Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More than Two Contestants

This article considers a rent-seeking model with N asymmetriccontestants. Each contestant may have a different valuation ofthe rent or a different relative ability to win the rent. Oneof the N contestants is selected as the winner based onTullock's probabilistic contest rule with constant returns toscale. A pure strategy Nash equilibrium solution is obtainedand its consequences are investigated.     

Improper Selection of High-Cost Producers in the Rent-Seeking Contest

The resources two rival businesses spend to raise their own chanceof getting a unique monopoly license are a cost of rent-seeking.When those businesses differ in the costs of producing themonopoly good there is an additional cost of rent-seeking that hasnot been sufficiently studied in the literature. If the high cost producer winsthe license, the difference between his cost and the costs of hismore efficient rival is a social loss from improper selection ofproducers by the political process. The loss becomes more severewhen the ability to lobby of the inefficient producer outstripsthat of the efficient producer. This may help to explain whyspecialized lobbying evolved. Specialized lobbying reduces thesocial cost from improper selection of firms by allowing efficientproducers to hire expert rent-seekers and so to raise theirchances of gaining monopoly concessions.     

Federalism and Interest Group Cohesion: A Comparison of Two Peak Business Groups in Australia

The stock opinion among students of interest groups has, untilrecently, posited that groups in countries with a federal systemof government are less cohesive and more prone to disunity thaninterest groups in unitary states. This article addresses thisrelationship bet ween federalism and weak group cohesion inan attempt to explain the contrasting patterns of cohesion intwo peak Australian business groups, each a confederation instructure. The literature on federalism and group cohesion givesinsufficient attention to the divisive impact of three factors:party go vernment, size and wealth inequalities among a group'sconstituent units, and a group's decision and payoff rules.The literature also gives insufficient attention to the determinantsof group secession. It is the contention of the article thatconflicts over the fairness of a federated organization's rules,particularly when the large, wealthy units find themselves outvotedby the small, poor units, can be sufficient to provoke the aggrievedunits to secede.     

The Case for Regulatory Rent-Seeking: CRA Based Protests of Bank Mergers and Acquisitions

This paper addresses the question of regulatory rent seekingbased on protests of proposed bank mergers and acquisitionssubmitted by community groups to bank regulators. Theories ofCRA-related community group behavior based on benevolence andrent seeking, yield significantly different implicationsconcerning the effect of a bank's CRA rating on protestprobability, allowing for a clear test of the underlyingmotive for protest activity. The analysis shows: (1) protestsimpose significant time cost on merger and acquisitionapplications and (2) the benevolent-based theory must berejected in favor of the rent-seeking theory.     

Consultation and Contest: The Danger of Mixing Modes

This paper argues that public consultative procedures undertaken by governments or their public services sometimes go awry because of certain confusions as to the nature and purposes of consultation. One of the most important of these is a tendency to view consultation as an exercise in policy determination by the public rather than as public input into the representative democratic process whose ultimate use is to be defined by the elected decision-makers. The result of this confusion is a tendency to misunderstand or overestimate what public consultations can achieve, and a failure to make a distinction between occasions when such consultations are useful and occasions when they must give way to explicit political contest. Three levels of activity — the technical, the transactional and the political — are analytically distinguished along with the modes of action-response appropriate to each — in order to explain and clarify the nature of good consultative practice.     

Estimating the Effect of Rent-Seeking on income distribution: an analysis of U.S. States and Counties

Public Choice - Prior empirical research on rent seeking has focused on estimating its effects on overall macroeconomic performance, with few studies attentive to income distribution. This paper...     

Impact of Political Structures and Informal Political Processes on Health Policy: Comparison of the United States and Canadab

A number of factors, including cultural, social, economic, political, and historical, influence policy. United States and Canada's health care systems are the conscious and subconscious outcomes of formal political structures and informal political processes. The Canadian parliamentary political system encourages centralized, organized, planned policy in health care. However, this is accomplished at the risk of leaving some individuals—physicians in this case—quite frustrated. American constitutional features, the presidential system, weak political parties, and the tireless participation of interest groups in the political process all function to discourage the formation of highly rational and efficient policy. While few special interests are ever completely satisfied with the legislation produced, seldom is any organized group completely thwarted. Therefore, it is no surprise that a tightly integrated national program of universal health insurance was not adopted by Congress in 1993–1994. Political structures and processes discourage effective, comprehensive health care reform in the United States.     

Comparison between Two Female Characters of Hemingway and Faulkner and Faulkner

This paper intends to analyze the similarities and differences between two female characters-Jig and Emily in Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants" and Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, through the character's feature.     

A Wider Range of Friends: Multi‐speed Organising during the 2015 Labour Leadership Contest

The British Labour party's recent adoption of a partially open primary for the selection of its leader conforms to a trend seen across many European political parties of increasing rights and privileges in internal party decision‐making and expanding opportunities for more loosely affiliated supporters to participate in party activity. This dual trend can be seen as a response to changes in the membership environment, greater individualisation of political participation and growth in social movement politics and online activism. Yet as much as parties are responding to a changed membership environment, they are also driving that change, increasingly blurring the distinction between members and supporters. This article examines the recent impact of this change within the British Labour party and argues that, in line with Susan Scarrow's theory of ‘multi‐speed’ membership, the Labour party's experiment in expanding affiliation options has led directly to a tension in locating the source of authority within the party, creating a challenge for its new leader in accommodating his new supporters within his party's representative traditions.     

Top Management Turnover: The Role of Governing Board Structures

The convergence of performance accountability policies, a graying bureaucracy, and shorter executive tenures highlights the timeliness of investigating executive turnover. Prior public administration research has examined pull and push factors linked to these departures, but it has yet to fully explore the influence of governing board structures and political pressures that stem from such structures. Using data on 123 public four‐year research universities in the United States from 1993 to 2012, this article finds that governing board structures play a pivotal role in predicting the departure decisions of university presidents. While the size of the board increases the risk of departure, boards overseeing multiple institutions and boards with a faculty or student representative lower the risk of departure. Additional evidence suggests that both the share of gubernatorial and legislative appointees on the board and the party division of the legislature have a direct influence on departure.     

The Bifurcation of Politics: Two Englands

A dynamic of global economic development means that many countries are experiencing uneven development and their citizens are increasingly split between those who can access high‐skill jobs and those who cannot. As a result some citizens are living in cosmopolitan areas of growth and others in backwater areas of decline. There are emerging out of these processes two versions of England. In cosmopolitan areas we find an England that is global in outlook, liberal and more plural in its sense of identity. In provincial backwaters we find an England that is inward‐looking, relatively illiberal, negative about the EU and immigration, nostalgic and more English in its identity. This bifurcation of England is already having political effects, reflected in the outcome of the 2015 general election. It will further reconfigure politics over the next two decades, creating diverse political citizens and a complex array of challenges and dilemmas for governments, political parties, campaigners and political organisers.     

Social Upheaval and Transformation of Elite Structures: The Case of Finland

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how certain important changes in Finnish society in the 1990s altered the national elite structures and affected democracy. We examine how the patterns of recruitment, interaction and cohesiveness among the elites changed in the period 1991–2001. The data for the study were drawn mainly from postal surveys conducted among the elites and a sample of the population in 1991 and 2001. The first research task was to establish how recruitment to various elites has altered in terms of social stratification and education. The second was to analyse changes in patterns of interaction between various elites as far as physical contacts and attitudes were concerned. The third was to study the relationship between the elites and the general population on the basis of attitudinal affinity. The conclusions were based on theoretical models characterising various elite structures and their interconnections with democracy. The concept of a responsive elite is developed on the grounds of the theory of democratic elitism. The changes in the Finnish elite structure have meant a passage towards an inclusive structure compatible with democracy rather than towards an exclusive elite configuration. Finnish elites have become more open and more diverse.     

The Engine Room of Instruction: Small Group Teaching

The changing role of tutorials and tutors in an age of mass higher education is sketched. The differing purposes of small group teaching are explored; small groups are shown to have a variety of academic and pastoral functions. The mechanics of tutorial organisation are explored and the range of teaching formats examined.     

Historical Circumstances and Theoritical Structures as Sources of Meaning: A Response

The place of theory as providing a context for meaning is furtherelaborated on the presumption that an individuality principleor theorem of fundamental theoretical importance is being advancedby Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 15 and 16. Following ErnstCassirer, the argument is advanced that theoretical definitionsdepend upon a computational logic that enables one to statecausal antecedents that yield a conceptualized effect. Thisis the type of language that is used by artisans to create artifactsincluding those forms of artisanship that are concerned withthe nature and constitution of order in human societies.     

治理结构多元化：地方政府机构改革的新思路

通过对当代中国地方政府机构改革的一些典型个案进行分析,发现其陷入困境的深层次原因在于强调国家统一管理而导致的地方治理结构单一化。当代中国的地方治理结构单一化是历史遗传和传统体制的产物,与转轨时期纵向政府间关系中存在的压力型体制也有着内在的关联。随着改革的深入,地方治理结构单一化的弊端逐渐显现出来。但是,从美国和英国等西方发达国家的实践来看,地方治理结构多元化与国家的统一管理并不矛盾。因此,在已有的地方政府机构改革的思路基础上,实现地方治理结构多元化应该成为继续推进当代中国地方政府机构改革的新思路。     

比较哲学格式新论:平行比、影响比、偶合比

将比较文学中的“平行研究”引入比较哲学领域,可得“平行比”格式;将比较文学中的“影响研究”引入比较哲学领域,可得“影响比”格式;将哲学史、文学史上实际存在的“偶合研究”引入比较哲学领域,可得“偶合比”格式。目前比较哲学界专门讨论“平行比”的文献不多,专门讨论“影响比”的文献也不多,对“偶合比”更是缺乏足够重视。“平行比”将两个或两个以上相互间没有直接或间接影响的对象放在一起进行比较研究,在比较中发现各个对象的特殊性或总结共性内容;“影响比”将两个或两个以上相互间有直接或间接影响的对象放在一起进行比较研究,揭示出影响的过程或逻辑;“偶合比”将两个或两个以上相互间疑似但不能肯定有直接或间接影响的对象放在一起进行比较研究,从而正确认识和处理偶合现象。     

Asymmetric Effects of Intergovernmental Grants: Analysis and Implications for U.S. Welfare Policy

Theories of federal grants to states and localities suggestthat these grants have a stimulative effect on spending, causingrecipient governments to expand and contract programs alongwith changes in the grants. However, policymakers may responddifferently to grant decreases than to grant increases becausethey face political and bureaucratic pressures to expand programs.These asymmetric reactions may depend on specific politicalstructures. Pooled time-series regressions of data from theAid to Families with Dependent Children program across 46 statesfrom 1965 to 1994 demonstrate state government responses togrant changes. Bureaucratic pressures and proposals lead statesto expand their welfare benefits upon increases in federal grants,but not to contract them upon decreases in federal grants. Withregard to the 1996 welfare reforms, this study indicates thatthe switch to block grants will lead to little or no state reductionin welfare payments.