An analysis of the goals of lottery managers: implications for developments in the operation of Canadian lotteries

Abstract. Government lotteries were introduced in Canada in 1970 and during the past eight years have increased greatly in number and in size. Lotteries have generated a great deal of public interest but the goals of lottery managers have received little attention. The purposes of this paper are to examine some objectives which could be achieved in the operation of lotteries and to use the results of this analysis, along with the experience of foreign lotteries, to make some tentative predictions about changes in Canadian lotteries over the next five years. The first part of the paper discusses the role of government in lottery operation and argues that government-run lotteries are preferable to privately run lotteries, even if government-regulated. The second section of the paper examines various goals which may be important to lottery managers and concludes that revenue maximization is likely to be more important than goals like minimizing the regressivity of a lottery ‘tax’ or achieving the price and output which would occur in pure competition. In the last section, suggestions for increasing lottery revenues are examined and it is judged that more frequent draws, special prizes and increased advertising are more likely to occur than changes in ticket prices, prize structures and payout ratios. Lottery profits could also be increased by eliminating the competition between the federal and provincial offerings and it is likely that further conflicts will be resolved by a joint operation or in favour of the provinces.     

Motivational Bases and Emotional Labor: Assessing the Impact of Public Service Motivation

Emotional labor has become an important topic in the study of organizational behavior, but no research has examined how it is affected in individuals’ motivational bases. Public administration scholars have started to study this concept, but empirical studies are still in their infancy. Focusing on a particular type of motivational base—public service motivation (PSM), this article assesses how PSM and its three dimensions (attraction to policy making, commitment to public interest, and compassion) affect two common emotional labor activities (surface acting and deep acting). Using data from a survey of certified public management students, the results show that PSM is negatively associated with surface acting and positively associated with deep acting. Among the PSM dimensions, attraction to policy making is positively associated with surface acting; compassion is negatively associated with surface acting and positively associated with deep acting; and commitment to public interest is not associated with surface acting or deep acting.     

Beyond personal vote incentives: Dividing the vote in preferential electoral systems

Comparative studies of preferential electoral systems have paid much attention to the incentives for personalized instead of party-centered campaigns, but they have largely ignored how some of these systems allow “allocation errors” and so create incentives for parties to “manage” the vote and intraparty campaigns. We discuss how the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) and single transferable vote (STV) systems create these incentives, and we illustrate the degree to which they affect actual electoral results across seven preferential electoral systems. The analysis reveals statistically significant differences in the vote inequality among incumbent cohorts (members of the same party and district), indicating the strong influence of vote division incentives over candidate-centered electoral environments. The results also have important implications for comparative research on legislative turnover and the incumbency advantage.     

中国马克思主义经济学理论的新拓展——基于生态文明的视角

在建设生态文明和“美丽中国”的实践基础上,推进马克思主义经济学理论的绿色化创新,需要我们立足于当前中国经济的绿色转型与升级,运用唯物史观分析经济发展新常态、供给侧结构性改革、绿色发展方式和生活方式等,深刻领会新时代中国特色社会主义政治经济学的新理念、新思想、新观点,从生态文明视域丰富和发展马克思主义社会再生产理论、生产力和生产关系理论、经济规律论、生产一生活方式论、财富理论、资本理论等,开拓当代中国马克思主义政治经济学新境界.