The limits of tax and expenditure limits: TEL implementation as a principal-agent problem

Previous scholarship has shown that Tax and Expenditure Limits (TELs) often fail to constrain government growth. This paper views the implementation of TELs as a principal-agent problem. Agency theory predicts that delegation is affected by the preferences of agents and the costs of monitoring those agents. Using panel data for the US states from 1970 through 2008, I conduct an empirical test of the validity of the principal-agent model for TELs. I find that state spending limitations are only effective at cutting the growth of state and local spending under the direction of agents who have a preference for limited government. Additionally, state property tax limitations are only effective when monitoring does not require costly coordinated action. These findings contradict an alternative theory of TEL implementation that looks towards the policy’s origin. My research suggests that the arrangements of delegation determine when and under what conditions TELs effectively reduce government growth.     

A mixed blessing for the left? Early voting,turnout and election outcomes in Norway

Is there a relationship between turnout and election outcomes? Although this is a classic topic in political science, most studies on multiparty systems have important theoretical and empirical shortcomings. First, we argue that the proper implication of the theoretical argument that underpins research on the turnout-vote nexus is that high levels of turnout should typically benefit both traditional social democratic parties and parties of the radical right relative to other types of parties, including not only those of the traditional right, but also ‘left-libertarian’ parties. Second, few have studied the relationship between turnout and election outcomes with a research design that is appropriate for causal inference. In our empirical study, our identification strategy is to exploit a Norwegian reform of early voting rules as an exogenous source of variation in turnout. Our theoretical expectations are largely borne out in our empirical results.     

Commune Democracy and Gorbachev's Reforms

The process of democratic restructuring in the Soviet Union since 1986 can be understood in terms of a revival of the democratic ideal of a participatory and self-managing society. The concept of commune democracy espoused by Marx and Lenin, however, is problematical, not least because of ambiguities in its relationship to the state, the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dirigisme of the party. Gorbachev's reforms are developing within the context of an attempt to regenerate commune democracy, and some of the hesitancies of the reform process can be attributed to the contradictions in the theory. The scope for a reconstituted civil society is limited by the inclusive tendencies of traditional commune democracy. The reform process may ultimately be able to exploit the ambiguities in commune democracy sufficiently to allow the development of a law-governed state.     

国家与国际组织互动关系的“委托-代理”解释框架

在百年未有之大变局叠加新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情的冲击下,作为全球治理主干的众多国际组织面临着深度调整。在这一背景下,厘清主权国家与国际组织的互动机理,深入研究并思考中国应如何主动介入和引导国际组织的变革,已经成为具有重要战略价值的课题。与长期以来主导国际组织研究的主流国际政治理论不同,源于经济学的“委托-代理”理论为分析成员国与国际组织之间的复杂关系和互动逻辑提供了启发性视角。在国家与国际组织复杂的“委托-代理”模型下,国际组织的行为与政策偏好将综合取决于成员国、成员国在国际组织内部的代表、国际组织的秘书处和行政首长等主要行为体在国际组织的决策过程中处于什么位置以及能够施加多大影响。这为我们更全面地认识国际组织,提升我国在国际组织中的影响力与话语权带来了启示。     

Goal Conflict and Fund Diversion in Federal Grants to the States

Researchers using fiscal choice models have had limited success predicting fund diversion in federal grant programs. The application of a principal-agent framework to questions of fiscal federalism offered a potentially valuable alternative approach, but the traditional model employed by Chubb (1985) neglected potential variability in the degree of goal conflict between principals and agents. This article proposes an expanded framework, which incorporates the possibility of variation in goal conflict between participants in intergovernmental aid programs. The theory suggests that the level of policy congruence between recipient jurisdictions and the national government will determine the amount of grant funding diverted away from targeted policy areas. Findings from analyses of grant programs in two distinct policy areas support the hypothesis that grant effectiveness is partially a function of goal congruence. The relationship between intergovernmental partners is interactive, with the degree of policy agreement determining fund diversion in subnational jurisdictions, as well as the effectiveness of federal oversight activities. The findings have important theoretical implications for understanding both fiscal federalism and principal-agent relationships more generally.     

Government-to-Government Contracting: Stewardship,Agency, and Substitution

ABSTRACT

This paper provides empirical evidence detailing the distinctive nature of service delivery provided through contracts with other governments. The results of a survey of Ohio city and county managers both confirm and stand in contrast to implications derived from stewardship theory. Consistent with stewardship, our data demonstrate that contracts with public sector service partners generate less intensive monitoring by contracting governments than do services contracted with private entities. In contrast to stewardship theory, we find that contracting governments do not use other governments for services requiring intensive monitoring. In an era of accountability and results-oriented management, reliance on trust may not satisfy constituents who seek evidence of effective service delivery. The inability of the contracting government to affect another government's service delivery reduces the attractiveness of that government as a contracting partner. If the tools of stewardship prove to be inadequate, the imposition of carrots and sticks appropriate for a principal-agent relationship could undermine the trust central to stewardship. Given these tensions, it is not surprising that governments are contracting less with other governments.     

EMAC, Katrina, and the Governors of Louisiana and Mississippi

State and local governments along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts were overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina and lacked the capacity to function without outside assistance. Mutual aid agreements are common among communities and provide essential surge capacity when catastrophes strike. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is just such a mechanism for sharing resources. How well or how poorly governors use EMAC depends on their familiarity with the system and how prepared their state and local agencies are to integrate EMAC personnel and other resources. Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana was less familiar with EMAC than was Governor Haley Barbour in Mississippi and had less assistance in using the system. State and local officials in Louisiana were also less familiar with mutual assistance compacts than their counterparts in Mississippi. The integration of EMAC assets into state and local operations was easier in Mississippi because officials had set up an area command to coordinate operations.     

国有企业改制中的工人集体行动的解释框架--以西北某省X市H纺织公司的一场抗争为例

20世纪90年代后期以产权为导向的国有企业改制从根本上改变了中国工人的命运.集体无行动和集体行动理论为分析当代中国工人抗争提供了两种十分鲜明的视角.集体无行动理论认为传统意识形态的灌输、工人阶级分裂性特点和政府制度性补救等措施消解了工人的有组织行动.结合发生于西北某省的一个大型纺织公司工人的一次集体抗争来观察中国国企改革困境及中国工人的抗争策略.急剧恶化的生存现实、相对剥夺感的不断强化以及改制中的种种不公正导致工人的抗争运动越来越激烈,用集体无行动理论已经无法解释现实.我们认为尽管这些抗争在手段和策略上还很不成熟,尽管它离西方意义上的社会运动还有距离,但它已经具备了集体行动的特点,符合西方集体行动理论的解释框架.这些抗争行动要求我们必须更理性探索劳动关系新模式,在政府、资本和劳工三方之间达成新的共识.     

‘New politics’ in German labour market policy? The implications of the recent Hartz reforms for the German welfare state

The twin predicaments of German labour market performance and welfare state performance triggered an ongoing debate on reforming the German model. Recently, this debate has yielded an outcome in the form of the so-called Hartz laws, a bundle of labour market policies aimed at the reduction of unemployment and the decrease of non-wage labour costs. The Hartz reforms have played a prominent role in the public discussion, but are they really a watershed as both optimists and pessimists claim? In this article we investigate in what sense the Hartz reforms mark a substantive political change and how they are related to similar processes in other countries. To characterise the policy output we discuss three views of policy reform: reform as a process of policy-learning, reform as a process of competitive realignment and reform as a process of reinforcing path dependence. We show which of the three paradigms accounts for which part of the political result. We find evidence for both policy diffusion and retrenchment, but it is too early to speak of a change of regime. Rather, both the changes thus far and the blocked proposals follow a traditional German logic of strong institutional resistance.     

From Convergence to Divergence: Reforming Australian Local Government

The article maps local government reform in the six Australian states over the last decade. It identifies an earlier phase of reform that focused primarily on redefining the roles and relationships within local government, especially between state and local governments, principally through the reform of the state local government Acts. As state reform agendas have shifted more to focus on managerial improvement, significant differences between local government reforms between states have emerged, in focus, process and outcomes. These differences are such that the role of local government itself has been refocused in several states away from the traditional local democracy values that have for so long underpinned this third sphere of government.     

Agenda setting power and moral hazard in principal-agent relationships: Evidence from hospital budgeting in Norway

Abstract. The article addresses a public sector principal-agent relationship under a financial regime of block grants. Two types of questions arise in principal-agent relations in this setting. The first is whether a public sector agent can force the principal to approve budgets that are away from the principal's ideal point, or if it is the principal that is the strong party in the relationship and can determine the agent's budget. The second is whether the agent can exploit a situation of asymmetric information or neglect from the principal, to lower efficiency. Predictions from different assumptions of the principal-agent relationship are empirically tested on data from counties and county run hospitals in Norway. Results show that counties have the upper hand in the relationship and can set hospital budgets. However, agents reduce efficiency when budgets are increased and counties can not prevent efficiency from falling by monitoring the agent. Under a block grant financing system counties face a tradeoff between cost-efficiency and production. Low budgets lead to high efficiency and low production. High budgets lead to low efficiency and high production.     

Tort Reform and Regulation of the Insurance Industry: Medical Malpractice Liability Proposals in 1986

Tort reform was a key issue for state legislatures in 1986.It pitted powerful interests against other powerful interests;it raised basic questions about common law; and it threatenedto alter the federal system by having the federal governmentclaim greater control over tort law and insurance regulation.In this article we set the background that led to this flurryof attention, review the major proposals for reform, and outlinethe actions of both the federal government and state governments.The federal government did little in 1986; it still faces thequestion of whether to preempt traditional state authority inthese areas. At the same time, virtually every state acted in1986. Early in the year, the insurance industry (and physicians)set the debate—its topic, tone, and terms. By the timeother interested parties got organized, many states had actedgenerally following the recommendations of the insurance industry.Later in the year, the debate became more heated, and the insuranceindustry had much more difficulty securing desired state action.As a result, many issues were carried forward to 1987.     

现代大学治理结构：真实命题及中国语境

大学治理结构的真实命题包括多重涵义:回应"冲突和多元利益"的治理需要,建构能够体现利益相关者组织属性和委托代理关系特点的决策权结构;大学自身不是完整意义上的办学利益主体,其"组织剩余"是由社会利益来决定的公共价值,每一种利益相关者都不应单独地对大学行使控制权;大学治理结构是比管理结构更为基础的制度结构,其根本目的是建立大学决策过程与社会权利主体的合理联系,实现社会价值平衡。大学治理结构的中国语境是:办学体制的变化为政府与高校建立具有委托代理性质的契约关系提供了法律依据和操作空间;管理体制的变化使大学决策责任骤然加重、决策权处于高度集中状态,风险也随之出现;办学经费筹资结构的变化表明大学的社会基础日益广泛化,其利益相关者组织的属性正从模糊走向清晰。我国大学已跨越前治理时期,但向治理阶段迈进必须依靠上层政治权威的推动,才可能突破"制度锁定状态",破解历史性难题。     

Reaching for the Philosopher's Stone: Contingent Coordination and the Military's Response to Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005, it immediately overwhelmed the abilities of local and state emergency management officials to respond to the ensuing disaster. Although the U.S. Coast Guard and some military units were on scene shortly after the passage of the storm, there seemed to be interminable delays before the military forces began to arrive in numbers to both provide humanitarian relief and secure the affected areas. This article analyzes the response of the National Guard, active-duty military, and Coast Guard forces through the lens of coordination. We find evidence of the successful use of both traditional hierarchical and network-based coordination; we also find support for Donald Kettl's idea of "contingent coordination."     

Municipal Bond Issuance: Is There Evidence of a Principal-Agent Problem?

Is there evidence of a principal-agent problem in the municipal bond industry? Do public managers, either on their own or through private sector agents, act to increase their own utility at the expense of the public? This article examines municipal bond decisions in the context of principal-agent theory based on data collected through a random sample survey of municipal bond issuers. Principal-agent theory is not well developed in the public sector. In the municipal bond industry, however, we have evidence that it helps explain the actions of public managers and elected officials, in particular for pay to play and the importance of interest rates vis-à-vis relationships. These actions carry potential costs to citizens.     

国企改革30年的纷争焦点与深化改革的取向

我国国企改革伴随着激烈的理论争论走过了30年。2003年以后,我国新的国资管理体制逐步建立,国企调整改革的取向也发生了明显变化——向关键领域集中,整合重组,做强做大。由于地方国企与央企差异很大,特别是二者的战略地位完全不同,因此,其调整改革取向应当有很大差异。要使地方国企与央企沿着合理的差异化取向调整改革,就应当正确认识和调整国务院国资委的定位、合理确定地方国资委的地位、正确处理地方国资委与国务院国资委的关系。     

The Impact of Mandatory Waiting Periods and Parental Consent Laws on the Timing of Abortion and State of Occurrence among Adolescents in Mississippi and South Carolina

Individual data on induced abortions from Mississippi and South Carolina are used to examine the effect of parental consent laws and mandatory delay statutes on two outcomes among teens: the point in pregnancy at which the abortion occurs and whether teens obtain abortions in or outside their state of residence. No effect of either law was found on the timing and location of abortion among minors relative to older teens in South Carolina. In Mississippi, however, both laws are associated with an increase in the proportion of abortions performed out of the state and the parental consent statute with later abortions. The conclusion is that Mississippi's 24‐hour as compared with South Carolina's one‐hour delay requirement, and Mississippi's two‐parent as contrasted with South Carolina's one‐parent consent statute explain the stronger behavioral response in Mississippi. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Management and Ananlysis.     

政府购买社会组织服务模式选择研究

作为一项影响重大、意义深远的改革举措,政府购买社会组织服务的效能提升是当前理论和实务界共同关注的焦点。依据多元供给主体的层次结构,将政府购买社会组织服务分为购买生产者服务和购买集成者服务两种模式。基于委托代理理论,引入任务冲突变量,建立了两种模式下的最优模型,并对政府购买社会组织服务所支付的租金大小进行比较分析。结果发现,任务冲突程度直接影响政府购买社会组织服务的模式选择。当任务冲突程度较高时,政府应该选择购买生产者服务模式;反之,则应该选择购买集成者服务模式。     

声誉机制对我国社会保障基金投资管理人的激励效应

全国社会保障基金理事会的投资管理地位已经确立,那么它就与其投资管理人形成了委托-代理关系。根据博弈论可知,若企业家只是重视短期利益,不注重其自身的声誉,在短期内可能获得最大化利润,而从中长期看来却不能。若建立有效的投资管理人声誉机制,则可以解决投资管理人个人收益函数与全国社保基金会的利益函数不一致性的问题。在Meyer和Vickers所建立的声誉机制模型的基础上,把声誉机制引入我国的社会保障基金的个人账户投资领域,进一步研究其对我国个人账户基金投资管理人的激励和约束作用,建立了基金投资管理人声誉机制模型,说明了声誉机制对全国社会保障基金理事会在激励投资管理人方面发挥的重要作用,并为更好地发挥该机制作用提出了几点建议。     

Prinzipal Parlament. Die Bedeutung europäischer Parlamente als Wahlorgane

In parliamentary systems of government, parliaments can be conceptualized as central power-distributing institutions and as principals of the cabinet and other external officeholders. Relying on the principal-agent framework, this paper shows that electoral powers of parliaments can reduce agency loss and indicate a deviation from the ideal typical chain of delegation in parliamentary systems. Electoral powers of parliaments can be used to assess the degree to which cabinets are indeed constrained by external officeholders, whose constraining effect is often simply assumed. Empirically, the paper offers the first systematic comparative study of electoral powers of 25 European parliaments with regard to seven state offices. The analysis reveals major differences between parliaments and identifies electoral powers as an empirically distinct dimension of parliamentary power resources.