Reviewing the Relationship Between the Voluntary Sector and the State in Britain in the 1990s

There have been three major analytical reviews that have examined the voluntary–statutory relationship during the 1990s, one undertaken by government in 1990 and the other two independently in 1993 and 1996. This article suggests that an historical understanding of this relationship (especially in terms of its sociopolitical dimensions) is crucial, but was missing from the 1990 review and misrepresented by the 1993 review. The 1996 document has been subjected to harsh criticism, but it was arguably sounder in its understanding of this fundamental issue. The national compact between representatives of the voluntary sector and the state, launched at the end of 1998, has built upon the arguments put forward in 1996. However, the paper suggests that given the vexed history of partnership between the sectors and the extent to which the statutory sector has become the dominant partner at the end of the 20th century, it would be premature to be overly optimistic. The paper examines three major shifts in the voluntary–statutory relationship during the 20th century, before reviewing the 1990s' documents in more detail.     

Certifiable Pre‐Play Communication: Full Disclosure

This article asks when communication with certifiable information leads to complete information revelation. We consider Bayesian games augmented by a pre‐play communication phase in which announcements are made publicly. We first characterize the augmented games in which there exists a fully revealing sequential equilibrium with extremal beliefs (i.e., any deviation is attributed to a single type of the deviator). Next, we define a class of games for which existence of a fully revealing equilibrium is equivalent to a richness property of the evidence structure. This characterization enables us to provide different sets of sufficient conditions for full information disclosure that encompass and extend all known results in the literature, and are easily applicable. We use these conditions to obtain new insights in games with strategic complementarities, voting with deliberation, and persuasion games with multidimensional types.     

Information is Power: Public Disclosure of Information in the Planning Decision-Making Process

The legitimacy and effectiveness of community engagement in planning lies in the extent to which the public can access the information required for informed decision-making. The control of ‘commercially sensitive material’ by local authorities acting as gatekeepers is a therefore a challenging area of information management within the planning application process. Through the analysis of key cases in England, this paper identifies that regulations do provide for ‘commercially sensitive material’ to be released to communities in many cases, but there is a need to achieve better transparency for communities about what information should be available about a development proposal.     

关于我国企业社会责任会计信息披露问题的研究

社会责任会计要求企业在追求经济效益的同时也要兼顾社会效益。为了使企业相关利益方了解企业是否以及在多大程度上满足了这一要求,企业必须进行有关社会责任会计信息的披露。文章通过选择六个具有代表性的企业作为案例并对其进行分析,揭示了我国企业社会责任会计信息披露中存在的主要问题,得出我国企业社会责任会计信息披露的共同特点和现状是:理论上急需,实务上空白。最后,文章对建立和完善我国企业社会责任会计信息披露体系的问题提出了四项建议性的意见。     

基于会计信息披露的企业间流动性风险传染研究

从信息经济学视角,借助复杂网络理论构建了企业间流动性关联网络及其风险传染网络模型,综合分析了不同关联网络结构以及会计信息披露因素联动影响下的企业间流动性风险传染机制与演化特征。研究得到的主要结论有:无标度关联网络对于企业间流动性风险更具稳健性,并且在网络结构确定情况下,企业间流动性风险传染概率与会计信息披露的稳健性、透明度、及时性以及质量呈负相关关系,与市场噪音呈正相关关系,而与会计信息披露策略呈正“U”型关系。会计信息披露的稳健性、透明度、及时性以及质量同步增大,能够有效降低企业间流动性风险传染概率。会计信息披露策略是诱发企业间流动性风险传染的核心因素,并对会计信息披露的稳健性、透明度、及时性以及质量的实际效果发挥弱化效应。市场噪音对企业间流动性风险传染的强化效应强于其他会计信息披露因素的弱化效应。通过深入挖掘不同会计信息披露因素间联动性对企业间流动性风险传染的扰动效应,能够为金融监管部门制定流动性风险监管策略提供理论依据。     

个人信息刑法保护的理性思考

从侵犯个人信息犯罪之立法变革可以看出对此类犯罪的刑法规制缺乏统一的前置法、刑法条文表述不准确、处罚行为范围较狭隘、救济程序不完善等诸多问题。为合理规制侵犯个人信息类犯罪,建议通过加快统一前置法的立法进程、删除刑法条文中不恰当的表述、明确刑法对此类犯罪的处罚范围、完善法律救济程序、建立国际间合作等方式,加强对个人信息的全面保护。     

From Social Instrument to Migration Management Tool: Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes – The Case of Belgium

The return of migrants to their country of origin and the development of efficient return measures have become more prominent on the political agenda of many Western European countries. Since policymakers prefer ‘voluntary’ return, governmental programmes to support the return of migrants – Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programmes – were developed as far back as the 1970s and have played an increasingly important role in migration policy over the last three decades. At the same time, general migration policy and welfare systems have undergone profound change, including in the meanings and connotations attached to social welfare, return support and return policy. This raises questions about the implications of these broader societal and policy changes for the widely implemented AVR programmes. In this article, we discuss the interpretation and evolution of AVR programmes by analyzing how one particular European country, Belgium, has developed its AVR programme over time. We explore the evolution of the programme's content, target group and institutional positioning, which shed light on its changing goals and are closely linked to a broader shift towards a ‘managerial’ approach to migration policy and the welfare state. We argue that return support may become decontextualized when it adopts ‘conditional entitlement’ as a central principle. This leads to strong differentiation, based on personal responsibility, between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ migrants, the levelling down of the support given to returnees, and a more coercive voluntary return policy in which social support is linked to deportation.     

微观统计数据的公布及相应的保密方法

 目前国内大多数的数据机构所收集的微观数据并没有直接对外公布。由于微观层面的数据不能为外界所用，也造成了一种社会资源的浪费。我们认为，数据机构采用适当的方法对微观数据进行处理，然后对外公布处理后的数据，可以较好地解决这一问题。一方面，原始数据的绝大部分信息得以保存，可以满足不同数据用户的需求，另一方面，数据泄密的风险也被大大降低，能满足数据机构保密的需求。 本文的主要目的是通过介绍国外的一些普遍采用的微观数据的处理方法，以期为国内数据机构公布微观数据提供理论依据和一些切实可行的操作方法，借以抛砖引玉，希望可以引起国内数据机构的重视及统计学界在此方面更多的研究和创新。     

Making available information from studies sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry: some current practices

Since the web-based registry ClinicalTrials.gov was launched on 29 February 2000, the pharmaceutical industry has made available an increasing amount of information about the clinical trials that it sponsors. The process has been spurred on by a number of factors including a wish by the industry to provide greater transparency regarding clinical trial data; and has been both aided and complicated by the number of institutions that have a legitimate interest in guiding and defining what should be made available. This article reviews the history of this process of making information about clinical trials publicly available. It provides a reader's guide to the study registries and the databases of results; and looks at some indicators of consistency in the posting of study information.     

The Interplay between Information Acquisition and Quality Disclosure

This study investigates the interactions between a manufacturer's information acquisition and quality disclosure strategies in a supply chain setting in which the manufacturer privately knows his product quality but is uncertain about consumer preferences. We argue that the manufacturer should treat his information acquisition and quality disclosure decisions as an integrated process because these decisions can significantly influence a retailer's rational inferences about product quality and can have conflicting effects on his own profitability. Although information acquisition helps a manufacturer subsequently craft better pricing and quality disclosure strategies, it also leaks certain product information to the retailer, thus helping the retailer better estimate product quality. Therefore, in equilibrium, a manufacturer may choose not to acquire any consumer information, even when such acquisition is costless. Moreover, we find that this adverse effect of acquisition is highly dependent on the cost of disclosure and consumers’ preference differentiation. Increased consumer preference differentiation may have a non‐monotonic relationship with the manufacturer's profit, and information acquisition can become detrimental to the manufacturer once the disclosure cost is sufficiently high.