Conflating Risk Assessment and Risk ManagementThe G-8 Communique on climate...
The summer G8 meeting is over, and the press is reporting that leaders were unable to reach agreement on climate change. For example: Reuters: “G8 leaders failed to persuade India and China to join a...
View ArticleWhat’s Suddenly Gone Wrong with the Oil Market?Part 2: Reaction to the...
Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed the establishment of a global regulatory regime to “stabilize” oil prices. We deconstructed the proposal...
View ArticleWhat’s Suddenly Wrong with the Oil Market?Part 3: Open disagreement about...
On July 8 we blogged on a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal under the joint bylines of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The two European leaders...
View ArticleInformation Quality in ElectionsHow to incentivize voter fraud
The Associated Press reports from Afghanistan on how the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission will adjust vote totals to account for fraud, which now appears to have been widespread in the August...
View ArticlePresidential Succession in Egypt:The unconstitutional epilogue
News reports say Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned. Apparently, the constitutional procedure for succession is not being followed, and instead there has been a coup. From Politico: After...
View ArticlePresidential Succession in Egypt:What does the constitution require?
As the eyes of the world focus on Egypt, Western news media appear to be following events the same way they would follow a US election — as a horse race. Who is up? Who is down? What to the experts...
View ArticleThe UK’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health Opines on How Not to...
Rebecca Smith and Martin Beckford of the Telegraph (UK) tell us the British experts have concluded that smacking (i.e., spanking) children for misbehavior doesn’t work and is equivalent to physical...
View ArticleRegulation without Enforcement Is No Regulation at All, Part 2: Standard...
We posted on August 6 about the order issued to Standard Chartered Bank by the New York State Department of Financial Services, alleging that its US subsidiary had “schemed with the Government of Iran...
View ArticleRegulation without Enforcement Is No Regulation at All, Part 3: New York, US,...
The Wall Street Journal’s Liz Rappaport, Max Colchester, and Damian Paletta report (subscription) that federal regulators are trying to quickly come up with a unified position with respect to Standard...
View ArticleEconomic Incentives and Climate Policy: The EU’s Emissions Trading System...
The EU Parliament recently considered, and apparently abandoned, a proposal that would have destroyed the economic credibility its Emission Trading System for greenhouse gases. The proposal would have...
View ArticleIs Mitigating Global Climate Change Incompatible with Democracy?
According to Bloomberg’s Sangwon Yoon, the executive secretary of of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change believes it is. In an interview conducted at Bloomberg’s New York office, Christiana...
View ArticleInformation Quality and War:Are casualty counts objective and reliable?
Reports of Palestinian civilian casualties during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge are known to lack objectivity because they are provided by Palestinian sources, which have incentives to exaggerate...
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