Getting Incentives Righter

Getting Incentives Righter
Author: Ronen Perry
Publisher:
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

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This book review critically evaluates Robert Cooter & Ariel Porat's "Getting Incentives Right" (Princeton University Press, 2014). The review makes four general arguments, each addresses the book from a different angle. First, the book provides universally applicable theoretical insights, but limits the critical evaluation of existing law, and the consequent reform proposals, to the United States. It thereby gives up accuracy, vigor, and audience. While this observation applies to the entire book, I provide several examples for the possible benefits of a comparative legal perspective.Second, C&P seem to miss problematic incentives that implementing their proposals might entail. Specifically, some of the most innovative proposals for reform involve upward or downward adjustments of the scope of damages for the purpose of securing injurers' (and sometimes also victims') efficient conduct. I show that in adjusting damages to properly incentivize injurers, these reforms may also create adverse incentives that the book overlooks.Third, the book is committed to classical economic analysis of law, and is therefore insensitive to empirical findings concerning human behavior. Behavioral studies give rise to serious doubts about the assumptions of classical economic analysis, and therefore pose challenges to most of its conclusions. I explain the general weaknesses of the book's methodology, and then demonstrate how some of its more concrete arguments could benefit from integrating existing behavioral research. In addition, I advocate empirical testing of C&P's theoretical arguments. Because the book aims to encourage desirable human behavior, the actual -- empirically observed -- impact of proposed legal reforms on human behavior is much more important than the theoretical prediction. Empirical testing obviously goes beyond the book's proclaimed goals, but without it all assumptions, conclusions, and recommendations remain inherently suspect.Fourth, in many contexts C&P propose legal reforms which aim to provide more efficient deterrence, but complicate the law to such an extent that the additional administrative costs may exceed the benefit of the modification. If promoting social welfare is the ultimate goal of private law, the tradeoff between more efficient deterrence and greater administrative costs is highly important. Yet the book generally overlooks or understates these costs. I provide several examples for inefficiencies that might ensue.

Freedom from Command and Control

Freedom from Command and Control
Author: John Seddon
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2019-02-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1439885087

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"Command and Control is failing us. There is a better way to design and manage work - a better way to make work work - but it remains unknown to the vast majority of managers." An adherent of the Toyota Production System, John Seddon explains how traditional top-down decision making within service organizations leads to managers

The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations

The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations
Author: Trevor Findlay
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2002
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780198292821

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One of the most vexing issues that has faced the international community since the end of the Cold War has been the use of force by the United Nations peacekeeping forces. UN intervention in civil wars, as in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda, has thrown into stark relief the difficulty of peacekeepers operating in situations where consent to their presence and activities is fragile or incomplete and where there is little peace to keep. Complex questions arise in these circumstances. When and how should peacekeepers use force to protect themselves, to protect their mission, or, most troublingly, to ensure compliance by recalcitrant parties with peace accords? Is a peace enforcement role for peacekeepers possible or is this simply war by another name? Is there a grey zone between peacekeeping and peace enforcement? Trevor Findlay reveals the history of the use of force by UN peacekeepers from Sinai in the 1950s to Haiti in the 1990s. He untangles the arguments about the use of force in peace operations and sets these within the broader context of military doctrine and practice. Drawing on these insights the author examines proposals for future conduct of UN operations, including the formulation of UN peacekeeping doctrine and the establishment of a UN rapid reaction force.

Harvest the Wind

Harvest the Wind
Author: Philip Warburg
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2012-04-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0807001082

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Winds sweeping across the Great Plains once robbed the Farm Belt of its future, stripping away overworked topsoil and creating the dreaded Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Today, those winds are bringing new hope to the declining rural communities of the central United States. Nowhere is wind's promise more palpable than in Cloud County, Kansas, home to the Meridian Way Wind Farm, whose turbines are boosting farm incomes and bringing green jobs to a community that has watched its children flock elsewhere. Modern wind power is the best thing to hit this stretch of midwestern prairie since the Union Pacific railroad. In Harvest the Wind, Warburg brings us the people behind the green economy-powered resurgence in Cloud County and communities like it across the United States. This corner of Kansas is the first stop on an odyssey that introduces readers to farmers, factory workers, biologists, and high-tech entrepreneurs--all players in a transformative industry that is taking hold across America and around the globe. Harvest the Wind serves as an earthly antidote to the more abstract treatises on global warming and green energy. By showing us how practical solutions are being implemented at the local level, Warburg offers an inspirational look at how we can all pursue a saner and more sustainable energy future.

Teaching Engineering, Second Edition

Teaching Engineering, Second Edition
Author: Phillip C. Wankat
Publisher: Purdue University Press
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2015-01-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1612493629

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The majority of professors have never had a formal course in education, and the most common method for learning how to teach is on-the-job training. This represents a challenge for disciplines with ever more complex subject matter, and a lost opportunity when new active learning approaches to education are yielding dramatic improvements in student learning and retention. This book aims to cover all aspects of teaching engineering and other technical subjects. It presents both practical matters and educational theories in a format useful for both new and experienced teachers. It is organized to start with specific, practical teaching applications and then leads to psychological and educational theories. The "practical orientation" section explains how to develop objectives and then use them to enhance student learning, and the "theoretical orientation" section discusses the theoretical basis for learning/teaching and its impact on students. Written mainly for PhD students and professors in all areas of engineering, the book may be used as a text for graduate-level classes and professional workshops or by professionals who wish to read it on their own. Although the focus is engineering education, most of this book will be useful to teachers in other disciplines. Teaching is a complex human activity, so it is impossible to develop a formula that guarantees it will be excellent. However, the methods in this book will help all professors become good teachers while spending less time preparing for the classroom. This is a new edition of the well-received volume published by McGraw-Hill in 1993. It includes an entirely revised section on the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and new sections on the characteristics of great teachers, different active learning methods, the application of technology in the classroom (from clickers to intelligent tutorial systems), and how people learn.

Defectors

Defectors
Author: Joseph Kanon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501121413

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The bestselling author of Leaving Berlin and Istanbul Passage “continues to demonstrate that he is up there with the very best...of spy thriller writers” (The Times, UK) with this “fascinating” (The Washington Post) novel about two brothers bound by blood but divided by loyalty. In 1949, Frank Weeks, agent of the newly formed CIA, was exposed as a Communist spy and fled the country to vanish behind the Iron Curtain. Now, twelve years later, he has written his memoirs, a KGB- approved project almost certain to be an international bestseller, and has asked his brother Simon, a publisher, to come to Moscow to edit the manuscript. It’s a reunion Simon both dreads and longs for. The book is sure to be filled with mischief and misinformation; Frank’s motives suspect, the CIA hostile. But the chance to see Frank, his adored older brother, proves irresistible. And at first Frank is still Frank—the same charm, the same jokes, the same bond of affection that transcends ideology. Then Simon begins to glimpse another Frank, capable of treachery and actively working for “the service.” He finds himself dragged into the middle of Frank’s new scheme, caught between the KGB and the CIA in a fatal cat and mouse game that only one of the brothers is likely to survive. “A finely paced Cold War thriller with [Kanon’s] usual flair for atmospheric detail, intriguing characters, and suspenseful action” (Library Journal), Defectors takes us to the heart of a world of secrets, where even the people we know best can’t be trusted and murder is just collateral damage.

And Yet ...

And Yet ...
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-01-07
Genre: American essays
ISBN: 9781782394556

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"This collection of essays brings together some of the finest pieces Hitchens published over the last two decades for the first time in one book, addressing with characteristic wit and erudition the subjects he is best known for, including: the case against God, faith and religious observance; the case for intervention in Iraq; indictments of towering political figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, and Henry Kissinger; and celebrations of the writers and thinkers whose work meant most to him"--

Responsible Innovation in Large Technological Systems

Responsible Innovation in Large Technological Systems
Author: J. Roland Ortt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2020-03-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000043223

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Large technological systems, such as seaports, nuclear power stations, wind farms and natural gas extraction, provide vital functions for society. And yet these large technological systems have an impact on different stakeholder groups in both positive and negative ways. This book defines responsible innovation and describes how both the innovation process and the resulting innovation outcome can be designed, created and implemented in a way that respects the various stakeholder groups involved and affected by the system. Taking a case-based approach, a number of large technological systems are profiled, including hydraulic engineering, nuclear energy, smart metering, and wind power. The values of each of the stakeholder groups, and the costs and benefits of the systems presented, are analysed. The book concludes by combining these insights to provide a framework for how responsible innovation of large technological systems can be implemented in practice. The book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in technology and innovation management, and corporate governance, CSR and business ethics.

Richter's Scale

Richter's Scale
Author: Susan Elizabeth Hough
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2007-01-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780691128078

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Chronicles the troubled life, scientific work, and poetry of the American scientist, Charles Richter, who developed a scale that measures the magnitude of earthquakes.

Iron Mines and Mining in New Jersey

Iron Mines and Mining in New Jersey
Author: William Shirley Bayley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 570
Release: 1910
Genre: Iron mines and mining
ISBN:

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