Phonocardiogram simulator Patent

Phonocardiogram simulator producing electrical voltage waves to control amplitude and duration between simulated sound

On Sin, Repentance, Christian Nurture, And The Genetics of Personality

Dean Homer\'s description of the genetics of personality includes two components: temperament and character. Temperament is a product of the interaction of the individual\'s genes with early stimuli, whereas character is formed by parenting, social interaction and the individual\'s choices of reactions to external stimuli throughout life. This understanding of the genetics ofpersonality argues against determinism and is appropriate for a Christian doctrine of sin and repentance. Hamcr\'s description of the impact of child-rearing on character echoes the significance of Christian nurture, especially as expressed in the Sacrament of Baptism

Collective action, political parties and pro-development public policy

Broad consensus exists that the ability of political actors to make credible commitments is key to development. An important and little-explored determinant of the credibility of political commitments is the existence of organizations that facilitate citizen collective action to sanction political actors who renege. This paper focuses on one essential organization, the political party. Three measures of political parties are used to assess cross-country differences in the degree to which politicians facilitate the ability of citizens to act in their collective interest. Each of these measures is associated with superior development outcomes, above and beyond the effects of competitive elections. These results have implications for understanding the extraordinary economic success of some East Asian countries and notable lags among others: East Asian non-democracies exhibit more institutionalized ruling parties than other non-democracies, while East Asian democracies exhibit equally or less institutionalized parties. The evidence suggests that greater research and policy emphasis be placed on the organizational characteristics of countries that allow citizens to hold leaders accountable.Parliamentary Government,Political Systems and Analysis,Politics and Government,Corporate Law,E-Government

Politics and the Determinants of Banking Crises: the Effects of Political Checks and Balances

A large body of research has provided significant insights into the financial and macroeconomic causes of banking crises. Many of these causes - ranging from lapses in financial regulation to determined efforts to maintain a fixed exchange rate - have in common their origins as policy decisions of political actors. Numerous non-technical criteria, ranging from the identity and interests of political constituencies to political and electoral institutions, condition the incentives of political decision makers to make or correct policy "mistakes". This paper explores the role of one significant political institution, the presence or absence of political checks and balances. Checks and balances influence the independence of regulators, the value and cost of special interest payoffs to policy makers, and individual political incentives to avoid collective policy failures. The evidence suggests that the financial and economic causes of crisis, consistent with these arguments, differ significantly in countries that exhibit few or many political checks and balances.

Elections, special interests, and the fiscal costs of financial crisis

The author proposes a new approach to explain why the costs of crisis are greater in some countries than in others. He begins with the premise that many crises result from the willingness of politicians to cater to special interests, at the expense of broad social interests. A parsimonious model predicts that the less costly it is for average citizens to expel politicians, the more veto players there are; the less important are exogenous shocks, and the more difficult it is for politicians and special interests to forge credible agreements, the lower the costs of crisis are. Though these predictions differ from those in the literature, empirical evidence presented shows that they explain the fiscal costs of financial crisis, even after controlling for the financial sector policies believed to contribute most to the efficient prevention, and resolution of financial crisis.Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Decentralization,Economic Theory&Research,National Governance,National Governance,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation

Insurgency and credible commitment in autocracies and democracies

This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.Population Policies,Parliamentary Government,Economic Theory&Research,Social Conflict and Violence,Politics and Government

Preliminary Evaluation of the Risk of Accidental Spills of Hazardous Materials in Illinois Waterways

HWRIC Project 89/90-059NTIS PB91-20877

Social capital, social norms and the New Institutional Economics

Douglass North (1990) describes institutions as the rules of the game that set limits on human behavior, now a universally-accepted definition. North and others especially underline the crucial role of informal social norms. They predict that, like all rules of the game, social norms should affect the economic prosperity enjoyed by individuals and countries – that they should have a crucial impact, for example, on economic and political development. In fact, substantial evidence demonstrates that social norms prescribing cooperative or trustworthy behavior have a significant impact on whether societies can overcome obstacles to contracting and collective action that would otherwise hinder their development. Much of this evidence comes from outside the new institutional economics, emerging instead from scholarly research in the field of “social capital.” A review of this evidence, and its implications for our understanding of the role of social norms and institutions, is therefore the focus of this chapter.social capital, norms, institutions, institutional economics

When does delegation improve credibility? Central Bank independence and the separation of powers

Delegation and policy rules are frequently suggested strategies for governments to establish credible commitments. Existing literature on rules and delegation in macroeconomic policy has generally avoided the question of why governments that delegate or establish rules do not subsequently reverse this decision. Either the decision is assumed to be irreversible, or reversal is assumed to be “politically costly” without further explanation. We develop several hypotheses which suggest that the difficulty in reversing a decision to delegate (or to establish a rule) depends on the structure of a country’s political institutions. Credible commitment through delegation can only be obtained in countries where political institutions provide for checks and balances on executive authority. Checks and balances ensure that the decision to override a legally independent central bank is not the prerogative of a single actor (or veto player). In countries with these characteristics, the extent of credibility gains will be greatest when political instability is moderate and when polarization is high. We find support for these hypotheses in tests using cross-country data - from both developed and developing countries - on central bank independence and political institutions.