Public choice and political philosophy: Reflections on the works of Gordon Spinoza and David Immanuel Buchanan

The paper explores some of the surprisingly many relations between theories of public choice and political philosophy. Focusing on variants of Homo oeconomicus it does so systematically rather than historically. But it factors in the history of the two disciplines along with some recent developments in (experimental) economics. This sheds new light on the counterfactual assumption that in politics everybody should be supposed to be a knave and suggests that we better seek factually sound behavioral foundations for Public Choice.     

The calculus of consent after thirty years

It is shown that the basic normative argument of thecalculus is moored to a collectivistic unanimity norm. As most scholars working in the field of public choice, including the authors of the seminalcalculus, would otherwise reject collectivistic normative premises, a re-interpretation of the status of the unanimity principle of thecalculus seems unavoidable. The paper argues that this can be done if the basic formation of a society is not characterized as starting from a given set of individuals but rather in terms of the formation of clubs. This amounts to the same thing as substituting universalistic ethical premises by particularistic ones which are more in line with standard economic methodology.     

Mitochondrial DNA error prophylaxis: assessing the causes of errors in the GEP'02-03 proficiency testing trial

A qualitative and quantitative analytical method was developed and validated for the determination of 49 licit and illicit drugs in oral fluid. Small oral fluid samples, volume 1mL, were collected from volunteers using a modified Omni-Sal device and the analytes were extracted from an oral fluid/buffer mixture using a single Bond Elut Certify solid phase extraction cartridge. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) and gas chromatography-repetitive full scan mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were used in parallel to analyze the extracts for the targeted drugs. Extracts were analyzed by GC-MS in their underivatized form and as their pentafluoropropionyl derivatives. Deuterated internal standards were used for quantification of drugs of abuse by LC-MS-MS to minimize matrix effects. Methadone-d(9) and tumoxetine were used as the internal standards for quantification of non-derivatized and derivatized analytes respectively by GC-MS. Linearity was demonstrated over the range 5-200 ng/mL and limits of detection were less than 4 ng/mL for each drug analyzed. The method demonstrated acceptable recoveries for most of the analytes and good intra- and inter-day precision. Acquisition of data by repetitive full scan GC-MS allows the addition of further analytes to the target menu.     

Analysis of the CODIS autosomal STR loci in four main Colombian regions

Genotype polymorphism studies at the 13 loci STRs included in the combined DNA index system [CODIS and PCR-based short tandem repeat loci, in: Proceedings of the Second European Symposium on Human Identification, Promega Corporation, Madison, WI, 1998, pp. 73-88; J. Forensic Sci. 46 (2001) 453] (CODIS: D3S1358, HUMvWA31, HUMFGA, D8S1179 D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, HUMTH01, HUMTPOX, HUMCSF1PO and D16S539) were carried out in a sample of 1429 unrelated Colombian individuals belonging to 25 different departments. As many other countries in Latino-America, Colombia shows an important admixture component, basically integrated by Amerindians, European-descendants and African-descendants. Due to the fact that only partial population analyses have been carried out in the country, the main aim of the present analysis is to establish a database of forensic interest based on the widely used CODIS systems covering the main Colombian regions.     

Innovative entrepreneurship in emerging and developing economies: the effects of entrepreneurial competencies and institutional voids

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Innovative entrepreneurship is one of the key drivers of economic development particularly for less developed economies where the economic growth is at the...     

Start-ups,Innovation and Knowledge Spillovers

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) seeks to explain the mechanisms of how uncommercialized knowledge can be turned into new to market...