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The 2008 financial crisis was a systemic problem with deep-rooted structural causes that created opportunities to engage in financial malfeasance, a form of corporate wrongdoing. However, few quantitative studies exist on the effects of organizational and political-legal arrangements on financial malfeasance. In this paper, we examine the effects of organizational and political-legal arrangements that emerged in the 1990s in the FIRE sector (i.e., financial, insurance, and real estate) on financial malfeasance. Our historical contextualization demonstrates how changes in the political-legal arrangements facilitate the emergence of new corporate structures and opportunities for financial malfeasance. Our longitudinal quantitative analysis demonstrates that US FIRE sector corporations with a more complex organizational structure, larger size, lower dividend payment, and higher executive compensation are more prone to commit financial malfeasance., (© London School of Economics and Political Science 2016.)

The American response to Lysenkoism took place at a crucial moment in the evolving relationship between science and the public. Like many professional scientific organizations in the early Cold War, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) resisted involvement in political issues. In contrast to similar societies in the physical sciences, however, the geneticists' silence cannot be explained solely by the fear of financial or political repercussions. Rather, the GSA's reluctance to engage in political discussion reflected an ongoing debate within the scientific community on the proper role for professional societies in political controversy. Those geneticists who did become embroiled in the controversy did so as individuals rather than as emissaries of the profession. Geneticists H.J. Muller, L.C. Dunn, and Theodosius Dobzhansky attempted to reach the public through a variety of outlets, including books, magazines, newspapers, and the radio, but their interventions were shaped by their individual personal and political commitments. The GSA, in contrast, attempted to combat the spread of Lysenkoism with the help of a public relations firm and a Golden Jubilee celebration of the rediscovery of Mendel's laws. The messy story of the American response to the Lysenko crisis demonstrates the limits of scientists' political involvement during the early Cold War.