Is constitutionalized media freedom only window dressing? Evidence from terrorist attacks

Public Choice - Media freedom is often curtailed in the wake of terrorist attacks. In this contribution, we ask whether constitutional provisions that are intended—directly or...     

Was Knut Wicksell a conservative or a radical? A note on an early monograph by Knut Wicksell

The article reviews a small monograph by K. Wicksell entitled Our taxes. Who pays them and who should pay them? It sheds some light on why Wicksell, a radical of his time, was so conservative as an economist. This paradox comes because Wicksell, as an economist, is often brought in line with the unanimity principle. Correctly seen, Wicksell pleaded for general franchise and proportional representation under the unanimity constraint. This was a radical proposal in his time because it contributed to shift the burden of taxation from the poor to the rich by implementing the benefit principle.

     

Islam and democracy: a response

A debate has emerged whether countries with Muslim majorities are intrinsically more likely to be autocratic. Recent studies have traced this to the allegedly repressive nature of Islam. This article replicates the most recent study on this topic, published in Public Choice (Potrafke in Public Choice 151:185–192, 2012), and demonstrates that the effect is not robust to a number of sensible alterations to the statistical specification. The effect between Islam and democracy is spurious. There is no causal relationship between Islam and democracy.     

Factors influencing the timing and type of state-level alcohol prohibitions prior to 1920

Public Choice - We employ a 70-year panel to examine the factors that influenced the timing and type—statutory prohibition, constitutional prohibition, or local option—of US state-level...     

Buchanan at the American Founding: the constitutional political economy of a republic of equals and unequals

Public Choice - James M. Buchanan cited the American Founding as an important inspiration for his constitutional vision. Buchanan and the Founders shared a belief in the moral equality of persons...     

Agenda trees and sincere voting: a response to Schwartz

Schwartz (Public Choice 136:353–377, 2008) has identified a controversy within the voting theory literature pertaining to the representation of agenda structures and the consequent definition of sincere voting. This note responds to Schwartz’s remarks by arguing that the kind of agenda tree he uses does not adequately represent some common parliamentary agendas, and that consequently his definition of sincere voting cannot always be applied.     

Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government,political selection and electoral punishment

Public Choice - Although often at the heart of the public debate, the underlying determinants of political selection and voters’ punishment of corrupt politicians remain poorly investigated....     

Rent seeking and the decline of the Florentine school

Public Choice - Economists have claimed that the invisible hand of competition is behind the historical episodes of outstanding artistic achievement, from Shakespearean theater to musical...     

Where Chicago meets London: James M. Buchanan,Virginia Political Economy,and cost theory

Public Choice - The state must expend resources to credibly threaten the use of force, and the actual use of force is more costly than just exercising the threat. A population that views itself as...     

Long swings in the growth of government expenditure: an international historical perspective

Public Choice - Adopting an international historical perspective, this study aims to identify the main empirical regularities in the long-run growth pattern of government expenditure. The...     

The Political Impact of Environmental Economic Ideas

CO₂ taxes on industry increased in the Scandinavian countries over the course of the 1990s, whereas taxation on agricultural emissions of nitrogen stagnated or decreased. Variations between the two policy fields can in part be explained by contrasting ideational viabilities. Two diverging expert communities exist in the agricultural sector: the first is dominated by agricultural scientists, whose analytical vantage point is field production; the other is dominated by economists; whose analytical vantage point comprises overall socio-economic benefits. In the debate between these diverging models of cognition, the taxation of nitrogen is increasingly perceived as inefficient and unfair. Administrative bias and the position in the ministerial hierarchy affect the advice passed on to policy makers. The political viability of nitrogen taxes consequently decreases as politicians hesitate to employ a policy measure that can be cast into doubt on scientific grounds by the political opposition and agricultural organisations. Instead, alternative instruments developed by agricultural scientist are employed. Thus, the interaction between ideas and interests can contribute to our understanding of why the idea of externality taxation gains more political trenchancy in relation to the taxation of industrial CO₂ emissions than in the taxation of nitrogen emissions from agriculture.     

Reforming the Spanish Senate: Mission Impossible?

Attempts in recent years to reform the Spanish Senate have proven futile. Using an institutionalist approach, this article highlights some of the weaknesses of the Spanish Senate in terms of its constitutional design and institutional development. The article explains how attempts at reforming political institutions are influenced by the historical context in which the institution was originally designed and the political context in which it has subsequently developed. The debate over Senate reform is analysed by examining the Senate's institutional setting and its relationships to broader political settings such as the legacy of the transition to democracy, political party discourse, and a competitive culture in Spain's system of intergovernmental relations.     

What Makes Popular Government Self‐reinforcing?

This article explores the ongoing debate on whether popular government is a continually improving or a continually deteriorating constitutional principle in Scandinavian politics. In particular, three recent articles that address this question are reviewed. One puts an almost entirely positive light on developments in Denmark. By contrast, the authors of the articles on Sweden and Norway are less inclined to see any parallel between economic growth, a sustainable welfare state and good public finances, on the one hand, and improved popular government, on the other. The aim here is to bring some clarity into this paradoxical picture by distinguishing between popular government as such and the prerequisites for popular government's long-term legitimacy. What makes popular government self-reinforcing, this article concludes, is the underlying, more fruitful question to pose. This query should be brought into the open and answered.     

Moral public choice

Public Choice should now integrate systematically considerations of ethics and justice for two kinds of reasons. First, moral principles can be implemented by self-centered individual who, however, care for others' judgments, and these others can thus have these principles implemented at no cost to themselves. Furthermore, direct moral motivations may be less negligible than it was assumed, and at any rate it may be time to focus on them. Second, the theory of justice has reached an integrated, rational maturity which makes it suitable for this purpose (whereas the “Social Choice” approach is plagued by serious problems of meaning).     

The political economy of smoking regulation and taxation

Although anti-smoking policies are on the political agenda in almost all developed countries, a general understanding of these policies is still lacking. Applying the majority voting model of Buchanan and Vanberg (Public Choice 57(2):101–113, 1988) to tobacco taxation and smoking regulation shows that different smoking policies are feasible, depending on the composition of the majority of voters with smokers and non-smokers: (1) internalization of spill-over costs with a mixed majority of smokers and non-smokers as well as (2) a combination of regulation and taxation with a non-smoker majority. Moreover, the influence of the tobacco industry is also discussed.     

Political deadlocks and distributional information: The value of the veil

Contractarian normative theory relies on the veil of ignorance construct to generate the political consensus required for its theories of justice. By eliminating distributional information, the veil is presumed to facilite consensus building by reducing conflict over the distributional effects of proposed constitutional rules or institutions. This paper explores the extent to which excessive distributional information might also impede the ordinary day-to-day decision making of democratic institutions. Our analysis suggests that distributive information makes political deadlocks under majority rule more likely. Statistical evidence suggests that the efficacy of the U.S. Congress has been reduced by the dramatic increase in distributional information made available to it over the past twenty five years.The authors would like to thank an anonymous referee and the participants of the Center for Study of Public Choice Luncheon Work Shop for helpful comments and suggestions. Helpful comments were also provided by Bruce Benson and Z.A. Spindler at the 1988 meeting of the Public Choice Society. We also wish to thank Jack Triplett for providing us with a pre-publication copy of the page proofs of his piece on computer price indices.     

Correction to: The transformation of supreme values: Evidence from Poland on salvation through civic engagement

Public Choice - This article was published in Public Choice 185:1–2 and is part of the “Special Issue of Public Choice in Honor of the 90th Birthday of Peter Bernholz/Edited by Arye L....     

Managerialism, Accountability and Democracy: A Victorian Case Study

Managerialism has made a substantial contribution to providing a more cost conscious, efficient and effective public service. But the Victorian case also raises concerns about whether managerialist techniques will be pursued within a wider constitutional, political and legal framework which recognises the need for discussion, debate and accountability in democratic policy-making.     

The Colour of the Judge's Eyes: Efficiency as a Criterion for the Legislature and for the Courts

Public Choice - Should courts adjudicate to promote efficiency in theeconomy, or should courts be content to apply the lawas they find it? The literature of law and economicshas much to say about...     

A positive model of tax reform

This paper is devoted to the explanation of tax policy from a behavioural-theoretic point of view. It, for the first time, brings together within a unified framework behavioural determinants of government expenditure, taxation, and tax reform. Administrative and compliance costs associated with taxation (factors generally neglected in models of taxation), as well as tax avoidance/evasion, deadweight losses, and the costs that are involved in the tax reform process itself, play a crucial role in the model. The paper investigates how these factors influence the development of taxation and expenditure, and the occurrence of tax reform.This paper has been presented at the Congress of the European Public Choice Society, Linz (Austria), 1989. The authors would like to thank Jos de Beus, Kees Goudswaard, Hans de Groot and Jean-Dominique Lafay for their useful comments. This paper is based on our Dutch publication Belastinghervorming en politieke economie, in Belastingheffing en belastinghervorming, pp. 179–211. Preadviezen Koninklijke Vereniging voor de Staathuishoudkunde 1988. Leiden/Antwerpen: Stenfert Kroese.