Personality and Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Sample of Street-Level Bureaucrats

Job satisfaction is an important component of bureaucratic success. In this article, we build on the emerging literature on the five-factor model of personality and argue that basic personality characteristics can help us understand why certain employees are more satisfied with their jobs than others. Multivariate analysis of personality and job satisfaction data from over 1,000 public servants supports this argument. We conclude with a discussion about how personality can add to our theoretical understanding of public personnel management, and help public managers identify applicants who are likely to be satisfied with work in the public sector.     

NATO enlargement and Russian security: A comparison of findings from two analytical approaches

The article compares the results of two model analyses on the implications of NATO enlargement for Russia's security in six regions: North‐West, West, South‐West, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Far East. One was done by Vitali Tsygichko using his ‘Model of Defense Sufficiency’ (MDS), the other one by these authors using Tsygichko's data as input to the ‘Generalized Force Ratio Model’ (GEFRAM). While agreeing with regard to the general trend in the development of Russia's security situation, the results differ significantly as to whether these trends indicate a reduction of security below Russia's stated requirements. The results are preliminary and meant as an input to a continued debate on the subject among analysts.     

District magnitude and representation of the majority’s preferences—a reply and new perspectives

We reply to the comment of John Carey and Simon Hix on our original contribution entitled “District Magnitude and Representation of the Majority’s Preferences: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Popular and Parliamentary Votes” in Public Choice 151:585–610 (2012). District magnitude does not necessarily affect deviations between political representatives and their district voters in a strictly monotonic way but monotonicity is upheld for deviations between representatives and the national majority. We provide new perspectives and caution against evaluating electoral systems by focusing on individual politicians’ behavior but neglecting aggregation effects.     

Political Economists and Political Scientists ‐ What Are the Benefits to Economists From Closer Interaction?

This paper discusses how a closer interaction with Political Scientists could impact on Swiss Political Economists by concentrating on four specific hypotheses. The first thesis evaluates how increased interdisciplinary interaction affects the incentives of Swiss Political Economists. It somewhat pessimistically posits that interdisciplinary interaction does not necessarily inseminate the work of Political Economists. The second thesis is more optimistic and discusses some aspects of the politico‐economic process which have been neglected so far in Political Economics but could be integrated thanks to the interaction with Political Scientists. The third thesis proposes that Swiss Political Economists should learn from Political Scientists to be more critical of present Swiss institutions. The fourth thesis proposes that Political Economists and Political Scientists should not only discuss the application of economic reasoning to politics. They should also investigate which governance mechanisms can be transferred from the polity to the economy.     

Independent and competing agencies: An effective way to control government

Controlling government is a primary focus of the politico-economic literature. Recently, various political institutions have been analyzed from this perspective, most importantly balanced budget rules, fiscal federalism, and direct democracy. However, one type of institution has been neglected so far: elected competitors to the government. Such institutional competition between the government and an independent agency can be found at the Swiss local level, where finance Commissions compete with the government. In some parts of Switzerland, local finance commissions can ex ante criticize government projects and bring alternative policy proposals onto the political agenda, which are then voted on by the citizens. Thus, they become strong competitors to the government. We econometrically investigate this institutional setting by comparing the 26 Swiss cantons. We find the power of the local finance commission to have an economically relevant, statistically significant and robust negative effect on the tax burden and on public expenditures.     

Rational moralists: The role of fairness in democratic economic politics

In this paper, we empirically test for the influence of fairness considerations on the willingness to redistribute income in private and in democratic decisions. In contrast to standard explanations of income redistribution, our theory takes into account that prices shift decisively as we move from the sphere of private contributions to politics. At the polls, it is nearly costless to observe social norms. Therefore, we expect individuals to behave more fairly in the political sphere than in the market place. We present experimental evidence which is consistent with this hypothesis. In distributive struggles, social norms moderate the inclination of human beings to behave like ‘gangsters’.