980 research outputs found
Regulation and Regulatory Processes
Regulation of business activity is nearly as old as law itself. In the last century, though, the use of regulation by modern governments has grown markedly in both volume and significance, to the point where nearly every facet of todayâs economy is subject to some form of regulation. When successful, regulation can deliver important benefits to society; however, regulation can also impose undue costs on the economy and, when designed or implemented poorly, fail to meet public needs at all. Given the importance of sound regulation to society, its study by scholars of law and social science is also of paramount importance. In this chapter, we review the state of the field by focusing on four major areas of empirical research: (1) regulatory policy making, (2) regulatory enforcement, (3) business responses to regulation, and (4) innovative models of regulation. We begin by reviewing the political economy literature on the factors that influence government regulators as well as the ways that overseers may use administrative procedures to affect decisions of regulatory agencies. We next highlight the varied empirical findings on adversarial versus cooperative enforcement styles. We then review explanations for business responses to regulatory pressures, including the range of factors influencing compliance and beyond-compliance behavior. Finally, we survey the ever-growing research literature on innovative approaches to regulation, including self-regulation, performance standards, and market-based incentives. This chapter serves both as a stand-alone account of the existing state of empirical regulatory research by political scientists and researchers from other disciplines, as well as an introduction to the authorsâ edited volume that reprints a diverse collection of classic studies of regulation and regulatory processes
Regulation and Regulatory Processes
Regulation of business activity is nearly as old as law itself. In the last century, though, the use of regulation by modern governments has grown markedly in both volume and significance, to the point where nearly every facet of todayâs economy is subject to some form of regulation. When successful, regulation can deliver important benefits to society; however, regulation can also impose undue costs on the economy and, when designed or implemented poorly, fail to meet public needs at all. Given the importance of sound regulation to society, its study by scholars of law and social science is also of paramount importance. In this chapter, we review the state of the field by focusing on four major areas of empirical research: (1) regulatory policy making, (2) regulatory enforcement, (3) business responses to regulation, and (4) innovative models of regulation. We begin by reviewing the political economy literature on the factors that influence government regulators as well as the ways that overseers may use administrative procedures to affect decisions of regulatory agencies. We next highlight the varied empirical findings on adversarial versus cooperative enforcement styles. We then review explanations for business responses to regulatory pressures, including the range of factors influencing compliance and beyond-compliance behavior. Finally, we survey the ever-growing research literature on innovative approaches to regulation, including self-regulation, performance standards, and market-based incentives. This chapter serves both as a stand-alone account of the existing state of empirical regulatory research by political scientists and researchers from other disciplines, as well as an introduction to the authorsâ edited volume that reprints a diverse collection of classic studies of regulation and regulatory processes
Motivating management: corporate compliance with safety, health and environmental regulation
Based on interviews with facility managers in the electroplating and chemical industries, this study examines regulated firmsâ perceptions of how various instrumental, normative and social factors motivated their firms' safety, health and environmental actions. We found that âimplicit general deterrenceâ (the overall effect of sustained inspection and enforcement activity) was far more important than either specific or general deterrence, and that deterrence in any form was of far greater concern to small and medium sized enterprises than it was to large ones. Most reputation-sensitive firms in the chemical industry chose to go substantially beyond compliance for reasons that related to risk management and to the perceived need to protect their social license to operate. Almost half our respondents also provided normative explanations for why they complied. Overall, we conclude that there are various, often interwoven strands that must be taken into account in understanding what motivates corporate safety, health and environmental behavior, and how they play out depends very much on the size and sophistication of companies themselves and on the characteristics of the industry sector within which they are located
MASET: Multi-Attribute Software Evaluation Tool
Software developers and organizational users face many problems in identifying and evaluating features of software products. The products are complex, with numerous options, making design and development of applications time consuming and costly. With many users, it can be difficult to summarize user needs and priorities, let alone identify the functions and features that they need in the applications. Once functions and features are identified, a three stage least squares technique is used to identify and prioritize important features of software products. TheMulti-Attribute Software Evaluation Tool (MASET) can be used to evaluate existing software (commercial or in-house) or proposed features of new software products. This tool combines a series of functions into a software product that aids in the development of an evaluation questionaire, accepts input from respondents, prepares the input for the statistacal analysis package and uses an artifical intelligence module to analyze the result
Condensation dynamics in a quantum-quenched Bose gas
By quenching the strength of interactions in a partially condensed Bose gas
we create a "super-saturated" vapor which has more thermal atoms than it can
contain in equilibrium. Subsequently, the number of condensed atoms ()
grows even though the temperature () rises and the total atom number decays.
We show that the non-equilibrium evolution of the system is isoenergetic and
for small initial observe a clear separation between and
dynamics, thus explicitly demonstrating the theoretically expected "two-step"
picture of condensate growth. For increasing initial values we observe a
crossover to classical relaxation dynamics. The size of the observed
quench-induced effects can be explained using a simple equation of state for an
interacting harmonically-trapped atomic gas.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
In Memoriam: Daniel J. Meltzer
Sedan Ă„r 2006 har den syntetiskt framstĂ€llda drogen spice existerat i Sverige, men först Ă„r 2008 blev drogen populĂ€r och tidningar började rikta uppmĂ€rksamhet mot den. Genom att drogen kan byta skepnad i uppbyggnaden kan den förbli laglig, dĂ€rför kan egentligen namnet âspiceâ inte betraktas som ett enhetligt begrepp. VĂ„rt syfte med denna studie blev att granska hur drogen spice beskrivs i tidningar och forskning. Ăven hur drogen betraktas gĂ€llande psykosociala och medicinska avseenden. Detta i förhĂ„llande till socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Den metod som vi valde att anvĂ€nda oss av i studien var kvantitativ innehĂ„llsanalys. Genom analys av 80 stycken svenska tidningsartiklar hĂ€mtade ur databasen mediearkivet, samt vetenskapliga artiklar och litteratur har vi besvarat vĂ„ra frĂ„gestĂ€llningar. De resultat vi fick frĂ„n analyser visade pĂ„ att tidningar kan vara av betydande roll för ungdomars attityder. Tidningar kan utföra bland annat skrĂ€mselpropaganda för att upplysa och förhindra brukandet av spice, dessvĂ€rre visar resultatet en motsatt effekt. Forskning visar att bruk av spice kan pĂ„verka relationer och arbete negativt. Dessutom Ă€r nĂ„gra bieffekter av spice bröstsmĂ€rtor, vanförestĂ€llningar, sjĂ€lvmordstankar och hjĂ€rtstopp
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