Public Members on Medical Licensing Boards and the Choice of Entry Barriers

This paper investigates the impact of medical and consumerinterests on the choice of physician licensing requirements inthe United States. Using data on licensing requirements in thefifty states between 1986 and 1993, we find that, in general,public members on licensing boards are associated withlicensing requirements that have educational justification. Incontrast, medical interests, measured in terms of licensingboard independence and campaign contributions by medicalassociations, are associated with licensing requirements thatare more difficult to justify with educational criteria.     

Zur statistischen Analyse von Vollerhebungen

When analyzing superpopulation data, inferential statistical methods should be used. Empirical tests of hypotheses are subject to a variety of stochastic processes, or “errors”, even if the data involved in those tests are not the product of random sampling. Assumptions about the nature of these processes have to be an explicit part of the analysis and need to be justified. Using several examples of published research, we make transparent that all substantive conclusions are conditional on the assumptions about the nature of the stochastic processes that are at work in generating superpopulation data.     

Comparing Circuits: Are Some U.S. Courts of Appeals More Liberal or Conservative Than Others?

This article investigates possible ideological differences between circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. It looks at the distribution of three‐judge panel ideologies on the circuits and at differences in decisionmaking patterns, testing several theoretical approaches to circuit differences: the attitudinalist approach, arguing that different judicial ideologies account for intercircuit differences; historical‐institutionalist approaches that argue that circuit norms lead to differences in the proportion of conservative decisions and in the effects of judicial ideologies; and the rational‐choice institutionalist argument that overall circuit preferences constrain three‐judge panel decisions through the en banc process. Using a multilevel logit model, the study finds some support for the attitudinalist and historical‐institutionalist accounts of circuit differences. It also finds that intercircuit ideological differences contribute comparatively little to the prediction of appeals court outcomes.