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The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that granting general amnesty to thousands of black-money holders in Bangladesh has failed to make any positive impact on the development of its securities market. Rather, such a move or mercy by the successive governments over the years has basically increased corruption in the country.

The article relies on both primary and secondary materials. An archival analysis of the materials has been carried out in this research.

The major findings are that whitening black money is legally flawed, morally indefensible and economically unsound; the ultimate outcome of the whitening opportunity appears to be the protection of corruption, the prevention of which is imperative for the sustainable development of the national economy of Bangladesh; and no credible evidence has been found to support the underlying assumption that this immunity offered over the past four decades has benefited the economy.

Its originality is evident in the analysis of the materials in a cohesive way to prove a hypothesis that the immunity granted to the black-money holders has been a flawed initiative of the successive governments of Bangladesh to increase investment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical comparative analysis on cross-border suspect wealth issues and international efforts to curb corruption-related suspect wealth. Through the lens of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) Initiative, this paper illustrates the strength and limitations of current anti-corruption frames and as a result, sheds lights on the dilemmas of tackling suspect wealth on the ground.

This paper begins with an overview of the magnitude of suspect wealth; then it compares the focuses of the UNCAC and the StAR Initiative. The author draws upon lessons from previous suspect wealth settlement cases to illustrate the limitations of applying the international frameworks. Finally, this paper takes China as case study to highlight lessons for future anti-corruption efforts.

According to the StAR Initiative, $20–$40bn worth of public assets are stolen via corruption each year, amounting to 20% to 40% of development assistance annually. But the most recent data estimate that the total assets repatriated from OECD countries were $423m from 2006 to 2012, which was only a small fraction of estimated stolen assets. This highlights that tackling suspect wealth not only has moral value but also provides practical benefits for countries seeking development finance.

The UNCAC has brought international cooperation and the importance of transparency to the forefront of tackling suspect wealth. It creates an international norm for recovering and repatriating stolen assets. But due to its loose implementation and enforcement, the UNCAC has left loopholes in anti-corruption policymaking, particularly in countries lacking the rule of law. By comparison, the StAR Initiative takes innovative approach such as using insolvency for asset recovery and country-based capacity building to strengthen originating countries’ ability to repatriate assets. Both the UNCAC and the StAR Initiative are well-intended, but authoritarian regimes and weak rule of law often create dilemma for international collaboration.

This paper provides recommendations on how to further tackle suspect wealth with existing international frameworks.

Reducing suspect wealth contributes to society equity and restores public trust by recovering much needed public assets and development resources.

This paper illustrates the effect of UNCAC and the StAR Initiative through a comparative lens. It demonstrates how rising authoritarianism can create dilemmas for work against corruption and suspect wealth. Finally, it provides potential policy prescriptions for navigating such dilemmas via shared international efforts.

The key to the future of this nation is about creation — about creating the worth — about creating the wealth. It is not about marching and protesting, it is about creating more. It is highly moral for a Christian democracy to redistribute wealth but I suspect it is highly immoral to distribute what we have not even created. The greatest challenge in creating the wherewithal in the last 20 years of the 20th century in this country is the ability to get people going. It is about service, delivery, flexibility, it is about lowering absence, it is about setting people alight.

The purpose of this paper is to paint a general picture of the asset confiscation regimes used in Europe and to outline potential challenges, practical and related to issues of principle, associated with the current development with regard to the confiscation of the proceeds of crime and criminals’ proceeds.

The paper endeavours to analyse the various steps of the confiscation process, and the various approaches to the confiscation of proceeds of crime and criminals’ proceeds from a holistic perspective. The findings of the paper are based on a literature review along with a legal analysis of the existent legal frameworks.

It is suggested that the efficiency of asset confiscation should be looked at from a holistic perspective involving the entire confiscation process, and not only focus on the confiscation powers awarded to the courts. Challenges relating to efficiency exist along the entire process, from the stage of financial investigations to the enforcement stage. Some of the methods used for confiscating criminal proceeds are becoming very far-reaching and raise concerns related to basic principles of criminal law and criminal procedural law.

This paper is not based on empirical research relating to, for example, the efficiency of confiscation. More empirical research would, however, be welcome in this field.

The paper suggests that the efficiency of asset confiscation is contingent on the entire confiscation chain functioning efficiently. Before new and more repressive measures are introduced, the existing legal framework should be fully deployed and the concrete needs for new tools clearly delineated.

The paper analyses confiscation with a view to the entire chain rather than merely looking at a particular confiscation scheme.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether citizen characteristics (race/ethnicity and attire) or demeanor predicted how officers interacted in simulation scenarios that could turn violent.

Controlled-laboratory experiments were conducted during which police participants (n=50) responded to equivalent numbers of black, white, and Hispanic individuals in multiple branching video scenarios in a use-of-force simulator. Within these scenarios, the attire of on-screen individuals was varied (“street” or “business” clothing) as was their demeanor – individuals were either friendly or confrontational. Each scenario had the potential to end peaceably or turn violent, depending on how the officers treated people in the simulator.

Multi-level modeling revealed that neither the race/ethnicity nor the attire of on-screen individuals predicted how officers interacted with them. However, the demeanor of on-screen individuals did – officers were significantly more likely to verbally escalate and end up with a deadly outcome when faced with confrontational individuals (f=3.96; df=1, 558; p<0.05).

These findings offer important new insight into how fairly officers interact with people during routine encounters that have the potential to turn violent, and what this means for perceptions of police legitimacy, procedural justice, and allegations of racial bias.

This is the first laboratory study to test the impact of citizen characteristics and demeanor on how officers escalate and de-escalate encounters.

This paper aims to uncover the trajectory of the anti-corruption effort of the Hong Kong colonial Government by identifying its general approach of denial in the pre-War years. It highlights the path-dependence nature, as well as the path-creation logic of the policy process of anti-corruption reform and the anxiety of the colonial administration in maintaining trust of the local population in the post-War years. These insights should enhance the general understanding of the nature of colonial governance.

This paper is primarily based on archival materials available at the British National Archives and Hong Kong Public Records Office.

The paper intends to go before the “Great Man narrative” in explaining the success of the anti-corruption effort in colonial Hong Kong. Whilst the colonial government was fully aware of the endemic of corruption and the substantial involvement of European officers, she was still cocooned with the misguided belief that the core of the administration was mostly “incorruptible”. The Air Raid Precaution Department scandal in 1941 was, however, a powerful wake-up that rendered the denial and self-illusion no longer defensible. The policy ideas of the 1940s did shape the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance 1948 and other related reforms, yet they were not immediately translated into fundamental changes in the institutional set-up of the anti-graft campaign. The limitations of these half-hearted measures were fully exposed in the coming decades. The cumulative effects of the piecemeal anti-graft efforts of the colonial government over the first century of rule, however, did path the way for the “revolutionary” changes in the 1970s under Murray MacLehose.

This is a highly original piece based on under-explored archival materials. The findings should have a major contribution to the scholarship on the nature of colonial governance and the history of anti-corruption efforts of Hong Kong.

Given the size and growing importance of socially responsible (SR)‐related funds and investments, the purpose of this paper is to see if those who invest in socially responsible investments (SRIs) conform to a particular profile and if that profile is significantly different than that of a typical investor.

This study surveyed a large group of US‐based, well‐informed, individual investors, members of the American Association of Individual Investors. The survey respondents included both those who invest according to SRI principles, and those with no interest in SRI, to determine if demographic differences exist.

The paper finds that the typical SR investor is female and more likely to be single, younger, less wealthy, and better educated than their non‐SR counterparts.

Further research is needed to determine if the higher risk aversion of women and their greater concern for the environment found in previous studies is responsible for the results.

Given the statistically significant differences, additional efforts must be made to convince wealthier and male investors of the merits of socially responsible investing.

This is the first paper to use individuals who have committed resources to SR to compare their demographic characteristics to investors who have not invested in SRI products as distinct groups. Second, this is the first study to compare these groups using US investor data and to measure the statistical significance of the demographic factors.