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To date, Congressional ideology has been considered to be the portion of a roll call vote that could not be explained by self‐interested behavior. This paper suggests that the scope of what is considered self‐interested behavior must be expanded. We find evidence that Congressmen may be the agent in a principal agent relationship, not only to voters and PACs as commonly thought, but also to industries that may offer Congressmen employment when they leave the House.

This paper aims to examine why a legislature would repeal an interest group deal. Design/methodology/approach–This paper provides a case study of the House of Representatives’ roll call reversal on the Brady Bill. The House voted against the Brady Bill in 1988 giving a victory to pro‐gun interest groups. It then reversed itself and voted for the Brady Bill in 1993.

This paper finds that changes in the democratic party leadership may be responsible for the House's policy reversal on gun control.

These findings suggest that in a principal–agent relationship, the agent has some discretion. In this case, the principal (elected members of a party in the US House) hires an agent (its leadership) to organize their teamwork to produce legislative output. The leadership has some discretion in making interest group deals.

The paper shows how changes in leadership reduce the durability of interest group deals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms respond to adverse supply shocks.

This paper examines a supply shock within the framework of Mankiw's Menu Cost Model.

The analysis in this paper illustrates that the type of adverse shock is important. An immediate increase in the money supply may work well in response to a negative aggregate demand shock, but be counter‐productive in response to a negative supply shock. This paper finds that output will decrease when the Federal Reserve increases the money supply in response to an adverse supply shock.

The implication is that when the Federal Reserve first spots a negative supply shock (such as an increase in oil prices), it should not immediately respond with an increase in the money supply. Doing so might cause a recession.

When there is a negative supply shock, conventional wisdom holds that an increase in money supply can offset the decrease in output that would occur without a policy response. That is, increases in money supply have the exact opposite influence that most economists often suppose.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

The purpose of this paper is to explore altruism born of suffering (ABS), a theory that explains how the experience of suffering within one’s own life may result in the motivation to help others, even outgroup members.

Participants were 186 emerging adults (63 per cent female, 37 per cent male; 69 per cent Protestant, 41 per cent Catholic; average age =21.3, SD=2.57 years old) in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted intergroup conflict. Participants were randomly assigned to an in/outgroup condition, read four types of adversity that occurred to same-sex victim(s), and indicated their empathetic response and how much they would like to help the victims.

Moderated mediation analyses revealed that empathy for the victim partially mediated the impact of perceived harm on desire to help; moreover, recent negative life events strengthened the link between harm and empathy. The path between empathy and helping was stronger in the outgroup compared to the ingroup condition.

These findings support ABS, highlighting empathy as a key factor underlying more constructive intergroup relations in a divided society.

This paper extends previous research on ABS by focusing on a post-accord context. The value of the current analyses demonstrate the important role of fostering empathy to promote outgroup helping in settings of divisive group identities.

Key findings from recent and relevant studies on patient safety and clinical handoffs are summarized and analyzed. After briefly reviewing process management and accounting control theory, the aim of this paper is to discuss how these latter two disciplines can be combined to further improve patient safety in handoffs.

A literature review on studies of patient safety, clinical processes and clinical handoffs was conducted in leading medical, quality, and information systems journals.

This paper issues a call for research using a trans‐disciplinary methodology to shed new light on information quality issues in clinical handoff processes, which in turn should improve patient safety.

The literature review employed systematic, heuristic, iterative and practical criteria for identifying and selecting papers, trading off completeness for multi‐disciplinarity. No prior empirical patient safety studies combined process management and accounting control theory.

The above‐noted trans‐disciplinary analytic approach may help medical professionals develop more effective handoff processes, checklists, standard operating procedures (SOPs), clinical pathways, and supporting software, and audit and continuously monitor their implementation.

This paper responds to recent calls for trans‐disciplinary research on healthcare quality improvement. The literature review is valuable for understanding clinical handoff problems and solutions from multiple perspectives. The proposed combination of two theories – accounting control theory and business process management – is novel and useful for describing, improving and monitoring handoff processes in the broader context of clinical processes, using a common terminology for information quality traits.