Illegal markets and the social costs of rent-seeking

This paper argues that making goods or services illegal results in an increase in the social costs associated with rent-seeking. The increased social cost is in the form of negative externalities that result from market participants use of coercion and violence in attempts to control trade in the illegal good. Consequently, the social costs of rent-seeking will exceed the value of resources dissipated in rent-seeking competition. And, where the external costs exceed the undissipated portion of the Tullock cost, the social cost of rent-seeking is greater than the sum of Tullock and Harberger costs.     

Investigating the influence of social costs and benefits of environmental policies through social capital theory

The level of effectiveness of an environmental policy depends to a significant degree on the level of acceptance and cooperation of citizens. The relevant literature indicates that social capital may significantly influence environmentally responsible behaviour connected with the implementation of an environmental policy. In this context, the present article aims to further explore this field by introducing the issue of non-economic social costs and benefits imposed from environmental policies. In particular, it is supported, both theoretically and empirically, that social costs and benefits may influence the decision of individuals to cooperate and comply with an environmental policy and thus may be a significant indicator for environmental behaviour. Furthermore, these social costs and benefits may differ among individuals and are influenced by social capital elements. Consequently, through the article the need of exploring social capital prior to environmental policy implementation is underlined along with the need of creating social capital assessment techniques.     

Minimizing the social cost of drug abuse: An economic analysis of alternatives for policy

The use of heroin, with its concomitant social problems, is facilitated by an illicit market process which functions similarly to economic markets in general. The analysis of this process, incorporated in a model embodying the interacting relationships of crime generation and control, permits evaluation of three fundamentally different strategies for social control. These are controlling supply through law enforcement and other strategies, controlling demand by detaining addicts, or reducing illicit market activitity by introducing an effective substitute for the services of that market. When all the social costs of addiction are taken into account and when minimizing the total of those costs is taken to be the objective, the authors conclude that the best solution will lie with the establishment of a drug maintenance program. Properly administered, such a program would undermine the illicit market by reducing demand. Furthermore, it can be expected to reduce levels of drug related crimes and to moderate factors encouraging addiction.The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of Perry Shapiro and an unnamed referee and the support of the Russell Sage Foundation during the writing of this analysis.     

An economic theory of economic analysis: the case of the School of Salamanca

Public Choice - The School of Salamanca often is identified as the first economic tradition in the history of the “dismal science”. Its members anticipated principles later developed by...     

经济全球化下的我国政府效率探析

我国的发展已进入实现崛起的新阶段。在经济全球化背景下,更加激烈的国际竞争对我国政府提出了新要求。增强国际竞争力不仅是中国未来发展的决定性因素,也是政府的重要经济职能。提高政府效率,积极发挥政府作用,已成为提升我国国际竞争力并为我国发展赢得先机的关键“内生变量”。     

县级政府能力与县域经济社会发展——以云南省的县域经济社会发展为例

县级政府能力与云南省县域经济社会发展是一个双向互动的关系:县级政府能力的强弱及其治理的有效与否决定着县域经济社会的发展水平,反过来,县域经济社会发展水平的高低影响和制约着县级政府能力的有效提升。然而,只有须形成两者相互匹配的作用机制,方可实现云南省县级政府能力的提升与县域经济社会发展两者之间持续的良性互动。     

农村经济社会发展进程中政府行为存在的问题与对策

中国农村地方政府行为是推动农村经济社会发展的重要变量.在充分肯定政府对农村经济社会发展的巨大推动和积极引导作用的同时,也应该看到,无论在政府职能、行为还是政府组织体制和干部队伍建设上,都存在着一些问题,这些问题制约了政府的应有功能,进而阻碍了农村经济社会的发展.本文针对中国农村经济社会发展中政府行为存在的问题,提出了继续转变政府职能,优化机构设置,理顺条块关系;建立乡镇等级分类制度,健全政绩考核指标体系,规范政府行为等对策建议.     

An economic model of regime change: Freedom as a public good

This paper analyses regime change via a peaceful revolution. Under these circumstances, peaceful manifestations of unrest reach a point at which the prevailing political system collapses and is replaced by a system which provides more freedom. Such regime change occurred in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria. It is shown that the successful quest for freedom may be explained as a dynamic game. The game has a unique strong equilibrium — that is, a Nash equilibrium robust against mass defections — which arises in consequence of a trigger strategy which is similar to the Tit-For-Tat strategy in a repeated Prisoners' Dilemma.     

An experimental study of the efficiency of unanimity rule and majority rule

Scholars traditionally claim that unanimity rule is more capable of producing Pareto optimal outcomes than majority rule. Dougherty and Edward (Public Choice 151(3):655–678, 2012) make the opposite claim assuming proposals are either random, sincere, or strategic. We test these competing hypotheses in a two-dimensional framework using laboratory experiments. Our primary results suggest: (1) majority rule enters the Pareto set more quickly than unanimity rule, (2) majority rule leaves the Pareto set at the same rate as unanimity rule, and (3) majority rule is more likely to select a Pareto optimal outcome than unanimity rule at the end of the game.     

An economic view of food deserts in the united states

Considerable policy and academic attention has been focused on the topic of food deserts. We consider this topic from an economic perspective. First, we consider how the components of a standard economic analysis apply to the study of food deserts. Second, using this economic lens, we revisit the empirical literature on food deserts to assess the progress that has been made regarding whether food deserts are problematic in the U.S. Overall, despite several studies documenting the existence of food deserts in local areas, shortcomings in available data have not allowed researchers to convincingly document the presence or absence of food deserts on a national scale, and virtually no research has provided insight as to why food deserts might exist. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.