An Investigation of the Public Deficts and Government Spending Relationship: Evidence for Greece

This paper tests the validity of the Buchanan-Wagner hypothesis for Greece, that increases in public spending are the result of the tolerance of large deficits over the period 1961–1994. To test this hypothesis, three unit-root pretests, the Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron and Kwiatkowski et al. and maximum likelihood estimation techniques of cointegrating vectors and a vector error-correction model are employed. A long-run relationship is found to exist among government spending, deficit, income,wages and adult population and the importance of short-run deviations are presented. The empirical evidence suggests that Buchanan and Wagner hypothesis, seems to find support for Greece in the long-run and the short-run. Further, productivity in the public sector is lower than in the private sector and the growth of income is not an important determinant of the increase in the relative size of public spending.     

Elections and government spending

It is widely believed that electoral pressures cause legislators to favor government spending programs. This electoral theory of spending is shown to encompass two core hypotheses: (1) the electoral consequences hypothesis, which states that support for spending programs improves the representative's electoral showing; and (2) the legislator insecurity hypothesis, which states that greater electoral insecurity leads representatives to be more in favor of spending programs. A test of these ideas using spending scores for U.S. representatives in 1986 finds that neither hypothesis is supported by the data.     

Equity under and state responses to the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986

A difficult problem facing states with significant commercial hazardous waste treatment and disposal capacity is the inflow of waste into the state for disposal. The states with commercial capacity allege that other states are reluctant to aggressively pursue siting facilities, and in fact may be impeding development through restrictive siting provisions. Likewise, capacity states are frustrated with the Environmental Protection Agency for its perceived inaction in reviewing state siting standards. Equity discussion abounds at the state level. Capacity states hoped that equity would be elevated to federal debate through Section 104(k) of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. I examine equity and review hazardous waste management in a federalism context to discern the relationship between EPA and the states. I focus on the different roles EPA and the states perceived for the other during implementation of Section 104(k). I conclude with an evaluation of how equity was handled under the new legislation and what remains to be done.Research for this article was supported by the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment and the Waste Management Research and Education Institute at the University of Tennessee. I appreciate the comments provided by David L. Feldman and the anonymous Reviewers. The research assistance of Susan Bohm Seylar is gratefully acknowledged.     

Withering in the Heat? In Search of the Regulatory State in the Commonwealth Caribbean

This article explores the “regulatory state hypothesis” in the context of electricity and telecommunications regulation in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. This article questions whether institutional features associated with the regulatory state are triggered by a preference for efficiency and added complexity within the policy domain. This article progresses in three steps. After setting out the regulatory state hypothesis as derived from the work by Giandomenico Majone and its empirical consequences, the article explores the four cases in brief. Although the empirical evidence broadly supports the regulatory state hypothesis across domains, states and over time, some puzzles in terms of reform trajectories and extent of regulatory reform do emerge. The final section explores these puzzles through an actor‐centered institutional perspective. It is suggested that the “regulatory state hypothesis” may be useful for predicting institutional arrangements, but has difficulty in accounting for the extent of regulatory reform and timing.     

Fiscal Competition Among States in Australia: The Demise of Death Duties

This study examines interstate migration in Australia for theperiod 1972–1985 to determine if it was influenced byTiebout-style fiscal competition. In particular, it examinesthe impact of Queensland's abolition of death duties in themid-1970s. The evidence presented is consistent with the commonwisdom surrounding the event as well as with the Tiebout hypothesis.Interstate migration during this period appears to have beenin favor of Queensland and at the expense of those states thatdelayed following the Queensland example. Queensland's populationgrowth during the first three years after abolishing death dutieswas an average 0.20 percent higher due to migrants avoidingthe death duties of the other five states. On average, populationgrowth in each of these states was 0.04 percent lower as a resultof the tax.     

Measuring the Impact of Lotteries on State per Pupil Expenditures for Education: Assessing the National Evidence

State‐operated lotteries have recently been asserted by public administrators and academicians as panaceas for eradicating revenue disparities existing across public school districts in the American states. The purpose of this research project is to empirically test the hypothesis that lottery revenues raise the state expenditures for public education. A state‐level national dataset, which includes fifty American states over the period 1977–1997, was used for the analysis. Pooled time‐series cross‐sectional and ARIMA modeling was employed to test the hypothesis. This study finds that lottery revenues had a positive influence on state per pupil expenditures for education. The evidence for the impact of lotteries on state per pupil expenditures for education was robust and statistically significant.     

Differing mandates and party loyalty in mixed-member systems: Taiwan as a baseline case

There is widespread consensus on the theoretical foundations of the differing mandates hypothesis, that in mixed-member systems district legislators are more likely to defect from the party line than list legislators. However, the empirical evidence for this hypothesis is extremely weak. Is the hypothesis itself fundamentally flawed, or does the long list of intervening variables cited in the literature account for these weak results? This paper examines the differing mandates hypothesis in a case, Taiwan from 1993 to 2007, in which none of the proposed intervening variables should alter expectations. If the hypothesis is not supported in this baseline case, perhaps it should be discarded altogether. In fact, there is strong support for the hypothesis, indicating that the hypothesis is not fundamentally flawed, though it may be less robust than commonly believed.     

Fiscal Centralization in the American States: Increasing Similarity and Persisting Diversity

This study examines the hypothesis that the states are generallybecoming more similar in the area of state-local fiscal centralization.The results support this argument, but the evidence indicateslittle change in recent eras. This greater similarity is generallya result of the decentralized states becoming more like thecentralized states. This convergence is taking place aroundincreasing levels of centralization. Amidst these patterns,individual states are still exhibiting diverse patterns of change,often quite different from the general patterns found.     

Reputation and Interstate Conflict

In international politics, states learn from the behavior of other nations, including the reputations states form through their actions in the international system. This article presents a model of how states process this information and examines how this learning affects international conflict. The model builds off of cognitive balance theory and foreign policy learning models and breaks new ground in its ability to provide a contextual assessment of reputation in world politics. The article then investigates whether a dyad is more likely to experience conflict if at least one state has a reputation for hostility. This hypothesis is tested empirically across all dyads in the international system from 1817 to 2000. The results indicate that states do engage in this learning behavior and that the information generated by extra-dyadic interaction of states has a significant bearing upon the likelihood of dyadic conflict .     

The visibility of agricultural subsidies and market illusions in the Common Agricultural Policy: Some evidence from farmers' views in Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom

Abstract.   This article demonstrates that the design and nature of agricultural support schemes has an influence on farmers' perception of their level of dependence on agricultural support. While direct aid payments inform farmers about the extent to which they are subsidised, indirect support mechanisms veil the level of subsidisation, and therefore they are not fully aware of the extent to which they are supported. To test this hypothesis, we applied data from a survey of 4,500 farmers in three countries: the United Kingdom, Germany and Portugal. It is demonstrated that indirect support, such as that provided through artificially high consumer prices, gives an illusion of free and competitive markets among farmers. This 'visibility' hypothesis is evaluated against an alternative hypothesis that assumes farmers have complete, or at least a fairly comprehensive level of, information on agricultural support schemes. Our findings show that this alternative hypothesis can be ruled out.     

The transition of migratory patterns in medium-sized cities

"The authors attempt to present some empirical findings regarding a phenomenon which they chose to call the 'transition in migratory patterns'.... The general hypothesis states that: changes in migratory patterns are due to an interaction between those economic, political and social processes which affect the distribution of the population; and that this interaction is also highly influenced by macroeconomic politics--an arena where technology plays a dominant role." Data are for Guadalajara and the state of Jalisco in Mexico. (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Zero Base Budgeting: The Manager's Budget

This article offers an assessment of zero-base budgeting (ZBB) derived from a field study conducted by the Urban Institute and supported by the National Science Foundation. Four cities and four states participated in the study, and several hundred public officials were interviewed.     

Staasbildung oder Staatszerfall? Zum Formwandel Kriegerischer Gewalt in der Weltgesellschaft

The nexus between warfare and statebuilding that historians have stressed for European history, seemingly does not apply for the history of warfare after 1945. Instead, numerous political scientists hint to an ongoing depolitization of contemporary warfare and interpret civil wars as “state failure”. This analysis of war development after 1945 shows along the distinction of five realtypes that neither the thesis of a depoliticisation can be supported by the material presented, nor is the system of states endangered by the outcome of intrastate warfare. The problems of state-building, it seems, might rather be caused by economic decline and an increase of internationalisation.     

Polarization,Politics and Property Rights: Links Between Inequality and Growth

We argue that social polarization reduces the security ofproperty and contract rights and, through this channel,reduces growth. The first hypothesis is supported by cross-country evidence indicating that polarization in the form ofincome inequality, land inequality, and ethnic tensions isinversely related to a commonly-used index of the security ofcontractual and property rights. When the security of propertyrights is controlled for in cross-country growth regressions,the relationship between inequality and growth diminishesconsiderably. This and other evidence provides support for oursecond hypothesis, that inequality reduces growth in partthrough its effect on the security of property rights.     

Racial Composition, White Racial Attitudes, and Black Representation: Testing the Racial Threat Hypothesis in the United States Senate

We make the case for why the racial threat hypothesis should characterize the relationship between states?? racial composition, whites?? racial attitudes, and black representation in the United States Senate. Consistent with this claim, we find that senators from states with larger percentages of African-Americans among the electorate and more racially conservative preferences among whites provide worse representation of black interests in the Senate than their counterparts. We also apply theories of congressional cross-pressures in considering how senator partisanship and region moderate the effect of white racial attitudes on black representation. Finally, consistent with the racial threat hypothesis, we show that the negative effect of white racial attitudes on the quality of black representation is stronger when state unemployment rates are higher.     

The political budget cycle across varying degrees of democracy

The political budget cycle (PBC) is a well-known theory claiming that leaders manipulate the economy in proximity to elections to improve their chances of re-election. While the existence of the phenomenon in democracies has been thoroughly discussed, little attention has been given to the theoretical justification and empirical evidence of its existence in autocracies. In this article, I present a hypothesis of the magnitude of the PBC in both autocracies and democracies, claiming that as the democracy level increases, the incentive of leaders to manipulate the economy rises, but their ability to do so is more limited. Therefore, I expect the magnitude of the PBC to be the lowest in states that are strongly autocratic (due to a lack of incentives) and in states that are strongly democratic (due to a lack of ability). The effect should be the strongest in weakly autocratic or weakly democratic states. The empirical analysis presented in the article supports the hypothesis of a non-linear correlation between the PBC and levels of democracy.     

Religion and the demand for membership in environmental citizen groups

I test the hypothesis that religious affiliation is an empirical measure of tastes and beliefs that affect the demand for membership in environmental citizen groups. The number of adherents to Judeo-Christian denominations per household has a significant, negative effect on state membership rates for nine groups advocating a preservationist approach to environmental policy, particularly in states with many Catholics, Baptists and Mormons. Religious affiliation has a marginally significant, positive effect on membership rates for two sportsmen groups advocating private stewardship. These results suggest that religious affiliation should also be a significant determinant of constituent preferences for environmental policies.     

Tax complexity and fiscal illusion

By using the Hirschman-Herfindahl index (HHC) the traditional approach to the tax complexity hypothesis introduces a restriction into the fiscal illusion model which has no theoretical foundation. We analyse the existing framework of the tax complexity hypothesis in detail and propose to capture this complexity through a Hannah and Kay index. We extend the theoretical framework by considering the expected return on investment in information. The empirical tests show that the HHC overestimates the importance of size inequalities between different taxes, while underestimating the impact of the number of taxes as a source of informational costs. The expected revenue hypothesis is not supported.     

Implicit Taxes Collected by State Liquor Monopolies

State monopolization or taxation aresupposedly justified because of negativeexternalities from alcohol consumption, butrecent research questions the efficacy ofsuch policies, suggesting that their actualgoals may be revenue-generation.Consideration of this hypothesis isfacilitated by estimates of the implicittaxes charged in monopoly states, whichgenerally are substantially higher thantaxes in non-monopoly states. Evidencethat monopolization and high taxes do notaffect the level of externalities is alsoexplained by adjustments that rationalindividuals make to avoid the consequencesof such policies, thus providing furthersupport for the revenue-maximizationhypothesis.     

Chieftains Delivering: Testing Different Measures of “Pork” on an Irish Data Set of Discretionary Sports Grants

Distributive spending by a state is often thought to have an electoral connection, and the work on pork-barrel politics whereby spending is geographically targeted is extensive. However, there has been mixed empirical support for the two main hypotheses: (a) that it is targeted at marginal constituencies; or (b) that it goes to party strongholds. Using new data on discretionary sports grant spending in Ireland we offer and test a complementary hypothesis that focuses on the responsible minister as primary decision-maker. We find that the grants are targeted at the responsible minister's constituency. Moreover we test these using three measures of the dependent variable: euro value of the grants, success rate of grant applications and the number of grants allocated per constituency. Our hypothesis is supported in all three models, something we argue gives greater credence to the result.