The disadvantaged incumbents: estimating incumbency effects in Indian state legislatures

This paper estimates the incumbency effects using a large dataset on state legislative elections in India during 1975–2003. I use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) that estimates the causal effect of incumbency by comparing candidates in closely fought elections. I find that there is a significant disadvantage to incumbency in Indian State legislative elections, and the adverse effect of incumbency has increased after 1991. Also, the incumbency disadvantage is higher in states that have lower availability of public goods such as health centers, and lower employment, poverty and per capita income.     

Does legislative turnover adversely affect state expenditure policy? Evidence from Indian state elections

The effect of legislative turnover on the size and composition of government expenditures in Indian states over the 1980?C2000 period is examined. The paper finds that excessive turnover in Indian state elections results in inefficient government expenditure policy. First, the higher the turnover, the larger the government size. Second, excessive turnover affects the allocative efficiency of government expenditures by skewing the composition of government spending toward pure consumption and away from more productive investment expenditures. Third, the effect of turnover on fiscal policy is not linear; public consumption expenditure is convex in turnover, while public investment expenditure is concave in turnover.     

Outcome‐focussed planning in Australian local government: How council plans and cultural development plans measure up

Contemporary public policy increasingly emphasises a focus on outcomes, the difference that occurs in the lives of citizens from policy and activity of government. Other contemporary imperatives for effective planning include: recognition of the values of the community whom plans serve, direction towards goals and objectives, utilisation of evidence, articulation of theories of change that underpin planning and responsiveness to evaluation. This article reports a desk‐based research project to assess how local government planning documents meet these imperatives. Two documents are examined for 67 councils across Australia: the major strategic document, council plan or other‐named document and the cultural development plan (CDP) or other‐named document that directs staff and investment aimed at cultural enrichment of the LGA. Findings indicate that the majority of councils’ documents appeared only concordant with one or two of these planning imperatives. No plan addressed more than three. Overall, council plans and cultural development plans did not clearly indicate their responsiveness to values of their communities, nor include objectives that formed measurable steps towards goals or formally refer to the use of evidence in decision‐making. No plans included theories of change to underpin decision‐making. This analysis indicates clear areas of improvement for planning for local governance.     

Field experiments on the competitiveness of males carrying genetic control systems for Aedes aegypti

The competitiveness carrying males of three genetic control systems forAedes aegypti (L.), viz. chemosterilized males, double translocation heterozygote males (T1T3) and distorter double translocation heterozygote males (DT1T3), released into a natural population in the Delhi metropolitanxarea was evaluated using a method based on the principle of release and recapture of marked females. Chemosterilized males and DT1T3 males showed approximately normal competitiveness in the field which is similar to the results obtained from laboratory and field cage experiments. The T1T3 males were found to have reduced competitiveness both in the field and laboratory cage tests, in contrast to previously reported results with unmarked T1T3 males in field cages. The cause of this reduction in competitiveness was not clear.

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Zusammenfassung Es wurde die Konkurrenzkraft vonAedes aegypti — M?nnchen ermittelt nach Anwendung von drei genetischen Verfahren, n?mlich Chemosterilisation der M?nnchen, heterozygote doppelte Translokation (T1T3) und gest?rte doppelte heterozygote Translokation (DT1T3) der M?nnchen, die in eine natürliche Population des hauptst?dtischen Gebiets von Delhi freigelassen wurden; dabei wurde eine auf dem Prinzip des Freilassens und Wiederfangs von markierten Weibchen beruhende Methode verwendet. Chemosterilisierte und DT1T3 — M?nnchen zeigten ann?hernd normale Konkurrenzkraft, was den Ergebnissen von Labor- und Freilandk?figversuchen entspricht. Die T1T3-M?nnchen zeigten verminderte Konkurrenzkraft im Feld und in Labork?figtests, im Gegensatz zu früher berichteten Befunden mit nicht-markierten T1T3-M?nnchen in Feldk?figen. Die Ursache dieser Reduktion der Konkurrenzkraft war nicht klar.

     

Methods for developing relative need criteria to accompany a health care capital expenditure limit

In recent years capital spending in the health care industry has escalated tremendously, and most forecasters agree that needs will increase at an even faster rate throughout the 1990s. As a result of this trend, there is a dire need to develop effective and equitable controls on capital spending in health care. One of the capital payment options under consideration is the establishment of a lid on capital expenditures and the concomitant allocation of capital to health care providers whose applications are the most meritorious. The purpose of this article is to present some ideas and methods for the development of a relative need system to accompany a capital expenditure limit and to supplement and expand the absolute need determinations of the typical CON process.