Cross-state learning and service delivery in India’s federal system

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to place the issue of cross-state learning and borrowing experiences in service delivery in India in the specific context of political incentives in India’s federal democracy as well relating it to the findings of the comparative literature on subnational policy diffusion in federal systems. It presents four types of borrowing experiences from a selection of six case studies of the past few years, and point towards ways in which learning/borrowing across states can be usefully incorporated into policy.     

Ambivalence About Equality in the United States or, Did Tocqueville Get it Wrong and Why Does that Matter?

Alexis de Tocqueville believed that “democratic peoples’... passion for equality is ardent, insatiable, eternal, and invincible.” This article examines whether and under what conditions residents of the United States demonstrate such a commitment to equality. I show that at many points in history, Americans have indeed chosen to move toward greater justice and less oppression; however, there are clear limits to their passion for equality. White Americans endorse less social, political, and economic equality than do African Americans, but even the latter often resist equality for groups that they perceive to be threats, or for behaviors that threaten strong social or moral norms. The article discusses implications for political activists of these patterns of support for and resistance to greater equality, and suggests strategies for overcoming oppression and promoting justice.     

全球经济失衡背景下的人民币汇率调整探究

从实体经济上看,汇改后的人民币汇率小幅度调整并未给中国经济的总需求水平带来显著影响,汇改以来的统计数据显示:是进出口、就业、消费、投资、经济增长等多项宏观经济重要指标都表现良好。从国际政治经济环境和国内经济情况两个角度来看,我国目前应当恰当地调整汇率和进一步完善汇率制度。     

The determinants of the choice between public and private production of a publicly funded service

The public choice literature contains little formal analysis of the bureaucratic choice of production modes — public or private — of publicly funded services. An important question to be addressed is why some governmental bodies choose to provide a publicly funded service with publicly owned and operated production units whereas other governmental bodies contract with private firms to provide the same publicly funded service. This paper is the first formal attempt to remedy this gap in the literature. We develop a theoretical explanation of the government decision maker's choice between public and private production modes based on utility maximizing behavior. We then examine empirically this choice employing logit analysis. The empirical results, which include several tests for robustness, confirm our theoretical explanation. The results are significant and suggest that non-monetary constraints are an important factor affecting this choice of production modes and that monetary constraints are less influential.     

A new individualization marker of semen: deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) polymorphism.

We describe a method for obtaining specific and reproducible deoxyribonuclease I (DNase I) typing from liquid semen. Isoelectric focusing of the enzymes on polyacrylamide gel (IEF-PAGE, pH 3.5-5) was accomplished using a 0.5-mm thick gel. The separated isozymes were visualized by a new activity staining method, dried agarose film-overlay (DAFO). Pretreatment of semen samples with neuraminidase markedly enhanced the isozyme-band resolution and sensitivity. The method was simple and reliable, with high resolution and sensitivity. The DNase I types in semen samples were correlated with the types found in corresponding blood and urine samples. DNase I typing could therefore provide an additional discriminant characteristic in the forensic examination of semen.     

Children in poverty: A committee prepares for an informed debate

By gathering and disseminating information, members of the Committee on Ways and Means, and committee staff under their supervision, have played an important role in informing the debate on poverty issues during the 1980s. In the face of President Reagan's 1981 budget program, which reduced spending in the major antipoverty programs, committee members targeted substantial resources to an ongoing, albeit ad hoc, education process. The process has not only provided evidence of the adverse impact of the 1981 reductions on the poor, but has also made new contributions to the understanding of poverty. Although many other factors have contributed to outcomes in poverty policy during the 1980s, it is clear that this education process played an important role in the successes achieved thus far; partial reversal of the 1981 reductions has been achieved, tax changes have been implemented which help low-income families, and a welfare reform bill has been enacted.