International trade policy: Benevolent dictators and optimizing politicians

The claim that sophisticated non-operational efficiency-based arguments for intervention facilitate obfuscatory policy-induced income transfers will meet, in some quarters, the counterclaim that this is an overly cynical interpretation of politicians' policy motives. Rent-seeking can likewise be argued to be an overly cynical conception. The theory of rent-seeking would impute self-interest motives to the offer of payment for a cup of coffee.The different perceptions of policy motives are particularly evident when the debate turns to the existence of politically allocated rents. The beneficiaries of politically allocated rents have an interest in denying the existence of rents that have been allocated via the discretionary political process, and in claiming that observed transfers reflect socially warranted considerations.     

Democracy,dictators and the regulation of arms exports: The UK and Iraq

Chris Cowley, Guns, Lies and Spies: How We Armed Iraq (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1992). Pp.273. £7.99.

Paul Henderson, The Unlikely Spy (London, Bloomsbury, 1993). Pp.294. £16.99.

David Leigh, Betrayed: The Real Story of the Matrix Churchill Trial (London, Bloomsbury, 1993). Pp.271. £5.99.

John Sweeney, Trading With the Enemy: Britain's Arming of Iraq (London, Pan Books, 1993). Pp.197. £5.99.     

Voters,dictators, and peons: expressive voting and pivotality

Why do the poor vote against redistribution? We examine one explanation experimentally, namely that individuals gain direct expressive utility from voting in accordance with their ideology and understand that they are unlikely to be pivotal; hence, their expressive utility, even if arbitrarily small, determines their voting behavior. In contrast with a basic prediction of this model, we find that the probability of being pivotal does not affect the impact of monetary interest on whether a subject votes for redistribution.     

The private and social value of information in majority decisions

The paper contrasts the value of information at the private level with the social value when all voters have access to information. A sequence of examples illustrates how the private and social value of information changes as the distribution of benefits and costs derived from a project varies across individuals and states of the world.     

Attracting private investment to contaminated properties: The value of public interventions

We employ a mail survey of private developers that uses conjoint choice experiments and Likert‐scaled attitudinal questions to examine preferences for policy instruments and incentives intended to encourage brownfield cleanup and redevelopment. Our analysis suggests that developers judge public hearing requirements at brownfield redevelopments unattractive, but that they place a relatively high value on liability relief—from both cleanup costs and claims by third parties. Reimbursement of environmental assessment costs is not particularly attractive. We also find considerable heterogeneity among developers in the value they place on these incentives, depending on their experience with contaminated sites. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Public waste and private property. An enquiry into the economics of solid waste in Calcutta

Perceptions of solid waste management in India belong to a tradition of thought which dates back to the early nineteenth century. Solid waste is often thought of as a purely municipal problem. The paper examines how far informal systems of solid waste management are a response to a void in property rights. It analyses the variety of local operations in Calcutta, including the informal system. The assumptions that solid waste management is a public good that therefore needs to be municipalized and that in the absence of municipalization there would be greater costs are both questioned. It is hypothesized that there may be no measurable economies of scale in any part of the waste cycle. It may be more worthwhile to improve and expand the informal system of waste management than to collectivize further the traditional system of collection, transportation and disposal.     

The challenges of fractionalized property rights in public‐private hybrid organizations: The good,the bad,and the ugly

Policy designers seeking to harness profit‐driven efficiency for public purposes are increasingly creating organizations with fractionalized property rights that distribute “ownership” among public and private actors. The resulting hybrids are quite diverse, including mixed enterprises, public‐private partnerships, social entrepreneurship organizations, government‐sponsored enterprises, and various other hybrid forms. Marrying public purposes to private sector efficiency and strategic flexibility provides a tempting rationale for mixing public and private owners in hybrid organizations. Because public‐private hybrids involve fractionalized property rights, however, they exhibit tension among owners over both strategy and, more importantly, goals. To understand public‐private hybrids, we assess them in terms of six dimensions of property rights: fragmentation of ownership, clarity of allocation, cost of alienation, security from trespass, credibility of persistence, and autonomy (of both owners and managers). The unclear allocation of fractionalized ownership rights facilitates the appropriation of financial residuals and asset ownership opportunistically. Other weaknesses in the property rights configurations of public‐private hybrids create managerial dissonance or opportunistic behavior that typically leads to a narrowing of goals, but sometimes also to organizational failure.     

论民主的价值

民主的价值是民主存在的内在依据和发展的根本动力,它由民主的个人价值、社会价值和国家价值有机构成.在这三者中,民主的个人价值是核心和根本,是民主的国家价值和社会价值的存在根据;民主的国家价值和社会价值是民主个人价值得以实现的要求和保障.     

Assessing the property value impacts of the dispersed subsidy housing program in Denver

This study tests the hypothesis that the acquisition of existing property by the public housing authority and its subsequent rehabilitation and occupancy by subsidized tenants significantly reduced the property values of surrounding single‐family homes in Denver during the 1990s. This assessment examined pre‐ and post‐occupancy sales, while controlling for the idiosyncratic neighborhood, local public service, and zoning characteristics of the areas in order to identify which sorts of neighborhoods, if any, experienced declining property values as a result of proximity to dispersed housing tenants. The analyses revealed that proximity to a subsidized housing site generally had an independent, positive effect on single‐family home sales prices. The most notable exception to this pattern occurred in neighborhoods more than 20 percent of whose residents were black. Proximity to dispersed public housing sites in these neighborhoods resulted in slower growth in home sales prices in an other‐wise booming housing market and suggest a threshold within “vulnerable” neighborhoods whereby any potential gains associated with rehabilitating existing units are offset by the increased concentration of poor residents. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

On the pricing and benefit structure of a private club or public utility

In this study the structure-induced equilibrium approach for modeling democratic institutions is extended to allow for the added structural features of executive veto and legislative override. A multidimensional model is presented for a budgetary process involving three actors — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive. In order to focus attention on the role of the veto and override possibilities, simplifying assumptions are made with regard to other aspects of the agenda formation process. In particular, the committee has monopoly agenda power, a closed amendment control rule is operative, and perfect-foresight expectations are held by the committee and the executive. Given these assumptions, utility maximization by the several actors generates a budget outcome characterized as a structure-induced equilibrium. The general model is illustrated geometrically with a two-dimensional example, permitting budget outcomes to be analyzed for various combinations of veto rules and override provisions. The analysis demonstrates that budget outcomes are sensitive to alternative specifications of veto rules and override provisions. In the illustration, executive veto power is shown to vary directly with both the permissiveness of the veto rule and the stringency of the override provision. Similar relationships, however, are not found to exist for total budget expenditures.     

私权与公权之冲突及地方政府责任

随着中国公民权利意识的提高,私权与公权的冲突事件不断出现,迫切要求政府在制度上作出回应.本文认为,在私权与公权的冲突中,地方政府有不可推卸的责任,应该有所为有所不为:通过积极的作为即提供完善的法律制度,使公民权利得以保障并提供权利救济的路径;通过消极的不作为即约束政府权力,给市场的不同利益主体留出自由竞争的空间.并建议改革地方官员考核制度,将对冲突事件的应对能力纳入政绩考核范围,以激励地方政府的制度创新.     

关于私营企业主入党问题

关于私营企业主入党问题，是最近一段时间理论界和实际工作者讨论的一个热点和难点问题。不管是主张私营企业主可以入党还是主张私营企业主不可以入党的，基本都是围绕着私营企业主入党与我们党的阶级性、先进性和执政地位来思考问题的。江泽民同志的“七一”讲话系统深刻地阐明了这个问题，从理论上彻底解决了关于私营企业主入党的问题。当然，讲话从理论上彻底解决了关于私营企业主入党的问题，并不等于在人们的认识和实践中都彻底解决了这个问题。要在认识和实践中彻底解决这个问题，还必须认真学习、深刻理解和正确把握江泽民同志“七一”讲话的有关论述，把自己的思想和行动真正统一到讲话的精神上来。     

论幸福与终极价值

幸福对个体的重要不言而喻。由此,人们往往以之为人生追求的重要价值。但是,人生的终极价值绝不仅仅是幸福,至少道德也是不可或缺的。在当下,对幸福的反思和对道德的强调都有着重要的现实意义。     

论西方宪政的价值维度

宪政是西方政治文明的重要成果,弄清楚宪政的价值诉求,对于正确认识宪政的特质具有重要意义.本文认为,宪政是以保障人权为根本价值目标,以法治为治理基础,以分权制衡和有限政府为主要内容的政治型构观念和相应的制度设计.西方宪政包含人权、法治、权力制衡等四个方面价值要素.其中,人权是宪政的价值核心,法治是宪政的秩序基础.权力制衡和政府"有限"则是宪政的理想愿景.     

马克思主义哲学的当代价值研究

经过长达200多年的发展,马克思主义哲学不断发展壮大,已经成为十分重要的科学的世界观和方法论。马克思主义哲学对两个传统哲学流派进行了批判和继承,一是费尔巴哈的形而上学唯物主义,二是黑格尔的唯心主义辩证法。经过长期的实践检验,马克思主义哲学的内容不断丰富,内涵价值不断提升,实现了辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的有机统一。在中国特色社会主义进入新时代的今天,坚持和发展马克思主义显得尤为重要,其中马克思主义哲学不仅仅是占领意识形态主阵地的重要法宝,也是实现中华民族伟大复兴和中国梦的理论基础和指导思想。