This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence l... more This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence levels. Using the data of the PISA test in math, confidence is decomposed into two dimensions: confidence in correct math knowledge and overconfidence in over-claiming false knowledge. The findings highlight that female students are not less confident than male students, but they are rather less overconfident. Furthermore, mathematical abilities have different effects on male and female students. While ability alone increases confidence and decreases overconfidence, the interaction effect of feminine gender and ability is negative. This means that the negative effect of ability on overconfidence is larger for female students than male ones, while the positive effect of ability on confidence is smaller for females. That being said, the negative gender gap in overconfidence against girls is greater for students in the higher quartiles of math scores than those in the lower quartiles. Also, the positive gender gap in confidence for girls is smaller for well-performing students than underperforming ones. The empirical evidence further reveals that such gender-asymmetric effects of ability can be explained by gender socialization that limits women’s roles and undermines their achievements.
Cybercrime is typically profiled as a skill-intensive crime committed by educated, young
criminal... more Cybercrime is typically profiled as a skill-intensive crime committed by educated, young criminals. This observation raises the controversial question of whether advanced knowledge and skills are a pull factor of cybercrime. In this paper, the linkage between e-skills and cybercrime is investigated using statistics from up to 28 European countries. Through the investigation, it is shown that electronic skills induce more cybercrime under weak institutions where the rules of law do not provide protection and incentives for productive entrepreneurial activities. This compound effect between e-skills and institutions suggests that institutional factors are crucial to allocating human capital between productive and criminal activities in cyberspace.
Liberal prostitution policy aims at improving labor conditions for prostitutes and protecting vic... more Liberal prostitution policy aims at improving labor conditions for prostitutes and protecting victims of forced prostitution. Given its policy mandates, legalized prostitution should be linked to better protection policies for trafficking victims and stronger anti-trafficking measures. In this paper, I investigate empirically whether or not legalized prostitution improves protection policies for victims, as it is presumed. The results of my analysis—using data from 149 countries for the period of 2001–2011—suggest that a liberal prostitution policy does not lead to better protection and, in some cases, legalized prostitution can be detrimental to protecting victims of human trafficking.
This paper investigates whether male soccer tradition can predict the success of female soccer. D... more This paper investigates whether male soccer tradition can predict the success of female soccer. Different from the existing literature, this paper utilizes panel data covering 175 countries during the 1991-2011 period, capturing country heterogeneity effects and time trends. An instrumental variable approach is further employed in order to identify causal relation. My findings do not support the widespread perception that male tradition determines female soccer attainments. On the other hand, my results indicate that women’s empowerment can be a driving force for the success of female soccer.
This paper investigates empirically whether cultural, racial, and linguistic similarities increas... more This paper investigates empirically whether cultural, racial, and linguistic similarities increase marriage migration. By using marriage migration data from South Korea, I find that the similarities between an origin country and South Korea pull more marriage migration, but the positive effects of the similarities are mainly driven by female marriage migrants from middle and low income countries. The pulling effects of the similarities can be explained by female deficits in the marital age group in South Korea that motivate Korean men to seek foreign brides who share similar traits with locals.
This paper investigates empirically whether prostitution reduces sex crimes. Theoretical predicti... more This paper investigates empirically whether prostitution reduces sex crimes. Theoretical predictions suggest two contradicting effects: substituting or complementing. By
using survey data of sex offenders in Korea, I find that prostitution increases the probability of committing sex crimes. Also, the experience of buying sex with a minor exacerbates the
severity of sex crimes. These results indicate that prostitution intensifies one’s propensities for more violent sexual behaviors, suggesting a complementary relationship between prostitution and sex crimes. The main findings do not alter after accounting for the endogeneity of the model by applying an exogenous instrument – the location of red-light districts.
Fairness is an important factor that promotes social trust by reducing social heterogeneity and g... more Fairness is an important factor that promotes social trust by reducing social heterogeneity and gaps between people. This paper empirically investigates whether gender equality – fairness between men and women – increases social trust by analyzing a global sample from the World Values Survey. The findings show that gender discriminatory values negatively affect the trust levels of both men and women, while women’s status in labor, education, and political dimensions is not a significant determinant. These results indicate that values regarding gender equality (fair values) are arguably more important to social trust than the actual socioeconomic conditions of women (fair conditions). Furthermore, the effect of gender equality varies across countries with different levels of gender endowments. Gender-related values are an important factor of social trust in countries where gender equality is relatively high, but its effect is minimal in countries with greater gender discrimination. This finding implies that fairness is a more essential social value in countries where equality is already established. Finally, the empirical investigation finds a stronger effect of gender equality on men than on women – especially in high gender-equal countries. This result contradicts the initial expectation that gender equality influences women more significantly and thus, the effect should be larger for them. A possible explanation for this result is that gender equality establishes a more trustworthy environment of men which increases their trust level more.
The Anti-trafficking Protocol reflects the interests of the major countries. Due to the high cost... more The Anti-trafficking Protocol reflects the interests of the major countries. Due to the high costs of compliance, countries will strategically select those obligations that will satisfy the major countries most efficiently with lower costs of compliance. Among the three main obligations of the Protocol – prevention, protection and prosecution – we predict that ratification leads to the strongest effect on compliance with the prevention policy because prevention reflects the key interests of the major countries, while triggering less domestic resistance and political costs to implement. Therefore, it is the most ‘efficient’ form of compliance. We empirically test this hypothesis by employing panel data from 147 countries during the period of 2001–2009. As the theory predicts, the ratification of the Protocol has the strongest effect on the prevention policy of a member state compared to protection and prosecution.
This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. Accord... more This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.
This paper empirically investigates whether globalization can improve women's rights. Using panel... more This paper empirically investigates whether globalization can improve women's rights. Using panel data from 150 countries over the 1981–2008 period, I find that social globalization positively affects women's economic and social rights. When controlling for social globalization, however, economic globalization does not have any effect on women's rights. Despite the positive effect of (social) globalization on women's standing in a country, (marginalized) foreign women, proxied with inflows of human trafficking, are not beneficiaries of such “female-friendly” globalization effects.
We develop an index measuring the three main dimensions – prosecution, protection, and prevention... more We develop an index measuring the three main dimensions – prosecution, protection, and prevention – of the anti-trafficking policies of the governments of up to 180 countries over the 2000−2010 period. Overall, developed countries perform better than the rest of the world; compliance with prosecution policy is highest, while governmental efforts to protect victims of human trafficking remain weakest. We employ the new indices to investigate which factors determine anti-trafficking policies. We find that compliance with anti-trafficking policies significantly decreases with corruption and is higher in countries that also respect the rights of women. We also find some tentative evidence for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking policies.
Objective
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on th... more Objective
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on women's rights.
Method
By measuring commitments to CEDAW based on reservations made by states, this article tests whether the convention enhances women's economic, social, and political rights.
Results
Using panel data for up to 147 countries for the period of 1981–2007, my findings suggest that CEDAW improves women's social rights advocating changes in cultural practice toward gender equality and this effect is conditional on the level of democracy of a member state. However, the joint effect of CEDAW and democracy does not seem to create any significant impact on women's political and economic rights, nor does CEDAW or democracy alone affect any dimension of women's rights.
Conclusion
These results indicate that collaborative efforts between international law and domestic institution are crucial to promoting gender equality.
The recent evaluation outcome of the 3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index shows that many countries f... more The recent evaluation outcome of the 3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index shows that many countries fail to provide proper protection for victims of human trafficking. Furthermore, prosecution efforts have recently declined worldwide due to negligence in enforcement. These findings suggest that the policy focus of human rights and the actual implementation of written law are central to successfully achieving anti-trafficking objectives.
This paper investigates relationship between migration and human trafficking in Germany by analyz... more This paper investigates relationship between migration and human trafficking in Germany by analyzing macro-level data from 150 countries. The empirical results suggest that migrant networks of a specific source country pull human trafficking from that respective country. However, the migration effect varies across different income levels of source countries. The positive effect of migration on human trafficking decreases as income increases, and furthermore, the effect is irrelevant to high income countries. In addition, the migration effect is particularly significant on the criminalisation side of human trafficking, but the evidence is less clear when it concerns the victimisation side.
Objectives
The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking poli... more Objectives The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking policy and to propose a way to improve the policy indices.
Methods The four existing indices—the 3P Index, the GRETA-based Scorecard, the EuroStat, and the U.S. Tier-Ranking—were compared regarding their contents, quantification methods, and the coverage of the data. In particular, the validity of the first two indices coded from qualitative information was examined through tests for linear correlation, and the content of the EuroStat was evaluated by multicovariate regression analyses.
Results Empirical results show that the evaluation outcomes of the 3P Index and the Scorecard are considerably different, arguably because of the noncomprehensive selection of policy requirments and subjective judgments in interpreting qualitative texts. On the other hand, EuroStat seems to measure the quality of anti-trafficking policy and therefore these statistics can be used as relevant indicators of policy evaluation.
Conclusion The empirical investigation of this article suggests that integrating textual and statistical information can be a way to improve the quality of an index evaluating anti-trafficking policy.
This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the rob... more This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the robustness of 70 push and 63 pull factors suggested in the literature. In doing so, I employ an extreme bound analysis, running more than two million regressions with all possible combinations of variables for up to 153 countries during the period of 1995–2010. My results show that crime prevalence robustly explains human trafficking both in destination and origin countries. Income level also has a robust impact, suggesting that the cause of human trafficking shares that of economic migration. Law enforcement matters more in origin countries than destination countries. Interestingly, a very low level of gender equality may have constraining effects on human trafficking outflow, possibly because gender discrimination limits female mobility that is necessary for the occurrence of human trafficking.
This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence l... more This paper investigates empirically how and why men and women are different in their confidence levels. Using the data of the PISA test in math, confidence is decomposed into two dimensions: confidence in correct math knowledge and overconfidence in over-claiming false knowledge. The findings highlight that female students are not less confident than male students, but they are rather less overconfident. Furthermore, mathematical abilities have different effects on male and female students. While ability alone increases confidence and decreases overconfidence, the interaction effect of feminine gender and ability is negative. This means that the negative effect of ability on overconfidence is larger for female students than male ones, while the positive effect of ability on confidence is smaller for females. That being said, the negative gender gap in overconfidence against girls is greater for students in the higher quartiles of math scores than those in the lower quartiles. Also, the positive gender gap in confidence for girls is smaller for well-performing students than underperforming ones. The empirical evidence further reveals that such gender-asymmetric effects of ability can be explained by gender socialization that limits women’s roles and undermines their achievements.
Cybercrime is typically profiled as a skill-intensive crime committed by educated, young
criminal... more Cybercrime is typically profiled as a skill-intensive crime committed by educated, young criminals. This observation raises the controversial question of whether advanced knowledge and skills are a pull factor of cybercrime. In this paper, the linkage between e-skills and cybercrime is investigated using statistics from up to 28 European countries. Through the investigation, it is shown that electronic skills induce more cybercrime under weak institutions where the rules of law do not provide protection and incentives for productive entrepreneurial activities. This compound effect between e-skills and institutions suggests that institutional factors are crucial to allocating human capital between productive and criminal activities in cyberspace.
Liberal prostitution policy aims at improving labor conditions for prostitutes and protecting vic... more Liberal prostitution policy aims at improving labor conditions for prostitutes and protecting victims of forced prostitution. Given its policy mandates, legalized prostitution should be linked to better protection policies for trafficking victims and stronger anti-trafficking measures. In this paper, I investigate empirically whether or not legalized prostitution improves protection policies for victims, as it is presumed. The results of my analysis—using data from 149 countries for the period of 2001–2011—suggest that a liberal prostitution policy does not lead to better protection and, in some cases, legalized prostitution can be detrimental to protecting victims of human trafficking.
This paper investigates whether male soccer tradition can predict the success of female soccer. D... more This paper investigates whether male soccer tradition can predict the success of female soccer. Different from the existing literature, this paper utilizes panel data covering 175 countries during the 1991-2011 period, capturing country heterogeneity effects and time trends. An instrumental variable approach is further employed in order to identify causal relation. My findings do not support the widespread perception that male tradition determines female soccer attainments. On the other hand, my results indicate that women’s empowerment can be a driving force for the success of female soccer.
This paper investigates empirically whether cultural, racial, and linguistic similarities increas... more This paper investigates empirically whether cultural, racial, and linguistic similarities increase marriage migration. By using marriage migration data from South Korea, I find that the similarities between an origin country and South Korea pull more marriage migration, but the positive effects of the similarities are mainly driven by female marriage migrants from middle and low income countries. The pulling effects of the similarities can be explained by female deficits in the marital age group in South Korea that motivate Korean men to seek foreign brides who share similar traits with locals.
This paper investigates empirically whether prostitution reduces sex crimes. Theoretical predicti... more This paper investigates empirically whether prostitution reduces sex crimes. Theoretical predictions suggest two contradicting effects: substituting or complementing. By
using survey data of sex offenders in Korea, I find that prostitution increases the probability of committing sex crimes. Also, the experience of buying sex with a minor exacerbates the
severity of sex crimes. These results indicate that prostitution intensifies one’s propensities for more violent sexual behaviors, suggesting a complementary relationship between prostitution and sex crimes. The main findings do not alter after accounting for the endogeneity of the model by applying an exogenous instrument – the location of red-light districts.
Fairness is an important factor that promotes social trust by reducing social heterogeneity and g... more Fairness is an important factor that promotes social trust by reducing social heterogeneity and gaps between people. This paper empirically investigates whether gender equality – fairness between men and women – increases social trust by analyzing a global sample from the World Values Survey. The findings show that gender discriminatory values negatively affect the trust levels of both men and women, while women’s status in labor, education, and political dimensions is not a significant determinant. These results indicate that values regarding gender equality (fair values) are arguably more important to social trust than the actual socioeconomic conditions of women (fair conditions). Furthermore, the effect of gender equality varies across countries with different levels of gender endowments. Gender-related values are an important factor of social trust in countries where gender equality is relatively high, but its effect is minimal in countries with greater gender discrimination. This finding implies that fairness is a more essential social value in countries where equality is already established. Finally, the empirical investigation finds a stronger effect of gender equality on men than on women – especially in high gender-equal countries. This result contradicts the initial expectation that gender equality influences women more significantly and thus, the effect should be larger for them. A possible explanation for this result is that gender equality establishes a more trustworthy environment of men which increases their trust level more.
The Anti-trafficking Protocol reflects the interests of the major countries. Due to the high cost... more The Anti-trafficking Protocol reflects the interests of the major countries. Due to the high costs of compliance, countries will strategically select those obligations that will satisfy the major countries most efficiently with lower costs of compliance. Among the three main obligations of the Protocol – prevention, protection and prosecution – we predict that ratification leads to the strongest effect on compliance with the prevention policy because prevention reflects the key interests of the major countries, while triggering less domestic resistance and political costs to implement. Therefore, it is the most ‘efficient’ form of compliance. We empirically test this hypothesis by employing panel data from 147 countries during the period of 2001–2009. As the theory predicts, the ratification of the Protocol has the strongest effect on the prevention policy of a member state compared to protection and prosecution.
This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. Accord... more This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.
This paper empirically investigates whether globalization can improve women's rights. Using panel... more This paper empirically investigates whether globalization can improve women's rights. Using panel data from 150 countries over the 1981–2008 period, I find that social globalization positively affects women's economic and social rights. When controlling for social globalization, however, economic globalization does not have any effect on women's rights. Despite the positive effect of (social) globalization on women's standing in a country, (marginalized) foreign women, proxied with inflows of human trafficking, are not beneficiaries of such “female-friendly” globalization effects.
We develop an index measuring the three main dimensions – prosecution, protection, and prevention... more We develop an index measuring the three main dimensions – prosecution, protection, and prevention – of the anti-trafficking policies of the governments of up to 180 countries over the 2000−2010 period. Overall, developed countries perform better than the rest of the world; compliance with prosecution policy is highest, while governmental efforts to protect victims of human trafficking remain weakest. We employ the new indices to investigate which factors determine anti-trafficking policies. We find that compliance with anti-trafficking policies significantly decreases with corruption and is higher in countries that also respect the rights of women. We also find some tentative evidence for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking policies.
Objective
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on th... more Objective
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on women's rights.
Method
By measuring commitments to CEDAW based on reservations made by states, this article tests whether the convention enhances women's economic, social, and political rights.
Results
Using panel data for up to 147 countries for the period of 1981–2007, my findings suggest that CEDAW improves women's social rights advocating changes in cultural practice toward gender equality and this effect is conditional on the level of democracy of a member state. However, the joint effect of CEDAW and democracy does not seem to create any significant impact on women's political and economic rights, nor does CEDAW or democracy alone affect any dimension of women's rights.
Conclusion
These results indicate that collaborative efforts between international law and domestic institution are crucial to promoting gender equality.
The recent evaluation outcome of the 3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index shows that many countries f... more The recent evaluation outcome of the 3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index shows that many countries fail to provide proper protection for victims of human trafficking. Furthermore, prosecution efforts have recently declined worldwide due to negligence in enforcement. These findings suggest that the policy focus of human rights and the actual implementation of written law are central to successfully achieving anti-trafficking objectives.
This paper investigates relationship between migration and human trafficking in Germany by analyz... more This paper investigates relationship between migration and human trafficking in Germany by analyzing macro-level data from 150 countries. The empirical results suggest that migrant networks of a specific source country pull human trafficking from that respective country. However, the migration effect varies across different income levels of source countries. The positive effect of migration on human trafficking decreases as income increases, and furthermore, the effect is irrelevant to high income countries. In addition, the migration effect is particularly significant on the criminalisation side of human trafficking, but the evidence is less clear when it concerns the victimisation side.
Objectives
The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking poli... more Objectives The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking policy and to propose a way to improve the policy indices.
Methods The four existing indices—the 3P Index, the GRETA-based Scorecard, the EuroStat, and the U.S. Tier-Ranking—were compared regarding their contents, quantification methods, and the coverage of the data. In particular, the validity of the first two indices coded from qualitative information was examined through tests for linear correlation, and the content of the EuroStat was evaluated by multicovariate regression analyses.
Results Empirical results show that the evaluation outcomes of the 3P Index and the Scorecard are considerably different, arguably because of the noncomprehensive selection of policy requirments and subjective judgments in interpreting qualitative texts. On the other hand, EuroStat seems to measure the quality of anti-trafficking policy and therefore these statistics can be used as relevant indicators of policy evaluation.
Conclusion The empirical investigation of this article suggests that integrating textual and statistical information can be a way to improve the quality of an index evaluating anti-trafficking policy.
This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the rob... more This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the robustness of 70 push and 63 pull factors suggested in the literature. In doing so, I employ an extreme bound analysis, running more than two million regressions with all possible combinations of variables for up to 153 countries during the period of 1995–2010. My results show that crime prevalence robustly explains human trafficking both in destination and origin countries. Income level also has a robust impact, suggesting that the cause of human trafficking shares that of economic migration. Law enforcement matters more in origin countries than destination countries. Interestingly, a very low level of gender equality may have constraining effects on human trafficking outflow, possibly because gender discrimination limits female mobility that is necessary for the occurrence of human trafficking.
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criminals. This observation raises the controversial question of whether advanced knowledge and
skills are a pull factor of cybercrime. In this paper, the linkage between e-skills and cybercrime is
investigated using statistics from up to 28 European countries. Through the investigation, it is
shown that electronic skills induce more cybercrime under weak institutions where the rules of
law do not provide protection and incentives for productive entrepreneurial activities. This
compound effect between e-skills and institutions suggests that institutional factors are crucial to
allocating human capital between productive and criminal activities in cyberspace.
175 countries during the 1991-2011 period, capturing country heterogeneity effects and time trends. An instrumental variable approach is further employed in order to identify causal relation. My findings do not support the widespread perception that male tradition determines female soccer attainments. On the other hand, my results indicate that women’s empowerment can be a driving force for the success of female soccer.
men to seek foreign brides who share similar traits with locals.
using survey data of sex offenders in Korea, I find that prostitution increases the probability of committing sex crimes. Also, the experience of buying sex with a minor exacerbates the
severity of sex crimes. These results indicate that prostitution intensifies one’s propensities for more violent sexual behaviors, suggesting a complementary relationship between prostitution and sex crimes. The main findings do not alter after accounting for the endogeneity of the model by applying an exogenous instrument – the location of red-light districts.
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on women's rights.
Method
By measuring commitments to CEDAW based on reservations made by states, this article tests whether the convention enhances women's economic, social, and political rights.
Results
Using panel data for up to 147 countries for the period of 1981–2007, my findings suggest that CEDAW improves women's social rights advocating changes in cultural practice toward gender equality and this effect is conditional on the level of democracy of a member state. However, the joint effect of CEDAW and democracy does not seem to create any significant impact on women's political and economic rights, nor does CEDAW or democracy alone affect any dimension of women's rights.
Conclusion
These results indicate that collaborative efforts between international law and domestic institution are crucial to promoting gender equality.
The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking policy and to propose a way to improve the policy indices.
Methods
The four existing indices—the 3P Index, the GRETA-based Scorecard, the EuroStat, and the U.S. Tier-Ranking—were compared regarding their contents, quantification methods, and the coverage of the data. In particular, the validity of the first two indices coded from qualitative information was examined through tests for linear correlation, and the content of the EuroStat was evaluated by multicovariate regression analyses.
Results
Empirical results show that the evaluation outcomes of the 3P Index and the Scorecard are considerably different, arguably because of the noncomprehensive selection of policy requirments and subjective judgments in interpreting qualitative texts. On the other hand, EuroStat seems to measure the quality of anti-trafficking policy and therefore these statistics can be used as relevant indicators of policy evaluation.
Conclusion
The empirical investigation of this article suggests that integrating textual and statistical information can be a way to improve the quality of an index evaluating anti-trafficking policy.
criminals. This observation raises the controversial question of whether advanced knowledge and
skills are a pull factor of cybercrime. In this paper, the linkage between e-skills and cybercrime is
investigated using statistics from up to 28 European countries. Through the investigation, it is
shown that electronic skills induce more cybercrime under weak institutions where the rules of
law do not provide protection and incentives for productive entrepreneurial activities. This
compound effect between e-skills and institutions suggests that institutional factors are crucial to
allocating human capital between productive and criminal activities in cyberspace.
175 countries during the 1991-2011 period, capturing country heterogeneity effects and time trends. An instrumental variable approach is further employed in order to identify causal relation. My findings do not support the widespread perception that male tradition determines female soccer attainments. On the other hand, my results indicate that women’s empowerment can be a driving force for the success of female soccer.
men to seek foreign brides who share similar traits with locals.
using survey data of sex offenders in Korea, I find that prostitution increases the probability of committing sex crimes. Also, the experience of buying sex with a minor exacerbates the
severity of sex crimes. These results indicate that prostitution intensifies one’s propensities for more violent sexual behaviors, suggesting a complementary relationship between prostitution and sex crimes. The main findings do not alter after accounting for the endogeneity of the model by applying an exogenous instrument – the location of red-light districts.
This article empirically investigates the impact of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on women's rights.
Method
By measuring commitments to CEDAW based on reservations made by states, this article tests whether the convention enhances women's economic, social, and political rights.
Results
Using panel data for up to 147 countries for the period of 1981–2007, my findings suggest that CEDAW improves women's social rights advocating changes in cultural practice toward gender equality and this effect is conditional on the level of democracy of a member state. However, the joint effect of CEDAW and democracy does not seem to create any significant impact on women's political and economic rights, nor does CEDAW or democracy alone affect any dimension of women's rights.
Conclusion
These results indicate that collaborative efforts between international law and domestic institution are crucial to promoting gender equality.
The objectives of this article are to review existing indices on anti-trafficking policy and to propose a way to improve the policy indices.
Methods
The four existing indices—the 3P Index, the GRETA-based Scorecard, the EuroStat, and the U.S. Tier-Ranking—were compared regarding their contents, quantification methods, and the coverage of the data. In particular, the validity of the first two indices coded from qualitative information was examined through tests for linear correlation, and the content of the EuroStat was evaluated by multicovariate regression analyses.
Results
Empirical results show that the evaluation outcomes of the 3P Index and the Scorecard are considerably different, arguably because of the noncomprehensive selection of policy requirments and subjective judgments in interpreting qualitative texts. On the other hand, EuroStat seems to measure the quality of anti-trafficking policy and therefore these statistics can be used as relevant indicators of policy evaluation.
Conclusion
The empirical investigation of this article suggests that integrating textual and statistical information can be a way to improve the quality of an index evaluating anti-trafficking policy.