Original Sin, Good Works, and Property Rights in Russia: Evidence From a Survey Experiment

Are property rights obtained through legally dubious means forever tainted with original sin or can rightholders make their ill-gotten gains legitimate by doing good works?2 This is a critical question for developing countries (and Russia in particular) where privatization is often opaque and businesspeople may receive property, but remain unwilling to use it productively due to concerns about the vulnerability of their rights to political challenge. Using a survey of 660 businesspeople conducted in Russia in February 2005, I find that the original sin of an illegal privatization is difficult to expunge. Businesspeople, however, can improve the perceived legitimacy of property rights by doing good works, such as investing in the firm and by providing public goods for the region. Finally, managers that provide public goods for their region are more likely to invest in their firms than those who did not. The finding that public goods providers invest at higher rates is at odds with standard economic logic, but fits well with the more political view of property rights developed here. These findings have implications for political economy and contemporary Russia.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40187/3/wp801.pd

Salvation and Faithfulness as They Apply to Eternal Security

All who believe in Christ can have peace and security that their salvation is not temporary but eternal

A Social Controversy: Autism Spectrum Disorder\u27s Correlation to the Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination

A 1998 research study lead by Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination as a probable cause to autism spectrum disorder. This publication has started a significant debate among healthcare professionals and instigated an anti-vaccination movement within the general population. This vaccination controversy was started by parents who readily accepted Wakefield’s findings as truth and frequently would choose to withdrawal the administration of vaccinations from their children’s care plans. There has also been disapproval by healthcare professionals over Wakefield’s study since numerous research teams have been unable to replicate his findings. This disagreement surrounding the MMR vaccination is likely putting millions of people, mostly children, at risk of contracting horrific diseases. Brian Deer established the fraud in Wakefield’s original study and rejected Wakefield’s null hypothesis. Deer’s seven years of investigation affirmed the countless research studies that rejected Wakefield’s null hypothesis. Deer’s analysis of Dr. Wakefield’s study demonstrates how the public and the media can be blindly misled by scientific studies. When information has reached people’s grasp, it is hard to retract false information once it has permeated millions of households, which is what needs to be accomplished regarding the truth behind the relationship between the MMR vaccination and autism. The medical world could benefit from knowing the cause of this detrimental disorder, in an effort to treat patients better and possibly someday cure them

Transient analysis of bodies with moving boundaries using NASTRAN

A scheme is presented which allows the modeling of a moving boundary with NASTRAN NOLIN cards. Various aspects and limitations of the approach are explained. Recommendations are given as to the procedure to be used in implementing the method

[Review of] Milton J. Esman (Ed.), Ethnic Conflict in the Western World

Ethnic conflict has reemerged in the economic and political arenas of the western world, less between nation states, more within the boundaries of particular nations. The type of conflict that emerged in the United States during the 1950\u27s and 1960\u27s was racial, in sharp contrast to the ethnonationalist conflict in western Europe and Canada. The latter has a long history and has been shaped by cultural, linguistic, and religious differences. This conflict declined after World War II but is now back on the scene. The explanation of its return is one of the major purposes of this book. A second purpose is to raise the question of whether the Democratic Conflict Management model of consociationalism is a useful tool by which ethnic conflicts can be solved in a manner fair to all

Soil bed reactor work of the Environmental Research Lab. of the University of Arizona in support of the research and development of Biosphere 2

Research at the Environmental Research Lab in support of Biosphere 2 was both basic and applied in nature. One aspect of the applied research involved the use of biological reactors for the scrubbing of trace atmospheric organic contaminants. The research involved a quantitative study of the efficiency of operation of Soil Bed Reactors (SBR) and the optimal operating conditions for contaminant removal. The basic configuration of a SBR is that air is moved through a living soil that supports a population of plants. Upon exposure to the soil, contaminants are either passively adsorbed onto the surface of soil particles, chemically transformed in the soil to usable compounds that are taken up by the plants or microbes as a metabolic energy source and converted to CO2 and water

Relation of Ogallala formation to the southern High Plains in Texas

Bibliography: p. 20-21.UT Librarie

Original Sin, Good Works, and Property Rights in Russia: Evidence From a Survey Experiment

Are property rights obtained through legally dubious means forever tainted with original sin or can rightholders make their ill-gotten gains legitimate by doing good works?2 This is a critical question for developing countries (and Russia in particular) where privatization is often opaque and businesspeople may receive property, but remain unwilling to use it productively due to concerns about the vulnerability of their rights to political challenge. Using a survey of 660 businesspeople conducted in Russia in February 2005, I find that the original sin of an illegal privatization is difficult to expunge. Businesspeople, however, can improve the perceived legitimacy of property rights by doing good works, such as investing in the firm and by providing public goods for the region. Finally, managers that provide public goods for their region are more likely to invest in their firms than those who did not. The finding that public goods providers invest at higher rates is at odds with standard economic logic, but fits well with the more political view of property rights developed here. These findings have implications for political economy and contemporary Russia.Property Rights, Transition, Rule of Law, Privatization

String Theory has no Isotropic Solution for the Modified Einstein's Equations without the Dilaton

We investigate the modification to Einstein's vacuum field equations which is imposed by string theory when the dilaton field is ignored. Including the cosmological constant in all calculations, we prove that such a theory of gravity admits no static isotropic solution. We then show that any isotropic solution of the equations in question must necessarily be static, therefore proving that no isotropic solution exists for this stringy modification to gravity