Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackson G. Lu ◽  
Julia J. Lee ◽  
Francesca Gino ◽  
Adam D. Galinsky
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Unethical Behavior ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Health Costs ◽  
Standard Errors ◽  
Clean Environment

Air pollution is a serious problem that affects billions of people globally. Although the environmental and health costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety. Analyses of a 9-year panel of 9,360 U.S. cities found that air pollution predicted six major categories of crime; these analyses accounted for a comprehensive set of control variables (e.g., city and year fixed effects, population, law enforcement) and survived various robustness checks (e.g., balanced panel, nonparametric bootstrapped standard errors). Three subsequent experiments involving American and Indian participants established the causal effect of psychologically experiencing a polluted (vs. clean) environment on unethical behavior. Consistent with our theoretical perspective, results revealed that anxiety mediated this effect. Air pollution not only corrupts people’s health, but also can contaminate their morality.

scholarly journals Understanding, Choosing, and Unifying Multilevel and Fixed Effect Approaches

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Chad Hazlett ◽  
Leonard Wainstein
Keyword(s):  
Random Effects ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Standard Errors ◽  
Point Estimate ◽  
Fe Model ◽  
Grouped Data ◽  
Coefficient Estimates ◽  
Political Science Education ◽  
Robust Standard Errors

Abstract When working with grouped data, investigators may choose between “fixed effects” models (FE) with specialized (e.g., cluster-robust) standard errors, or “multilevel models” (MLMs) employing “random effects.” We review the claims given in published works regarding this choice, then clarify how these approaches work and compare by showing that: (i) random effects employed in MLMs are simply “regularized” fixed effects; (ii) unmodified MLMs are consequently susceptible to bias—but there is a longstanding remedy; and (iii) the “default” MLM standard errors rely on narrow assumptions that can lead to undercoverage in many settings. Our review of over 100 papers using MLM in political science, education, and sociology show that these “known” concerns have been widely ignored in practice. We describe how to debias MLM’s coefficient estimates, and provide an option to more flexibly estimate their standard errors. Most illuminating, once MLMs are adjusted in these two ways the point estimate and standard error for the target coefficient are exactly equal to those of the analogous FE model with cluster-robust standard errors. For investigators working with observational data and who are interested only in inference on the target coefficient, either approach is equally appropriate and preferable to uncorrected MLM.

scholarly journals The Fine Line: Rural Justice, Public Health and Safety, and the Coronavirus Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110031
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sherman ◽  
Jennifer Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Law ◽  
Sheriff's Department ◽  
Public Health And Safety

In this article, we provide an early glimpse into how the issues of public health and safety played out in the rural United States during the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on Washington State. We utilize a combination of news articles and press releases, sheriff’s department Facebook posts, publicly available jail data, courtroom observations, in-depth interviews with those who have been held in rural jails, and interviews with rural law enforcement staff to explore this theme. As elected officials, rural sheriffs are beholden to populations that include many who are suspicious of science, liberal agendas, and anything that might threaten what they see as individual freedom. At the same time, they expect local law enforcement to employ punitive measures to control perceived criminal activity in their communities. These communities are often tightly knit, cohesive, and isolated, with high levels of social support both for community members and local leaders, including sheriffs and law enforcement. This complex social context often puts rural sheriffs and law enforcement officers in difficult positions. Given the multiple cross-pressures that rural justice systems faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore the circumstances in which they attempted to protect and advocate for the health and safety of both their incarcerated and their nonincarcerated populations. We find that certain characteristics of rural communities both help and hinder local law enforcement in efforts to combat the virus, but these characteristics typically favor informal norms of social control to govern community health. Thus, rural sheriff’s departments repeatedly chose strategies that limited their abilities to protect populations from the disease, in favor of appearing tough on crime and supportive of personal liberty.

scholarly journals Using genetic variants to evaluate the causal effect of serum vitamin D concentration on COVID-19 susceptibility, severity and hospitalization traits: a Mendelian randomization study

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyong Cui ◽  
Yun Tian
Keyword(s):  
Vitamin D ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Mendelian Randomization ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Serum Vitamin ◽  
Vitamin D Supplementation ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Global Test ◽  
Serum Vitamin D

Abstract Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has struck globally and is exerting a devastating toll on humans. The pandemic has led to calls for widespread vitamin D supplementation in public. However, evidence supporting the role of vitamin D in the COVID-19 pandemic remains controversial. Methods We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to analyze the causal effect of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration on COVID-19 susceptibility, severity and hospitalization traits by using summary-level GWAS data. The causal associations were estimated with inverse variance weighted (IVW) with fixed effects (IVW-fixed) and random effects (IVW-random), MR-Egger, weighted edian and MR Robust Adjusted Profile Score (MR.RAPS) methods. We further applied the MR Steiger filtering method, MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO) global test and PhenoScanner tool to check and remove single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were horizontally pleiotropic. Results We found no evidence to support the causal associations between the serum 25(OH)D concentration and the risk of COVID-19 susceptibility [IVW-fixed: odds ratio (OR) = 0.9049, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.8197–0.9988, p = 0.0473], severity (IVW-fixed: OR = 1.0298, 95% CI 0.7699–1.3775, p = 0.8432) and hospitalized traits (IVW-fixed: OR = 1.0713, 95% CI 0.8819–1.3013, p = 0.4878) using outlier removed sets at a Bonferroni-corrected p threshold of 0.0167. Sensitivity analyses did not reveal any sign of horizontal pleiotropy. Conclusions Our MR analysis provided precise evidence that genetically lowered serum 25(OH)D concentrations were not causally associated with COVID-19 susceptibility, severity or hospitalized traits. Our study did not provide evidence assessing the role of vitamin D supplementation during the COVID-19 pandemic. High-quality randomized controlled trials are necessary to explore and define the role of vitamin D supplementation in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Machiavellians, Unethical Workmates And Intention To Stay: An Empirical Exploration

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ruiz Palomino ◽  
Ricardo Martinez Canas
Keyword(s):  
Unethical Behavior ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Individual Characteristic ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
Intention To Stay ◽  
Resource Based View ◽  
Personal Trait ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Machiavellianism is usually studied as an individual characteristic affecting an individual’s ethical/unethical behavior in organizations, turning into an important influential factor in that matter. However, no studies have been conducted to date testing the influence of this personal trait on the individual’s intention to stay, which on the basis of the theoretical perspective of the Resource-Based View of the Firm, have important valuable implications for the organization. Furthermore, no empirical research has been conducted in relation to test the comfort that Machiavellians experiment when an unethical climate is perceived in the organization. This paper will study the effect that a Machiavellian personality has on the individual’s intention to stay and what happens if Machiavellians are within the organization in company of workmates who behave unethically in human interaction. Results obtained through the empirical analysis in a sample of Spanish banking employees are discussed and conclusions and implications both for academics and business professionals are presented.

scholarly journals Enhanced Digitalisation and Competition Law Enforcement in Slovakia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Mária T. Patakyová
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Competition Law Enforcement ◽  
Eu Competition Law

Abstract Digitalisation is a challenge from the regulatory point of view. Competition law, as a special type of regulation, is no exception to this. The article explores the risks of digitalisation, especially the ones related to the enhanced use of pricing algorithms. In theory, pricing algorithms are not easily assessed from the perspective of competition law, let alone its application in practice. The prohibition of anticompetitive agreements (pursuant to Article 101 of the Treaty on Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)) is applied with certain difficulty to agreements created by using pricing algorithms. This is an unfortunate situation, as horizontal agreements represent one of the worst infringements of EU competition law, including price cartels or bid rigging. Apart from presenting a theoretical background, the article dives into the practice of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (AMO) in order to assess which practical issues the AMO might face when applying the theoretical concepts. In sum, the article asks from a theoretical perspective which issues of competition law have been introduced (or deepened) by the enhanced digitalisation, looking in particular to pricing algorithms. On top of that, the article explores the issues which may be encountered in practice, taking the Slovak jurisdiction as the example. The willingness and feasibility of the AMO to enforce digital issues such as pricing algorithms is assessed based on the previous acts of the AMO as well as the new Act on Protection of Competition, adopted by the Slovak parliament on 11 May 2021.

scholarly journals Translated Transcripts From Covert Recordings Used for Evidence in Court: Issues of Reliability

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gilbert ◽  
Georgina Heydon
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
National Security ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Australian State ◽  
Using Data

Nation states increasingly apply electronic surveillance techniques to combat serious and organised crime after broadening and deepening their national security agendas. Covertly obtained recordings from telephone interception and listening devices of conversations related to suspected criminal activity in Languages Other Than English (LOTE) frequently contain jargon and/or code words. Community translators and interpreters are routinely called upon to transcribe intercepted conversations into English for evidentiary purposes. This paper examines the language capabilities of community translators and interpreters undertaking this work for law enforcement agencies in the Australian state of Victoria. Using data collected during the observation of public court trials, this paper presents a detailed analysis of Vietnamese-to-English translated transcripts submitted as evidence by the Prosecution in drug-related criminal cases. The data analysis reveals that translated transcripts presented for use as evidence in drug-related trials contain frequent and significant errors. However, these discrepancies are difficult to detect in the complex environment of a court trial without the expert skills of an independent discourse analyst fluent in both languages involved. As a result, trials tend to proceed without the reliability of the translated transcript being adequately tested.

scholarly journals Choice or constraint? Women’s weekly working hours in comparative perspective

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara Yerkes
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Job Characteristics ◽  
Fixed Effects Model ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Individual Household

This article analyses the influence of individualworking preferences onwomen’s labour market behaviour in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, addressingthe question: to what extent do individual preferences have a causal effect onwomen’s averageweeklyworking hours? Using longitudinal panel data from all three countries, a fixed-effects model is applied to measure the effect of individual preferences in year t-1 onwomen’s averageweeklyworking hours in year t. The data is pooled from 1992 to 2002. After controlling for a number of individual, household and job characteristics we see that individual preferences are most influential in the Netherlands. However, the data do not support the idea that choice is more important than constraint because individual, household and job characteristics remain significant. In addition, the results demonstrate that it is important to understand individual preferences within the institutional context. Therefore, within the theoretical and policy debates aboutwomen’s labour market participationwe must consider possible barriers that hinder women when making labour market “choices”.

The Causal Effect of Air Pollution on Anti-social Behaviour

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Lohmann ◽  
Elisabeth Gsottbauer ◽  
Jing You ◽  
Andreas Kontoleon
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Causal Effect
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