Social choice and economic growth

Optimal economic growth deals with the problem of how societies make tradeoffs between current and future consumption, or equivalently, how societies make decisions about investment rates. Until now, theorists have simply assumed that there is some societal utility function which planners can maximize. Social choice theorists have thrown doubt upon the concept of a societal utility function. We treat optimal economic growth as a problem in social choice theory. Assume that citizens have preferences over the various growth plans. Under what conditions will a majority rule equilibrium exist? We show that such an equilibrium can exist for a Ramsey type problem. We then briefly consider social choice in the so-called “labor surplus” economy.     

Consistency in policy thinking

This study examines consistency in opinion on a variety of important state and national policy questions. The data come from a two-wave panel study of adult Floridians conducted in 1981 and 1982. Wide variations in consistency of opinion over the 1-year period are found. Salience has an important impact on consistency, with respondents who find an issue salient almost always exhibiting more consistent opinions, but salience cannot explain the variations in consistency across issues. The level of government on which the issue is focused (national or state) has no bearing on consistency. Most important, the particular nature of the issue itself, especially how central it is to the individual and how long it has occupied the political agenda (maturity), affects consistency of opinion. Centrality and maturity both contribute to issue attitude consistency and even can compensate for one another. Both highly central new issues and remote old issues can produce consistent attitudes, but deficiences in centrality seem to override issue maturity. These findings illustrate the value of looking beyond opinion distributions to the meaning of the survey response. With information on consistency and its sources, the public opinion analyst can interpret polling results intelligently, and the study of public opinion can become more objective and scientific.     

Living in the world risk society

Abstract

In a world risk society, we must distinguish between ecological and financial dangers, which can be conceptualized as side effects, and the threat from terrorist networks as intentional catastrophes; the principle of deliberately exploiting the vulnerability of modern civil society replaces the principle of chance and accident.     

Finance and Demand for Skill: Evidence from Uganda

We explore the empirical interaction between firm growth, financing constraints, and job creation. Using a novel small-business survey from Uganda, we find that the extent to which small businesses expand skilled employment as their sales and profits increase is significantly related to access to external funding, while the hiring of casual and family workers is not. The results are robust to the inclusion of various firm level controls, region and sector fixed effects. We support our findings by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between planned hiring and firms’ access to finance.     

The Theological Underpinnings of Australia's Constitutional Separation of Church and State Provision

The Australian Constitution contains two provisions concerning religion: a reference to “Almighty God” in the preamble and a provision denying the Federal Parliament power to legislate in respect of religion. The inclusion of those two provisions by the National Australasian Convention, which met from 1897 to 1898 to draft the Australian Constitution, was in large measure a result of political campaigns undertaken by competing religious groups. The first group, the Councils of Churches in each colony representing the main Protestant denominations, agitated for a constitutional “recognition” of God. The second group, the Seventh Day Adventists, campaigned against any constitutional recognition of God and for the inclusion of a provision limiting the Federal Government's power in respect of religion. The Adventists held fears that constitutional “recognition” of God would empower the federal parliament to pass nation‐wide Sunday observance laws. This article explores the theological and legal thinking of the Seventh Day Adventists to explain how they came to believe what, on a strict legal analysis, was highly implausible.