The Impact of Prenatal Exposure to Power Plant Emissions on Birth Weight: Evidence from a Pennsylvania Power Plant Located Upwind of New Jersey

To examine the infant health impact of prenatal exposure to power plant emissions, we draw scientific evidence on the impacted region downwind of a large polluter, a coal‐fired power plant located on the border of two states and proven to be the sole contributor to the violation of air quality standards of the impacted region. Our results show that among all live singleton births that occurred during 1990 through 2006, those born to mothers living as far as 20 to 30 miles away downwind from the power plant (which is also an affluent region) during pregnancy are at greater risks of low birth weight (LBW) and very low birth weight (VLBW): the likelihoods of LBW and VLBW could increase approximately by 6.50 and 17.12 percent, respectively. In light of the continual efforts of The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in reducing cross‐state air pollution caused by transboundary power plant emissions, our study is aimed at broadening the scope of cross‐border pollution impact analysis by taking into account adverse infant health effects of upwind polluters, which can impose disproportionate burdens of health risks on downwind states due to air pollutants transported by wind.     

A Concurrent Analysis of Three Institutions that Transform Health Technology‐Based Ventures: Economic Policy,Capital Investment,and Market Approval

Drawing on institutional theory, this article articulates qualitative insights from a program of research on Canadian health technology‐based ventures to examine the rules that characterize economic policy, capital investment, and regulatory approval as well as the way these institutions enable and constrain the development of ventures at an early stage. Our findings clarify how economic policy integrates these ventures into the entrepreneurial domain, how capital investment configures them for economic value extraction, and how regulatory approval fully releases their market value. These findings help to revisit current policy modernization initiatives by calling attention to the convergence among the three institutions. Rather than operating solely as a source of constraints, these institutions provide a highly integrated market‐oriented space for health technology‐based entrepreneurial activities to unfold.     

E‐government and public service quality in Ghana

This article contributes to the growing discourse on the potential of e‐government to transform the operations of public sector institutions, thereby improving public services. It does so by conceptualizing public service quality into efficiency, economy (cost reduction), customer satisfaction, and service accessibility and draws on qualitative data from the Ghanaian narrative for illustration. As previous studies have demonstrated, this study also affirms the potential of e‐government in improving public services delivery by increasing efficiency, reducing the cost of operations, expanding access to services, and achieving customer satisfaction. Yet, there remains a repertoire of challenges such as weak ICT infrastructure especially in towns and villages, incessant power outages and illiteracy, which are drawbacks to fully harnessing the benefits of e‐government in Ghana. The study recommends that these challenges should feature prominently in e‐government policies to increase the chances of solving them.     

Competition and switching in public service markets: Can they reduce inequalities?

Regulatory reforms to public infrastructure services across European Union (EU) countries were aimed at increasing consumer welfare by introducing competition and choice into service markets. However, empirical evaluations have questioned whether these reforms have benefitted all consumers, suggesting that vulnerable groups of service users (especially those with lower levels of formal education), might be locked into poorly performing services. We assess the relationship between the level of competition in electricity and fixed telephony markets in EU countries and evaluate the affordability of these services for different socio‐educational layers. Our findings show that – although in countries where there is a relatively high frequency of switching, inequalities between socio‐educational groups are smaller and eventually disappear – competition as such does not play a part. These results suggest that demand‐side regulation that successfully enables consumer switching has the potential to equalize social welfare, thereby reflecting a possible convergence of regulatory instruments and the central aims of the welfare state in this context.     

Limits of regulatory responsiveness: Democratic credentials of responsive regulation

Responsiveness and accountability constitute the process of democratic representation, reinforcing each other. Responsiveness asks elected representatives to adopt policies ex ante preferred by citizens, while accountability consists of the people's ex post sanctioning of the representatives based on policy outcomes. However, the regulatory literature tends to interpret responsiveness narrowly between a regulator and regulatees: the regulator is responsive to regulatees’ compliance without considering broader public needs and preferences. Democratic regulatory responsiveness requires that the regulator should be responsive to the people, not just regulatees. We address this theoretical gap by pointing out the perils of regulatory capture and advancing John Braithwaite's idea of tripartism as a remedy. We draw out two conditions of democratic regulatory responsiveness from Philip Selznick – comprehensiveness and proactiveness. We then propose overlapping networked responsiveness based on indirect reciprocity among various stakeholders. This mechanism is the key to connecting regulatory responsiveness with accountability.     

Social Desirability,Opportunism and Actual Support for Farmers’ Market Organisations in Ethiopia

One of the striking issues in the literature on farmers’ market organisations (FMOs) is that farmers generally report quite positive opinions regarding the services of their FMO, while, at the same time, actual sales reveal a much more reserved attitude. We argue that farmers may feel social and/or opportunistic pressure to express positive opinions concerning the FMO, to donors and policy-makers, which are not necessarily in line with their actions. This article proposes a list experiment method to control for this bias. The method shows that especially farmers who express strong support for the FMO seriously hesitate to speak freely.     

Market,Freedom and the Illusions of Microcredit. Patronage,Caste, Class and Patriarchy in Rural South India

Abstract

As a market tool, microcredit is expected to promote individual freedom, for women in particular. By drawing on a southern Indian case, this paper argues that microcredit is in fact shaped by the power structures it is supposed to eradicate. Even if they are partly reshaped, local structures of power remain unavoidable to protect populations (something that microcredit fails to do) but also to build the microcredit market and ensure its legitimacy, for donors, local political arenas and local populations. Far beyond microcredit, our findings question the uneasy relationships between markets and individual freedoms.     

Administrative Styles in the OECD: Bureaucratic Policy-Making beyond Formal Rules

As we know from comparative public policy, bureaucracies contribute to a considerable degree to the contents and the ways of policy-making. One important driver of administrative policy-making are their specific “styles” or “cultures”. “Administrative styles” are understood here as the standard operating procedures and routines that characterize the behavior and activities of administrative bodies in initiating, drafting and implementing policy. In this article, we convey the concept of Administrative Styles to the level of International Organizations (IOs) and apply it to the Organization for Economic Development and Co-Operation (OECD). The article proceeds in three steps: First, the concept of administrative styles is introduced and refined. Drawing on expert interviews with OECD staff, we secondly show that consideration of OECD administrative styles significantly advances the literature’s understanding of the organization. Finally, we give an outlook on new research avenues and the relevance of our findings for the study of International Public Administrations (IPAs) more generally.