Are larger countries really more corrupt?

Several authors claim to provide evidence that government corruption is less severe in small than in large countries. The authors demonstrate that this relationship is an artifact of sample selection. Most corruption indicators provide ratings only for the countries in which multi-national investors have the greatest interest. These tend to include almost all large nations but, among small nations, only those that are well governed. The authors find that the relationship between corruption and country size disappears when one uses either a new corruption indicator with substantially increased country coverage or an alternative corruption indicator that covers all World Bank borrowers without regard to country size. They also show that the relationship between corruption and trade intensity--a variable strongly related to population--disappears when samples less subject to selection bias are used.National Governance,Governance Indicators,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis

Beastly Sodomites And The Shameless Urban Future

This article offers a reading of some texts that reflect what sodomy meant to this particular moment, that which followed the sodomy executions of 1726. I concentrate, in particular, on two: a polemical attack by a self-professed “Philogynus” published in a newspaper the week after the executions and a chapter of a half-fictional narrative supposedly penned by a celebrity criminal, James Dalton, who makes “pleasant and remarkable” adventures into the world of the mollies, accompanied by a man, Sukey Haws, who is “neither a downright Pick-pocket, a downright Sodomite, or a downright Bug, tho’ a Part of every one of them.” I proceed from the assumption that we can learn a lot about what these texts are doing by focusing on the moment when they are written and that this, in turn, can confound our assumptions about the cultural origins and range of anti-sodomitical sentiment. Key to my analysis is an attention to urbanity. The cultural afterlife of the executions in the public sphere of 1720s London tells us as much about the city as it does about sodomy. The private spaces that the mollies inhabited, the satirical texts that emerged to condemn them, the ideological tensions that formed around these descriptions: all were eminently urban, all moreover were features and events in the history of 1720s London. By embedding these texts into the culture and thought of 1720s London, we can better understand how the fear of the urban sodomite, as represented in the figure of the shameless, bestial molly, became part and parcel of the fear of urban life

KONSEP CINTA DALAM EKRANISASI CERPEN CINTA DI SAKU BELAKANG CELANA KARYA FAJAR NUGROS: SEBUAH KAJIAN SASTRA BANDINGAN

Penelitian ini memfokuskan pada pembandingan struktur naratif dan sinematik antara cerpen Cinta di Saku Belakang Celana dan film Cinta di Saku Celana karya Fajar Nugros. Selain itu, juga dilakukan pembandingan mengenai perilaku, peristiwa, dialog/monolog karakter, simbol yang ada di dalam cerpen dan film. Tujuannya adalah untuk mengetahui konsep cinta yang terdapat dalam cerpen dan film, serta bagaimana representasi konsep cinta dari cerpen ke film. Hal yang melatarbelakangi penelitian ini adalah adanya perbedaan konsep cinta yang terdapat dalam kedua karya tersebut yang masih menimbulkan kebingungan bagi para pembaca. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan sastra bandingan. Penelitian ini dikaitkan dengan hierarki kebutuhan Abraham Maslow, objek cinta menurut Erich Fromm, dan cinta dalam tasawuf menurut Rabi’ah Al Adawiyah. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif analisis komparatif. Data dan sumber data adalah file film Cinta di Saku Celana dan buku kumpulan cerpen karya Fajar Nugros berjudul I Didn’t Lose My Heart, I Sold It on Ebay!. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan bahwa konsep cinta yang terdapat pada cerpen adalah cinta kepada harta/materi, sedangkan pada film adalah cinta kepada wanita. Representasi konsep cinta dari cerpen Cinta di Saku Belakang Celana ke film Cinta di Saku Celana mengalami pergeseran menjadi sesuatu yang lebih realistis sehingga mampu diterima oleh penonton. Atas temuan itu dapat disimpulkan bahwa meskipun sebuah film berasal dari cerpen yang memiliki cerita sama, tetapi tetap saja terjadi pergeseran setelah diekranisasi. Pergeseran ini terjadi karena adanya perbedaan sasaran antara cerpen dan film. Sasaran cerpen adalah pembaca, sedangkan sasaran film adalah penonton

Which incentives work? An experimental analysis of incentives for trainers

One conjecture in the theory of incentives is that incentives based on broader outcomes may be better at motivating agents than incentives based on narrow measures. We designed an experiment to test these hypotheses using a ""prospective randomized evaluation procedure"" (PREP). We then apply PREP to training programs as typically funded by donors of economic development assistance. We randomly assigned 274 participating entrepreneurs in the Philippines to one of 26, simultaneous, one-day, training classes in marketing. Trainers were given cash incentives based on the average score of their ""students"" on a standardized test containing an alternative number of questions, which were randomly assigned to each class. We then examined outcomes based on student satisfaction ratings of the trainer. Our results suggest that incentives based on broad outcomes are more effective than incentives based on narrow outcomes. We conclude with ways to improve our approach as well as with a discussion of the implications for using prospective randomized evaluation for improving the evaluation of donor projects.randomized trials, project evaluation, teacher incentives, aid effectiveness