Criminal Law—Proximate Cause in Negligent Homicide

Defendant was charged with negligent homicide under RCW 46.56.0401 for causing the death of a pedestrian through the operation of a motor vehicle. The trial jury found the defendant guilty, but the trial judge entered an order arresting judgment and, in the alternative, granting a new trial. From this order the state appealed. In his trial memorandum, the judge ruled as a matter of law that the evidence was insufficient to show any causal relation between the defendant\u27s state of intoxication and the resulting death to a pedestrian. The Washington Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment upon the verdict of the jury. The court held that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that each element of the offense charged had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt

Torts—Recovery for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Injury

Until recently, a plaintiff who had suffered emotional injury normally had to show an accompanying physical harm in order to maintain a successful action for damages. His ability to recover for severe emotional distress unaccompanied by physical injury is being recognized by an increasing number of jurisdictions. The current situation is marked by the unsettled nature of the law. Reluctance to grant relief for such an injury has been based upon a desire to avoid not only fictitious claims, but also the litigation of trivialities and bad manners. However, even before this change in attitude by the courts, if some independent tort, such as assault, battery, or false imprisonment could be made out, that cause of action served as a peg upon which to hang the recovery for emotional injury, and recovery was freely permitted. In recent years the courts have tended to recognize the intentional infliction of mental or emotional disturbance as a separate tort. In keeping with this trend, the Restatement of Torts has given recognition to liability for such an injury by revising the position stated in the original section 46.2

Replication data for: Globalization and Population: International Trade and the Demographic Transition

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Replication Data for: Are We All Predictably Irrational? An Experimental Analysis

The three data files and do-file replicate "Are We All Predictably Irrational? An Experimental Analysis"The three data files and do-file replicate "Are We All Predictably Irrational? An Experimental Analysis

Reconsidering Regime Type and Growth: Lies, Dictatorships, and Statistics

Some recent papers have concluded that authoritarian regimes have faster economic growth than democracies. These supposed growth benefits of autocracies are estimated using data sets in which growth rates rely heavily on data reported by each government. Governments have incentives to exaggerate their economic growth figures, however, and authoritarian regimes may have fewer limitations than democracies on their ability to do so. This paper argues that growth data submitted to international agencies are overstated by authoritarian regimes compared to democracies. If true, it calls into question the estimated relationship between government type and economic growth found in the literature. To measure the degree to which each government\u27s official growth statistics are overstated, the economic growth rates reported in the World Bank\u27s World Development Indicators are compared to a new measure of economic growth based on satellite imaging of nighttime lights. This comparison reveals whether or not dictators exaggerate their true growth rates and by how much. Annual GDP growth rates are estimated to be overstated by 0.5-1.5 percentage points in the statistics that dictatorships report to the World Bank

Trade and Democracy: A Factor-Based Approach

We study the relationship between trade openness and democracy using a data set with capital-labor ratios, trade flows, and regime type for 142 countries between 1960 and 2007. We are among the first to test a prediction that emerges from the model of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006): Relative factor endowments determine whether trade promotes democracy or not. The statistical results from two-stage least squares estimation indicate that trade is positively associated with democracy among labor-abundant countries but that trade has a negative effect on democracy in capital-abundant countries. The results are not robust, however, and thus we conclude that the evidence in support of their argument is relatively weak

Reconsidering Regime Type and Growth: Lies, Dictatorships, and Statistics

Some recent papers have concluded that authoritarian regimes have faster economic growth than democracies. These supposed growth benefits of autocracies are estimated using data sets in which growth rates rely heavily on data reported by each government. Governments have incentives to exaggerate their economic growth figures, however, and authoritarian regimes may have fewer limitations than democracies on their ability to do so. This paper argues that growth data submitted to international agencies are overstated by authoritarian regimes compared to democracies. If true, it calls into question the estimated relationship between government type and economic growth found in the literature. To measure the degree to which each government's official growth statistics are overstated, the economic growth rates reported in the World Bank's World Development Indicators are compared to a new measure of economic growth based on satellite imaging of nighttime lights. This comparison reveals whether or not dictators exaggerate their true growth rates and by how much. Annual GDP growth rates are estimated to be overstated by 0.5–1.5 percentage points in the statistics that dictatorships report to the World Bank