Abolishing the District of Columbia motorcycle squad

The paper reviews the evidence concerning the abolition of the motorcycle squad of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C. and, from it, attempts to draw inferences about the process of terminating governmental units and activities. It discusses the resistance which a small part of the police force was able to put up against the change, the compensatory and other mechanisms by which that resistance could be lessened and overcome, and the supportive, although hardly determinative, role of analysis in the process of change.     

New foundations of cost–benefit analysis

This article responds to the criticisms of New Foundations of Cost–Benefit Analysis that appeared in a review by Amy Sinden, Douglas A. Kysar, and David M. Driesen. We argue that their criticisms are either based on misunderstandings of our approach or are too demanding, in the sense that no reasonable decision procedure would satisfy them. We illustrate this second argument by demonstrating that their preferred approach – feasibility analysis – has little to recommend it.     

对陕北民间艺术文化发展现状的调研分析

陕北民间艺术文化作为中国传统文化的重要组成部分,其生成发展过程可以涵盖社会生活的各个层面,对民族文化传统与习俗的造就具有重要的影响和作用。在全球化背景下,因对传统民间艺术文化认识缺失、东西方文化激烈碰撞以及现代市场经济大潮的冲击等因素,使传统民间艺术文化有日渐衰退的迹象。以延安和榆林为例,提出对陕北民间艺术文化发展的对策:进一步改革陕北民间艺术管理体制,建立一套保护、传承的有效机制;将陕北民间艺术渗透到日常教育工作中、为民族传统文化艺术的保护传承培养后备人才;走产业化发展之路,促进文化消费。     

A perception of motorcycle insurance in Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to find out people＇s perception of motorcycle insurance while comparing the perceptions of insurance companies＇ staff with that of their customers （the motorcyclists）, and also find out the major causes of motorcycle accidents in Nigeria. A total of 140 respondents were sampled using the questionnaire. The kolmogorov smirnov test was used to test the hypothesis. Findings show a general negative perception of insurance services by the motorcyclist and a large disparity in the responses of the motorcyclists and the insurance companies＇ staff. The major causes of motorcycle accidents are also found to be over speeding, carelessness and poor driving skills.     

Comment: Does benefit cost analysis stand alone? rights and standing

The issue of standing in benefit cost analysis is not different from the issue of rights. Benefit cost analysis contributes to legal analysis and also rests upon legal analysis. Debates about standing issues can be reinterpreted as questions of the role of benefit cost analysis when rights are uncertain at the margin. This perspective illumines such questions as whether gains to the criminal count and what weight should be given to expert opinion, to irrational fears, and to gains or losses by foreigners. This perspective is also consistent with a rights-based interpretation of 1) the willingness-to-pay approach, 2) an approach that considers distributional consequences, and 3) an approach that ignores distributional consequences when the costs of determining them are likely to be greater than the benefits.     

Nationalism and art

The rise to prominence of Christian fundamentalism in the USA has threatened the separation of church and state which is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. But just as there are those who wish to see Christianity become a more dominant force in public life, others vigorously oppose any change in the status quo. Both groups have had recourse to the Supreme Court, but it is unlikely that the Court will retreat from its view that the Constitution demands equality between religions.     

Net loss: A cost‐benefit analysis of the Canadian Pacific salmon fishery

This article applies cost‐benefit analysis to the Canadian Pacific commercial salmon fishery. It demonstrates that government policies to preserve the fishery have resulted in higher net social costs than would have resulted from a "do nothing" policy, notwithstanding the rent dissipation associated with unconstrained resource exploitation. The value of landings and the private costs of the harvest over a cycle (1988‐1994) are calculated. On average, fishers extracted rents of C$34.7 million (in constant 1995 Canadian dollars) annually. The public costs of enhancing the resource and organizing and policing the harvest are estimated. When these costs are included in the calculation, net benefits drop to an average of negative C$55.6 million annually. This translates into a net present value (NPV) of the salmon fishery of negative C$784. The effects on NPV of both modest policy changes implemented in 1996‐1997 and of a more dramatic but credible fleet rationalization program are provided. The results indicate that further policy change is called for. More generally, the study shows that policy reform that would significantly benefit both the private sector (through reduced rent dissipation) and the public sector (through reduced government expenditures) can be surprisingly difficult. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Cost–benefit analysis: New foundations on shifting sand

New Foundations of Cost–Benefit Analysis, by Matthew Adler and Eric Posner, represents the most ambitious and credible effort to date to build a solid theoretical defense of the use of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) in evaluating government regulation. In this review, three cost–benefit “skeptics” offer their reactions to this ambitious and important book. We note its virtues – its humility, its scrupulousness, its open‐mindedness. We also explore its vices. If preferences are to be “laundered,” is it intellectually defensible to remove the bad but not consider adding the good? Does Adler's and Posner's welfarism really play the limited role they suppose, or does it risk “crowding out” other important deontological and distributional values? If CBA is merely a decision procedure that provides an imperfect proxy of welfare – the moral criterion we really care about – how do we know that the proxy it provides in practice will actually be accurate enough to be useful? Isn't this at bottom an empirical question that cannot be answered by this thoroughly theoretical book? If CBA is no more than an imperfect proxy for welfare, then alternative imperfect decision procedures may perform better in the real world.     

Using the Kaldor‐Hicks tableau format for cost‐benefit analysis and policy evaluation

This note describes the Kaldor‐Hicks (KH) tableau format as a framework for distributional accounting in cost‐benefit analysis and policy evaluation. The KH tableau format can serve as a heuristic aid for teaching microeconomics‐based policy analysis, and offer insight to policy analysts and decisionmakers beyond conventional efficiency analysis. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Medical art and immortality

She has written on questions of medical ethics and humanities.     

Clubs and the Cost of Agency

The paper investigates the impact of agency costs on clubmembership. Using a simple principal-agent model, under standardassumptions, the paper demonstrates that increased agency costsassociated with hidden action can lead to an expansionary bias.     

Cost and the calculus of voting

Downs's (1957) theory of voting maintains that individuals balance the costs of voting against anticipated benefits in deciding whether to vote. However, most empirical tests of his theory have concluded that costs play little role in individuals' decisions to vote or abstain, and that benefits are the determining factor. Unfortunately, the existing empirical tests of the theory have been inadequate, especially in regard to the measurement of the cost of voting. Using data from the Comparative State Elections Project, we develop an improved indicator of the cost of voting. When this measure of cost is used in a test of Down's theory, we find, contrary to most earlier research, that the cost of voting seems to be a more important determinant of participation than the factors associated with voting benefits in Downs's model.The authors shared equally in the research reported; the order in which they are listed was determined randomly.     

论国家利益的三分性

国家利益是实体利益、关系利益、意识文化利益的辨证统一体,在性质属性上表现为阶级性、民族性、国际性的辩证统一。在国家利益的实现方面,国家间相互关系也表现出三分性特征。     

政治技术与政治艺术

如果把政治生活中的政治现象分为政治观念现象、政治制度现象和政治实作现象,那么,政治技术和政治艺术属于政治实作现象的核心组成部分。政治技术和政治艺术是与政治实践活动结合最紧密,作用最独特的两种政治现象。政治技术是人们追求高效的政治结果的产物,而政治艺术则是人们政治审美活动的产物。两者都是人类创造的政治文明的具体成果,也是政治文明的重要载体和体现形式。当然,它们又以特殊方式推动着政治文明的进一步发展。政治技术和政治艺术之间既有本质区别,又有密切联系。     

Nature,art and artfulness

[E]cosocialism entails different and more complex judgments of value than first-epoch socialism. It demands of us that we take into account a kind of valuation distinct from those values, attached to use and exchange, that enter into economic calculation. Once we open ourselves to the ecosphere, a realm of intrinsic value opens as well, a value inhering in ecosystemic being …. What is called an “ecocentric ethic” is essentially ethics in defense of intrinsic value. Simply put, it is the refusal to reduce the world to cash, and to knuckle under to the lords of economic calculation. … This perspective becomes necessary in the overcoming of the ecological crisis, and therefore the climate crisis as well. It is the deepest level of the resistance to capital, and the foundation of all others.1 ¹Joel Kovel, “Ecosocialism, Global Justice, and Climate Change,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2008, p. 9.      

State of the art called American Government

where he teaches ethics and public policy in addition to American government. He is the co-editor (with Leslie G. Rubin) of The Quest for Justice.