How Doing Business Jeopardizes Institutional Reform

Simplifying business formalization and eliminating outdated formalities is often a good way of improving the institutional environment for firms. Unfortunately, the World Bank's Doing Business project is harming such policies by promoting a reform agenda that gives them priority even in countries lacking functional business registers, so that the reformed registers keep producing valueless information, but faster. Its methodology also promotes biased measurements that impede proper consideration of the essential tradeoffs in the design of formalization institutions. If Doing Business is to stop jeopardizing its true objectives and contribute positively to scientific progress, institutional reform and economic development, then its aims, governance and methodology need to change.

Iowa African-American Journal, February 2006, Black History Month Special Edition

Newsletter for the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans. Black History Month Special Edition.

Iowa African-American Journal, February 2005, Black History Month Special Edition

Newsletter for the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans. Black History Month Special Edition.

The politics of contaminated sites management : institutional regime change and actor's mode of participation in the environmental management of the Bonfol Chemical Waste Landfill in Switzerland

By the end of the 1970s, contaminated sites had emerged as one of the most complex and urgent environmental issues affecting industrialized countries. The authors show that small and prosperous Switzerland is no exception to the pervasive problem of sites contamination, the legacy of past practices in waste management having left some 38,000 contaminated sites throughout the country. This book outlines the problem, offering evidence that open and polycentric environmental decision-making that includes civil society actors is valuable. They propose an understanding of environmental management of contaminated sites as a political process in which institutions frame interactions between strategic actors pursuing sometimes conflicting interests. In the opening chapter, the authors describe the influences of politics and the power relationships between actors involved in decision-making in contaminated sites management, which they term a "wicked problem." Chapter Two offers a theoretical framework for understanding institutions and the environmental management of contaminated sites. The next five chapters present a detailed case study on environmental management and contaminated sites in Switzerland, focused on the Bonfol Chemical Landfill. The study and analysis covers the establishment of the landfill under the first generation of environmental regulations, its closure and early remediation efforts, and the gambling on the remediation objectives, methods and funding in the first decade of the 21st Century. The concluding chapter discusses the question of whether the strength of environmental regulations, and the type of interactions between public, private, and civil society actors can explain the environmental choices in contaminated sites management. Drawing lessons from research, the authors debate the value of institutional flexibility for dealing with environmental issues such as contaminated sites.

Higher education in nursing: the faculty work process in different institutional contexts

Objective To analyze the characteristics of faculty work in nursing higher education. Method An exploratory qualitative study with a theoretical-methodological framework of dialectical and historical materialism. The faculty work process was adopted as the analytical category, grounded on conceptions of work and professionalism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 faculty members from three higher education institutions in the city of São Paulo, classified according to the typology of institutional contexts. Results The faculty members at these higher education institutions are a heterogeneous group, under different working conditions. Intensification and precarious conditions of the faculty work is common to all three contexts, although there are important distinctions in the practices related to teaching, research and extension. Conclusion Faculty professionalization can be the starting point for analyzing and coping with such a distinct reality of faculty work and practice.


‘Poverty…, of course we have it…’ Notes for the analysis of an institutional

Based on testimonies by Cape Verdean individuals with different social condition and institutional responsibility on one hand and, on the other hand, on the consideration of the historical burden and the policies adopted after the independence, this article is focused on the creation of a social conscience about poverty and the manifestations of micro-violence through the action of institutions and NGOs committed in the eradication of poverty and prevention of behaviors potentially generating and perpetuating micro-violence and social exclusion. The political environment and the perception of an involvement of Cape Verdeans in a common destiny are deemed crucial to the achievement of these purposes.

Do you work or do you study? Children's work in a comparative historical perspective

In this paper we compare two historical scenarios very different one to each other bothin institutional and geographical terms. What they have in common is the situation ofrelative poverty of most of the population. On the one side we are dealing withhistorical industrializing Catalonia in the North East of Spain, a country exhibiting pooreconomic yields in the context of European and non European industrializing nations inthe 19th century. We compare children s work patterns in 19th century Catalonia withthose of current developing countries in Latin America, Africa and South and East Asia.This kind of exercise in which the nexus of the comparison are the levels of wealth ofcountries that are unsuccessful to achieve high standards of economic growth allows usto combine the micro historical analysis (in the Catalan case) with the macrocomparative approach in current developing countries. By means of both, the microhistorical analysis and the macro regression analysis we obtain the result that adultwomen s skills and real wages are a key factor when we want to explain the patterns ofchildren work. While female real wages increased a sharp rate in 19th century Cataloniawe obtain very different results in the case of developing countries. This differentgender bias helps to explain why in some cases children continue to work and also whysome parts of the world continue to be poor according to our regression analysis.

Common law and civil law as pro-market adaptations

We argue that in the development of the Western legal system, cognitive departures are themain determinant of the optimal degree of judicial rule-making. Judicial discretion, seen here as the main distinguishing feature between both legal systems, is introduced in civil law jurisdictions to protect, rather than to limit, freedom of contract against potential judicial backlash. Such protection was unnecessary in common law countries, where free-market relations enjoyed safer judicial ground mainly due to their relatively gradual evolution, their reliance on practitioners as judges, and the earlier development of institutional checks and balances that supported private property rights. In our framework, differences in costs and benefits associated with self-interest and lack of information require a cognitive failure to be active.

Market and institutional determinants in the regulation of conveyancers

Demand for law professionals in the conveyancing of property is decreasing because of market and institutional changes. On the market side, many transactions feature large, well-known parties and standardized transactions, which make professionals less effective or necessary for protecting the parties to private contracts. On the institutional side, public titling makes it possible to dispense with a broadening set of their former functions. Recording of deeds made professionals redundant as depositories of deeds and reduced demand for them to design title guarantees. Effective registration of rights increasingly substitutes professionals for detecting title conflicts with third parties and gathering their consent. Market changes undermine the information asymmetry rationale for regulating conveyancing, while institutional changes facilitate liberalizing not only conduct but also license regulations. These arguments are supported here by disentangling the logic of titling systems and presenting empirical evidence from the European and USA markets.