A Swiss‐Army Knife? A Critical Assessment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ghana

Within the current global atmosphere where a universally accepted police force is nonexistent, there are several voluntary norms and codes of conduct that exist to guide how corporations behave worldwide. These have come as a result of many years of poor performance in the areas of social, financial, and environmental responsibility. Such norms are expected to prescribe and proscribe certain types of corporate behavior but when one examines the reality on the ground, the story is not that straightforward. This article assesses the effectiveness of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in the Ghanaian context with a focus on the mining sector. Based on primary qualitative data the argument is that even though the EITI is performing some function, it has ways to go before it can become an across‐the‐board viable tool for transparency and proper accountability. Five prevailing weaknesses are discussed to underscore this case.     

DO NEWSPAPERS SERVE THE STATE? INCUMBENT PARTY INFLUENCE ON THE US PRESS, 1869–1928

Using data from 1869 to 1928, we estimate the effect of party control of state governments on the entry, exit, circulation, prices, number of pages, and content of Republican and Democratic daily newspapers. We exploit changes over time in party control of the governorship and state legislatures in a differences‐in‐differences design. We exploit close gubernatorial elections and state legislatures with small majorities in a parallel regression‐discontinuity design. Neither method reveals evidence that the party in power affects the partisan composition of the press. Our confidence intervals rule out modest effects, and we find little evidence of incumbent party influence even in times and places with high political stakes or low commercial stakes. The one exception is the Reconstruction South, an episode that we discuss in detail.     

Population Growth,Development and the Environment

When Population Studies was founded in 1946 a main preoccupation of demographers and of the public was the prospective decline of the British population, and the falling off of its quality because on the average a poor family had more children than a better-off one. Over the course of the 50 years interests have shifted to the aging of populations as births decline and mortality improves; immigration, immigrants being welcomed for the decades after the war, and subsequently facing hostile political pressures; environmental degradation and the spread of new diseases. The fall in the birth rate, required both for development and for protection of the environment, is spreading from the original industrialized countries of Europe and America to Asia, somewhat more slowly to Latin America, slowest of all to Africa.     

Seeing What You Want to See: How Imprecise Uncertainty Ranges Enhance Motivated Reasoning

In this article, we consider a novel criterion for evaluating representations of uncertainty ranges, namely, the extent to which a representation enhances motivated reasoning. In two studies, we show that perceptions of the distribution underlying ambiguous numerical ranges are affected by the motivations and worldviews of end users. This motivated reasoning effect remained after controlling for objective numeracy and fluid intelligence but was attenuated when the correct interpretation was made clear. We suggest that analysts and communicators explicitly consider the potential for motivated evaluation when evaluating uncertainty displays.     

Predicting Social Wariness in Middle Childhood: The Moderating Roles of Childcare History, Maternal Personality and Maternal Behavior

Children with behavioral inhibition, a temperamental style characterized by infant distress to novelty and childhood social reticence, exhibit both continuity and discontinuity of this behavioral trait over the course of development. However, few researchers have identified factors that might be responsible for these different patterns. In the current study, childcare history, maternal personality, and maternal behavior were examined as moderators of the relations between infant temperament, preschool social reticence, and childhood social wariness. Seventy-seven children participated in this longitudinal study that began in infancy and continued into middle childhood. Maternal negative personality moderated the relation between infant temperament and childhood social wariness. In addition, maternal behavior moderated the relation between preschool social reticence and childhood social wariness. The findings suggest that a complex interplay of within-child and maternal factors affect the development of internalizing behavior in the early school years.     

党内关怀的内涵、机制及其优化

党内关怀思想的内容主要包括:政治关怀、思想关怀、精神关怀、生活关怀、心理关怀等.当前落实党内关怀思想就是要建立健全党内关怀机制.即要建立组织部门牵头抓总的领导协调机制、高效率的执行机制、强有力的经费保障机制、效果反馈评价机制以及党群互动关怀机制.党内关怀机制的优化.实际上就是不断健全完善、创新发展、提高党员参与意识和参与能力的过程.     

Nonprofit association CEOs how their context shapes what,how, and why they learn

This qualitative study explored the learning experiences of twelve national nonprofit membership association CEOs using a phenomenological research design. While the professional context of an organization's chief executive is considered unique from other executive positions, the impact of this context on what and how CEOs learned was unclear. The findings describe association CEO learning as being affected in significant ways by the politically charged context in which the nonprofit association CEO operates with his or her board of directors. Power imbalances with staff and the board make learning through traditional organizational dialogue a less useful learning process for the CEOs. Furthermore, the feelings of isolation and vulnerability that are generated from the nonprofit association CEO context often cause CEOs to use private reflection and dialogue with their spouse as primary learning mechanisms. The study concludes that the association CEO context uniquely and profoundly shapes what, how, and why CEOs learn. Perhaps lacking the financial security of lucrative severance payments, which are often specified in employment contracts of for‐profit CEOs, the nonprofit association CEO will often temper his or her actions to avoid personal vulnerability with a politically charged board of directors.     

Negatively correlated author seniority and the number of acknowledged people: Name-recognition as a signal of scientific merit?

Evidence from five general-interest journals in economics reveals an inverse relationship between author seniority and the number of colleagues whom authors choose to thank and acknowledge. The large seniority effect is insensitive to the inclusion of controls for the number of co-authors, number of pages, number of words in the title, and journal fixed effects. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that name-recognition is an important signal used by economists in evaluating scientific merit.     

Preschool children's ability to identify and label emotions

The present study examined preschoolers' and adults' ability to identify and label the emotions of happiness, sadness, and anger when presented through either the face channel alone, the voice channel alone, or the face and voice channels together. Subjects were also asked to rate the intensity of the expression. The results revealed that children aged three to five years are able to accurately identify and label emotions of happy, sad, and angry regardless of channel presentation. Similar results were obtained for the adult group. While younger children (33 to 53 months of age) were equally accurate in identifying the three emotions, older children (54 to 68 months of age) and adults made more incorrect responses when identifying expressions of sadness. Intensity ratings also differed according to the age of the subject and the emotion being rated.Support for this research was from a grant by the National Science Foundatin (#01523721) to Nathan A. Fox. The authors would like to thank Professor A. Caron for providing the original videotape, Joyce Dinsmoor for her help in data collection and the staff of the Center for Young Children for their cooperation.