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Daily Archives: October 7, 2013

Paper – Two Concepts of Corruption

Two Concepts of Corruption, Dennis F. Thompson – Harvard University – Department of Government. August 1, 2013.

    “To combat institutional corruption, we need to distinguish it clearly from individual corruption. Individual corruption occurs when an institution or its officials receive a benefit that does not serve the institution and provides a service through relationships external to the institution under conditions that reveal a quid pro quo motive. Institutional corruption occurs when an institution or its officials receive a benefit that is directly useful to performing an institutional purpose, and systematically provides a service to the benefactor under conditions that tend to undermine procedures that support the primary purposes of the institution. Institutional corruption does not receive the attention it deserves partly because it is so closely (and often unavoidably) related to conduct that is part of the job of a responsible official, the perpetrators are often seen as (and are) respectable officials just trying to do their job, and the legal system and public opinion are more comfortable with condemning wrongdoing that has a corrupt motive. Yet institutional corruption, which is usually built into the routines and practices of organizations, is usually more damaging to the institution and society than individual corruption, which in advanced societies typically consists of isolated acts of misconduct with effects limited in time and scope.”

Study – The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators

The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators: an audit of international government surveillance systems – Dan Werb; Thomas Kerr; Bohdan Nosyk2; Steffanie Strathdee; Julio Montaner; Evan Wood. BMJ Open 2013;3:e003077 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-003077 “Objectives: Illegal drug use continues to be a major threat to community health and safety. We used international drug surveillance databases to assess the relationship between multiple long-term estimates of illegal drug price… Continue Reading

Ethanol blending provides another proxy for gasoline demand

Energy Information Administration – October 7, 2013 “Measuring current U.S. gasoline demand can be difficult, as there are 160,000 retail gasoline stations and more than 250 million vehicles in the country. EIA traditionally used average daily product supplied (the dark blue line in the accompanying graph), calculated from weekly and monthly data on refinery operations… Continue Reading

IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) October 2013

World Economic Outlook (WEO) Transitions and Tensions October 2013 – Chapters 3 and 4, October 2013. “Chapter 3 explores how output comovements have evolved in recent years and how they are influenced by various shocks and linkages. It assesses the possible output spillovers from those shocks that most concern policymakers, including policy shocks, such as… Continue Reading

IMF Global Financial Stability Report, October 2013

Global Financial Stability Report: A Report by the Monetary and Capital Markets Department on Market Developments and Issues, Last Updated Wednesday, October 02 2013 “October 2013:  Chapter 2 looks at efforts by policymakers to revive weak credit growth, which has been seen by many as a primary reason behind the slow economic recovery. The chapter argues that… Continue Reading

October 2013 Update to TIGER: Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery

Brookings – Editor’s Note: In collaboration with the Financial Times (FT), Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda of Brookings have developed a set of composite indexes which track the global economic recovery. The Financial Times has produced the Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery (TIGER) interactive map, which appears on the Financial Times Web site. “The global… Continue Reading

Education Pays 2013

Education Pays 2013: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society “documents the ways in which both individuals and society as a whole benefit from increased levels of education. The report examines differences in the earnings and employment patterns of U.S. adults with different levels of education. It compares health-related behaviors, reliance on public… Continue Reading

Backgrounder – Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)

Sergie, Mohammed Aly. Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking). Oct 2013. Council on Foreign Relations. “Geologists have known about vast reservoirs of natural gas and oil trapped in shale formations across the United States for decades, but extraction techniques weren’t available and the resources remained untapped. Shale didn’t factor into most serious analyses of U.S. energy prospects until the… Continue Reading

Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013

“In its report on the Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013 – A Generation at Risk [May 8, 2013] – the International Labour Office (ILO) examines the continuing job crisis affecting young people in many parts of the world. It provides updated statistics on global and regional youth unemployment rates and presents ILO policy recommendations to… Continue Reading