improvement of the task of sampling from states that can be fault-tolerantly prepared in the $[[4,2,2]]$ code, when using a fault-tolerant technique well suited to the layout of the chip. By showing that fault-tolerant quantum computation is already within our reach, the author hopes to encourage this approach.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, 6 table

Grantees Report Back: Helpful Reporting and Evaluation Processes

Nonprofits are facing increasing expectations from their funders to demonstrate progress and effectiveness. Most foundations strive to understand their own impact in large part through the successes of their grants and grantees, and many within the philanthropic community are pushing to obtain evidence of effectiveness from the nonprofit organizations they support.At the same time, a number of foundations are also working to simplify reporting and evaluation processes. Project Streamline, for example, is an effort aimed at "reducing the burden on nonprofits" and freeing up "more time and money for mission-based activities." Recommendations to trim processes include funders "right-sizing" reporting and evaluation requirements, enabling web reporting, creating standardized reporting processes, and making other operational improvements.There can be tension between these dual emphases -- on better understanding effectiveness and on streamlining processes -- and at the center of this tension is how best to structure reporting and evaluation processes. Some funders push for a more rigorous and often time-intensive process, while others seek to trim it down to free grantees' time, resources, and energy for their core work. But how are grantees experiencing foundation required reporting and evaluation processes? How helpful do they find them? What actually matters most to grantees? To shed light on these questions, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) collected survey responses from more than 24,000 grantees about their views of 130 foundations. We learned that: On average, grantees do not find current reporting and evaluation processes to be very helpful in strengthening their organizations and programs.Strong relationships between grantees and their funders are central to helpful reporting and evaluation processes.Grantees who report discussing their report or evaluation with their funder perceive the reporting or evaluation process to be more helpful -- yet nearly half of grantees say no discussion occurred