Does US aid buy UN general assembly votes? A disaggregated analysis

Using panel data for 143 countries over the period 1973–2002, this paper empirically analyzes the influence of US aid on voting patterns in the UN General Assembly. We use disaggregated aid data to account for the fact that various forms of aid may differ in their ability to induce political support by recipients. We obtain strong evidence that US aid buys voting compliance in the Assembly. More specifically, our results suggest that general budget support and grants are the major aid categories by which recipients have been induced to vote in line with the United States. When replicating the analysis for other G7 donors, no comparable patterns emerge.     

Why not Africa? – Growth and Welfare Effects of Secure Property Rights

This paper presents the long-run equilibrium and developmentdynamics in the neoclassical growth model and a simple modelof endogenous growth when property rights are absent. Theresults are compared to the outcome in a corresponding modelwith secure property rights. The main findings are that thereexists a considerable gain in level and growth of consumptionfrom establishing secure property rights, that economicperformance without property rights worsens with an increasingnumber of competing social groups, and that the existence orabsence of property rights explains conditional convergence.     

Federalism and Party Interaction in West Germany, Switzerland, and Austria

The federalism established in the constitutions of the FederalRepublic of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, in addition tothe common language of these countries, distinguishes them fromthe other West European countries, which lean toward centrallyorganized states. After examining the historical foundationand development of the federal systems in the three countries,the article analyzes the segmentation, federal-state interaction,and intraparty effects of political parties in them. While federalismis strengthened by the heterogeneity and regional solidarityof the political parties in Switzerland, federalism has becomea pure "party federalism" in the Federal Republic of Germanyand Austria.     

Public management and productivity towards an appraisal of the productivity of alternative forms of public service delivery

Although independent administrative units are used worldwide as alternate forms of public service delivery, only limited systematic knowledge is available as how to apply these organisational forms with the maximum positive effects. This paper aims to explore the productivity gains achieved by administrative units increasing their degrees of independence, shifting from organisational independence to budgetary and legal independence. Focusing on self-operating decentralised units, on public law enterprises and on publicly owned private law enterprises, this appraisal reveals that continuously increasing independence is accompanied by productivity gains, but, depending on varying service delivery conditions--in terms of divergent service concepts or notions of productivity--this may be in terms of quality of output, technical efficiency or allocative efficiency.

Consequently, in order to make the best possible organisational choice, a contingency model has to take into consideration that alternative forms of service delivery find their maximum positive effects not only under varying task contexts but equally in the pursuit of different productivity targets.