Rent seekers in the U.S. international trade commission escape clause investigations

This article addresses the question of the political and economic characteristics of firms that are active in filing escape clause petitions. Filing an escape clause petition is considered to be a part of a political rent seeking strategy of a firm. The sample consists of publicly traded firms in industries in which escape clause petitions were filed 1975–1986. The results of a logit analysis suggest that firms active in the petitioning process tend to be profitable and dependent on the petitioned product. We also find tentative support that these firms are in concentrated industries and have Washington offices. These results raise some questions about the utility of the escape clause in providing aid for those firms that it is intended to help.     

An examination of firm licensing behaviour after a payday-loan ban

In 2008, Ohio enacted the Short-Term Loan Law capping interest rates to 28% APR, effectively banning the industry. Previous analysis has shown that while the policy was effective in eliminating the payday lending industry, expansion occurred within the pawnbroker, small-loan and second-mortgage lending industries in effective policy periods. Extending this previous analysis, using branch-level licensing records from the Ohio Division of Financial Institutions, this study examines the firm’s decision to license at the branch-level both with a zip code and within a county. I predict the effects of the ban on the likelihood of entry in the small-loan and second-mortgage industries while also controlling for incumbent status as a payday lender. Results at the zip-code level show that the likelihood of entering the lending market as a small-loan lender increases by 35.4% and initiating a second-mortgage license increases by 6.3% after the signing the Short-Term Loan Law. At the county level, the probability of initiating a small-loan licenses increases by 15.3%, while the likelihood initiating a second-mortgage license increases by 6.3%. At the county level, branches previously operating as payday lenders are 1.1% more likely to re-license as small-loan lenders, though has no effect on licensing as a second-mortgage lender.     

Sicherer Umgang mit Betäubungsmitteln

Ambulante Pflegedienste betreuen h?ufig auch Patienten, die einer intensiven Schmerztherapie bedürfen. Viele von ihnen werden dabei mit Medikamenten versorgt, die unter das Bet?ubungsmittelgesetz fallen. Für die Pflegedienste hei?t das: Die Dokumentation muss hier besonderen Anforderungen genügen.     

Rent Sharing, Aggregate Saving, and Growth

The paper investigates the effects on saving and growth of the rent sharing between firm owners and workers documented in recent empirical work. In an overlapping-generations framework, more rent sharing is found to increase growth. This result also holds in a model with a single generation of infinitely lived consumers in which some consumers are patient and save and others are impatient but credit-constrained and simply consume all their current income. This latter result is surprising since rent sharing effectively redistributes income from savers to nonsavers, yet raises aggregate saving.     

Municipal visions: Reflexive futures between paradigm and practice

How does the reflexive knowledge we develop about institutions and environments influence the expectations we might have about the future? The paper addresses this question in the context of Foresight in local governance. It describes a project aiming at creating visions for a Norwegian municipality by inviting schoolchildren to contribute with their ideas of the future. The focus is on how the interactions between project owners and participants produced certain forms of resistance and led to visions best described as idealistic conformism. Introducing the idea of ‘reflexive futures’, I suggest that that a broader understanding of reflexivity as containing both enabling and constraining features can help to unlock certain paradoxes of current Foresight and provide a renewed inquiry into the practise of visioning for strategy and long-term planning.     

Die Chemo entspannter erleben

Progressive Muskelrelaxation bei Chemotherapie - übelkeit und Erbrechen z?hlen zu den unangenehmen Nebenwirkungen einer Chemotherapie. Eine neue Studie untersuchte daher den Effekt einer Einzelschulung in Progressiver Muskelentspannung einschlie?lich Beratung bei betroffenen Krebspatienten.