The effects of party competition on budget outcomes: Empirical evidence from local governments in Spain

This paper investigates the link between local budget outcomes and the intensity of party competition, measured as the margin of victory obtained by the incumbent in the previous local election (i.e. the difference between the vote share and 50%). Two competing hypotheses are tested in the paper. On the one hand, the Leviathan government hypothesis suggests that the lower the intensity of party competition is, the greater is the increase in the size of the local public sector, irrespective of the ideology of the party in power. On the other hand, the Partisan government hypothesis suggests that the incumbent will find it easier to advance its platform when intensity of competition is low (i.e., parties on the left/right will increase/decrease the size of the local public sector when the intensity of the challenge from the opposition is low). These hypotheses are tested with information on spending, own revenues and deficit for more than 500 Spanish local governments over 8 years (1992–1999), and information on the results of two local electoral contests (1991 and 1995). The evidence favors the Partisan hypothesis over the Leviathan one. We found that, for left-wing governments, spending, taxes and deficits increased as the electoral margin increases; whereas, for right-wing governments, a greater margin of victory led to reductions in all these variables.     

调解、诉讼与公正——对现代自由社会和儒家传统的反思

调解作为一种解决纷争的做法和制度 ,是我国传统法律文化尤其是儒家法律文化的重要部分。在现代法治社会中 ,调解否已经过时 ?本文首先介绍中国的调解传统的哲学基础、理论和实践 ,然后从现代自由主义和法治理想的角度 ,对传统的调解提出批判。本文进而指出 ,调解在当代的中国以至西方仍有顽强的生命力 ,西方学者对调解作为“解决纠纷的另类选择”之一提出了多种理论依据 ,其中不少与儒家传统的睿见不谋而合。本文的结论是 ,经过“创造性转化”后的调解理论与实践能对现代文明作出贡献 ,由此可见 ,传统文化遗产在现代仍是十分宝贵和有用的资源。     

ELISA detection of clonazepam and 7-aminoclonazepam in whole blood and urine

The ability of five commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) benzodiazepines to detect clonazepam and 7-aminoclonazepam in blood and urine was investigated. To determine the cross-reactivity of various ELISA assays, drug free blood and urine were fortified with clonazepam and 7-aminoflunitrazepam at concentrations of 1, 2.5, 5, 10, and 25microg/dl. The cross-reactivity, with respect to oxazepam, for clonazepam was 16, 37, 80, 93, and 109% with Immunalysis, Diagnostix, Neogen, OraSure, and Cozart, respectively; for 7-aminoclonazepam, none of the five ELISA assays showed any cross-reactivity above 10%.     

Federal antitrust enforcement: A principal-agent perspective

We study the choices of two types of maximizing Public Servants over how far to carry privatization of industries and in what order to privatize. Two stylizations of the Public Servant's objectives are considered, a Niskanen-style Bureaucrat who maximizes a surplus budget subject to the constraint of staying in office, and a Populist who maximizes popularity/consumer welfare subject to the constraint of a balanced budget. Other things being equal, the Bureaucrat will privatize the sector (firms) with the least market power and the largest subsidy first. The Populist will adopt the same policy, if the marginal costs of products in the private sectors are not too high with respect to the marginal utilities. If the marginal costs are too high, however, the Populist will privatize the sector with the largest market power first. We also show that privatization is easier and faster in less democratic societies.     

Equilibria in multi-party systems

This paper deals with equilibria in multi-party systems, not excluding systems with two parties. The model has a one-dimensional policy space for the positions of parties and voters. Furthermore it assumes an arbitrary continuous density of voters, voters vote for the nearest party, and parties try to maximize the number of votes. Sufficient and necessary conditions for equilibria are given, and from these conditions it is deduced that for systems with a large number of parties equilibria are rare, unless the density of voters is uniform.