The criminal profiling illusion:what's behind the smoke and mirrors?

There is a belief that criminal profilers can predict a criminal's characteristics from crime scene evidence. In this article, the authors argue that this belief may be an illusion and explain how people may have been misled into believing that criminal profiling (CP) works despite no sound theoretical grounding and no strong empirical support for this possibility. Potentially responsible for this illusory belief is the information that people acquire about CP, which is heavily influenced by anecdotes, repetition of the message that profiling works, the expert profiler label, and a disproportionate emphasis on correct predictions. Also potentially responsible are aspects of information processing such as reasoning errors, creating meaning out of ambiguous information, imitating good ideas, and inferring fact from fiction. The authors conclude that CP should not be used as an investigative tool because it lacks scientific support

The Effect of Solicitation and Independence on Corporate Bond Ratings

Abstract:  This comparison of solicited and independent bond rating agencies performance reveals that the ratings assigned by Moody's and Standard & Poor's are consistently lower than those assigned by Duff and Phelps and Fitch IBCA and are consistently higher than those assigned by MCM. While Moody's and S&P generally downgrade bond ratings sooner than Duff and Phelps and Fitch IBCA, the four major agencies upgrade at the same time. Moody's tends to have a higher upgrade magnitude than Duff and Phelps, but the downgrade magnitudes do not differ. MCM upgrades its ratings more quickly than either Moody's or S&P. The results give support to the timeliness and accuracy of ratings provided by the independent agencies. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2004.

The European Employment Strategy: Towards More and Better Jobs?

The European Employment Strategy (EES) is the employment policy of the European Union. According to its 2000 orientations, the EES was to promote 'more and better jobs'. In fact, the EES has not lived up to this promise. First, the EES has not been able to put the quality of jobs firmly on its agenda. On the contrary, the EES argues in favour of more flexible jobs. Second, the EES criticizes countries such as Sweden and Denmark for their high levels of taxes and unemployment benefits, despite the results these countries achieve in terms of employment. The orientations of the EES can be understood as deriving from mainstream economics; it is argued that they go against the European social model. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author(s); Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.