Search

Foreign Direct Investment in the United States is analyzed using a stochastic production function with FDI as an input. Low but significant technical inefficiency is found across American states similar to earlier studies but now with FDI explicitly accounted for. FDI is found to have a low but significant impact on regional economic growth. Supporting the literature, little evidence is found for human capital causing more FDI or GSP growth at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports of falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, and other violations of research integrity across the sciences are on the increase. Joining with other disciplines to actively protect the integrity of the marriage and family therapy (MFT) research literature is of utmost importance to both the discipline and the future of the profession. To inform the issues raised, results are presented of an informal survey among MFT clinical members on their perceptions about the literature together with their preferences for how best to protect its integrity. This article initiates an important discussion about the honesty of MFT research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that family life education practitioners should be guided by a code of ethics. Professionals, consumers and those responsible for regulating mental health service providers have become increasingly concerned with the quality of professional practice. Among the professions dedicated to the well-being of families, marriage and family therapy and family life education are not equally regulated. This nonregulation of family life education is not easily reconciled, especially given the popularity of family life education and some psycho-educational programs For instance, thousands of students take academic courses in family life in high schools and family science on many college campuses. The proposition advanced in this paper is that the practice of family life education requires regulation. It will be argued that the regulatory mechanisms in place for marriage and family therapy do not cover all the needs of family life education because therapy services and education services are different.

In this paper, foreign direct investment (FDI) into Russia's regions during the period 1993-95 is analysed using recently available regional data. Russia's regions are shown to be much richer than China's, but much poorer than US states, though with far less FDI than either country. FDI into the regions is also low compared to both Western and Eastern European countries, but has grown substantially from very low levels. Relatively higher FDI is found to occur when crime is lower, market size is bigger and risk is less. Surprisingly, the education of the workforce is found to be important only in the two major cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow, suggesting FDI into Russia's regions is not drawn by cheap labour. Unlike other countries, no evidence for either infrastructure or privatization influencing FDI could be found. The use of tax breaks and exemptions to attract FDI may be short-sighted as the consequent cut in budget revenues hampers the ability of the region to fight crime and to lower business risk, resulting in an implicit marginal tax increase for future foreign investors that exceeds any benefits from shortterm tax breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the Ethics At-Risk Test, a self-administered diagnostic tool designed to help marriage and family therapists reduce their level of risk for violating ethical practice standards. It informs practitioners about their current level of vulnerability to an ethics breech and recommends a course of action. Areas of practice include dual relationships and ethics code violations that occur most often among marriage and family therapists. Most items assess the presence of precipitating conditions which in themselves are not unethical but which may lead to an ethics violation. The test will both aid practicing clinicians and raise important ethical issues for discussion in the training of marriage and family therapists.