Budgetary Devices for Curbing Spending Prone Ministers and Bureaucrats

In this paper I study asimple game of the budgetary process. Thegame has three players. A spending proneminister, who proposes a budget, a primeminister, who accepts or vetoes, and abureaucrat who provides non-verifiableinformation about policy. The bureaucratis appointed by the spending minister. Ishow that in this setting public spendingis excessive. This result stems from theproposal power of the minister, and hisincentive to appoint a spending pronebureaucrat. Next, I examine two devices forcontrolling public spending: binding budgettargets imposed by the prime minister, anddelegating veto power to a spending aversefinance minister. It is shown that thelatter device is more effective than theformer device to curb a spending proneminister, because it not only reduces theproposal power of the spending minister,but also induces him to appoint lessspending prone bureaucrats.     

Freedom and Other Variables in the Choice of Public Pension Systems

There are three types of public pension systems popularthroughout the world: Pay-As-You-Go (defined benefit), Funded(defined contribution), and Mixed. The latter two systems werelargely adopted in the 1990s after Chile successfully builtits Funded system. In this paper we analyze the choice ofthese types of pension system, identifying factors that affectcountries' choice. Several measures of freedom – economic andpolitical – are associated with these choices. The estimatedeffects of the two freedoms on pension choice and percentelderly are quite interesting and intuitive.     

Learning and signalling by advisor selection

In this paper we consider a model where a policy maker uses advice in order to (1) obtain information about the consequences of an innovation (information motive) and (2) to support political legitimacy of her decision (persuasion motive). We conduct our analysis in the context of a cheap-talk game with three players: (1) a policy maker, (2) the median voter in parliament or of the electorate and (3) an advisor. The advisor has private information about the consequences of policy. Communication between an advisor and a recipient improves as their preferences are closer aligned. If the preferences of the policy maker and the median voter are different the policy maker faces a trade-off. On the one hand, she wants to gain information to judge whether the innovation is worthwhile. On the other hand, she needs to convince the median voter whether the innovation is desirable.     

Reviews

Roget E. Kanet (ed.), Soviet Foreign Policy in the 1980s, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982, xii + 364 pp. hardback $31.95, paperback $13.95. Adeed and Karen Dawisha (eds.), The Soviet Union in the Middle East: Policies and Perspectives, London: Heinemann for Royal Institute of Interna‐national Affairs, 1982, x+ 172 pp. hardback £13.50, paperback £5.50.

David Holloway, The Soviet Union and The Arms Race, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983, x + 211 pp. £7.95, $14.95.

P. H. Vigor, Soviet Blitzkrieg Theory, London: Macmillan, 1983, ix + 218 pp. £25.00.

Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German‐Soviet Relations 1955–1980, Cambridge: CUP, 1982, xvi + 328 pp. £22.50.

Stephen T. Hosmer and Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice toward Third World Conflicts, Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books/Gower Publishing, 1983, xviii + 318 pp. £19.50.

David A. Dyker, The Process of Investment in the Soviet Union, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, vii + 254 pp. £20.00.

D. Gale Johnson and Karen McConnell Brooks, Prospects for Soviet Agriculture in the 1980s, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983, x + 214 pp. UK hardback £12.25, paperback £6.27. Elsewhere hardback $21.88, paperback $11.19.

Marshall I. Goldman, USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System, London/New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983, xii + 210pp. $15.00.

Ronald E. Hoyt, Winners and Losers in East‐West Trade: A Behavioral Analysis of US‐Soviet Detente (1970–1980), New York: Praeger, 1983, xiii + 238 pp. $29.95.

Paul Dotsenko, The Struggle for a Democracy in Siberia, 1917–1920. Eyewitness Account of a Contemporary, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983, xvii+ 178 pp. $16.95.

Abram Bergson and Herbert Levine (eds.), The Soviet Economy: toward the Year 2000, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983, xvi + 452pp. £27.50.     

Allele and genotype frequencies for D1S80 locus in a Brazilian population sample

Gene and genotype frequencies in relation to the D1S80 locus were determined in a sample of 197 unrelated individuals (144 Caucasians and 53 Mulattoes), living in the city of S?o Paulo, Brazil. The Mulatto group was composed by mixed individuals who presented at least one negroid physical characteristic or declared themselves to be of mixed (Black-White) ancestry. Nineteen different alleles were detected in the Caucasian sample and 15 among Mulattoes. Alleles 18 and 24 were found to be the most common ones in the Caucasian population with frequencies of 0.173 and 0.357 respectively; the sample heterozygote frequency was estimated in 0.824. Alleles 18, 24, and 28 were found to be the most common alleles among Mulattoes with respective frequencies of 0.150, 0.349, and 0.113; the sample heterozygote frequency was 0.759. Fifty-five different genotypes were detected among Brazilian Caucasians whereas the respective figure among Mulattoes was 31. No significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were found in both population samples.     

Researching the use of force: the background to the international project

This article provides the background to an international project on use of force by the police that was carried out in seven countries. Force is often considered to be the defining characteristic of policing and much research has been conducted on the determinants, prevalence and control of the use of force, particularly in the United States. However, little work has looked at police officers’ own views on the use of force, in particular the way in which they justify it. Using a hypothetical encounter developed for this project, researchers in each country conducted focus groups with police officers in which they were encouraged to talk about the use of force. The results show interesting similarities and differences across countries and demonstrate the value of using this kind of research focus and methodology.

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International Law,Social Change and Resistance: A Conversation Between Professor Anna Grear (Cardiff) and Professorial Fellow Dianne Otto (Melbourne)

This conversation between two scholars of international law focuses on the contemporary realities of feminist analysis of international law and on current and future spaces of resistance. It notes that feminism has moved from the margin towards the centre, but that this has also come at a cost. As the language of women’s rights and gender equality has travelled into the international policy worlds of crisis management and peace and security, feminist scholars need to become more careful in their analysis and find new ways of resistance. While noting that we live in dangerous times, this is also a hopeful discussion.     

Do Higher Minimum Wages Benefit Health? Evidence From the UK

This study examines the link between minimum wages and health outcomes by using the introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) in the United Kingdom in 1999 as an exogenous variation of earned income. A test for health effects by using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey for a period of ten years was conducted. It was found that the NMW significantly improved several measures of health, including self‐reported health status and the presence of health conditions. When examining potential mechanisms, it was shown that changes in health behaviors, leisure expenditures, and financial stress can explain the observed improvements in health.