The solution to the Tullock rent-seeking game when R>2: Mixed-strategy equilibria and mean dissipation rates

In Tullock's rent-seeking model, the probability a player wins the game depends on expenditures raised to the power R. We show that a symmetric mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium exists when R>2, and that overdissipation of rents does not arise in any Nash equilibrium. We derive a tight lower bound on the level of rent dissipation that arises in a symmetric equilibrium when the strategy space is discrete, and show that full rent dissipation occurs when the strategy space is continuous. Our results are shown to be consistent with recent experimental evidence on the dissipation of rents.     

Veto Rhetoric and Legislative Riders

Riders to appropriations bills have long been a favorite congressional instrument for forcing presidents to accept unwanted policies. To resist unwanted riders, presidents have increasingly resorted to veto threats. Are such threats credible, and do they influence legislation? To answer these questions, we analyze the legislative histories of hundreds of threatened and unthreatened riders from 1985 through 2008. We find that threats are effective in bringing the final legislation closer to the president's preferences. Threats achieve their success, in large part, by interrupting the textbook legislative process in the Senate—spawning filibusters, prompting leaders to punt bills to conference, and encouraging the use of other “unorthodox” procedures. Unlike conventional models that regard veto threats as minimally effective, the findings presented here depict veto rhetoric as integral to identifying critical riders separating the legislative parties that must be resolved in order to avoid gridlock and pass annual appropriations legislation.     

Effect of racial misclassification in police data on estimates of racial disparities

Research on race and policing increasingly draws upon data collected by police officers to estimate racial disparities in police contact. Many of these data sets, however, rely on officer perception of a stopped person's race, which may be inconsistent with how those individuals self-identify. Furthermore, researchers frequently benchmark contact data where race is perceived by police officers against census and survey data where race is self-identified. We argue that discordance between how individuals self-identify and how they are classified by officers can bias estimates of racial disparities. Using a unique data set, which allows us to compare officers’ racial classification of stopped persons with those same persons’ racial self-identification, we characterize rates of racial misclassification in administrative police records. We find evidence of racial misclassification in police records, especially among Hispanic and Asians/Pacific Islanders. We find that officer classification of Hispanics as (non-Hispanic) White is the most common form of racial misclassification in our sample and that its substantive consequences are significant. Specifically, we find that officer classification of Hispanics as White may lead analysts to incorrectly conclude that Hispanics are no more likely than Whites to be cited by police.     

Police Information Technology: Assessing the Effects of Computerization on Urban Police Functions

Municipal police agencies are major users of information technology, and much remains to be learned about the effects of computerization on police operations. This article examines computerization in 188 municipal police agencies in 1993 in cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Relationships among computer hardware, police-file computerization, and police functions are examined. Cities are categorized as low, medium, and high levels of computerization to uncover differences in expenditures and police-officer allocation. Personal computers and mainframes supported file computerization of management and administration, throughput, and crime evidence. Management and administration files influenced computerization of police functions, particularly for management and crime solutions. Highly computerized cities reported larger shares of employees in technical positions, spent more per capita, and reported fewer officers per capita than cities with lower computerization levels. These relationships held after controlling for independent influences such as density, fiscal capacity, crime levels, and population.     

Impacting the Political Landscape: Who Registers and Votes Among Naturalized Americans?

Little is known about the voting behavior of naturalized Americans, primarily due to a lack of good quality data on the national level. Using data from the Voting and Registration Supplement to the November 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS), we examine whether region of origin and length of time spent in the United States affect the likelihood of registering and voting among naturalized citizens, net of other socioeconomic and demographic factors already known to influence electoral behavior. We find that naturalized citizens who have a longer length of time at current residence and in the United States, and those who are older, with more education and higher income are more likely to register and vote. Region of origin is not a major explanatory variable, but there are differences in registering and voting by country of origin among naturalized citizens from Asia and Latin America. Finally, being registered is a necessary but not sufficient condition that predicts voting among naturalized citizens from Asia and from Latin America.     

Changes in the Location of the Median Voter in theU.S. House of Representatives, 1963–1996

We consider the degree of ideological polarizationwithin and between the parties in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives for the period 1963–1996, using theGroseclose, Levitt and Snyder (1996) adjustment method for ADA and ACU scores to ensure over timecomparability of roll call voting data. We focusespecially on the median House member, since webelieve that change in the median offers a bettermeasure of the impact of the change in party controlthan does changes in the mean roll-call votingscore. Our data analysis makes two general points. First andforemost, when we looked at the change in the locationof the House median voter, we found a dramatic changeafter the Republicans gained a majority in the House in1994. After the Republicans became a majority in theHouse, the ADA median in the House in 1995–1996 was at24, far closer to the Republican median of 4 than tothe Democratic median of 83. The shift in medianfrom 1993–1994 to 1994–1995 involved a change of over 25points in one election – far and away the greatestsingle shift in ideology of the modern era. Incontrast, the mean changed only 1 point overthis same period. Second, for the three decades weinvestigated, we found three historical epochs vis a visthe relative locations of the ADA (or ACU) floormedian and the ADA (or ACU) floor mean in the U.S.House of Representatives – two inflection points in1983 and 1994 which are related to trends in regionalrealignment.     

Assimilation and contrast effects in voter projections of party locations: Evidence from Norway, France, and the USA

In the standard Downsian model, voters are assumed to choose parties based on the extent of ideological proximity between the voter's own position and that of the party. Yet it is also well known that there are rationalization and projection effects such that voters tend to misestimate the policy platforms of candidates or parties to which they are sympathetic by overstating the correspondence between those positions and the voter's own preferences (see, e.g., Markus & Converse 1979; Granberg & Brent 1980; Granberg & Holmberg 1988; Merrill & Grofman 1999). Here we follow insights in the psychological literature on persuasion (Sherif & Hovland 1961; Parducci & Marshall 1962) by distinguishing between assimilation and contrast effects. Assimilation refers to shortening the perceived ideological distance between oneself and parties one favors; contrast refers to exaggerating the distance to parties for which one does not intend to vote. Using survey data on voter self–placements and party placements on ideological scales for the seven major Norwegian parties, five major French parties, and two major American parties we show that both assimilation and contrast effects are present in each country to a considerable degree.We also investigate the possible effects of randomness in party placement and scale interpretation – effects that can easily be confounded with assimilation but not so easily with contrast.     

Democratic engagement in the digital age: youth,social media and participatory politics in Kenya

As the communication world becomes more complex and participatory, social networking sites (SNSs) have emerged as a platform with the potential to invigorate democracy and political engagement. However, the value of SNSs in politics remains contested among researchers. The study reported on in this article was based on a survey of 600 university students, aged between18 and 35, to examine the relationship between social media use and political engagement among the youth in Kenya. The study focused on the extent to which SNSs facilitate consumption of political information and the role of SNSs in influencing political interest, knowledge and behaviour among the youth. The study found that reliance on SNSs is positively associated with political participation; however, this influence is limited, and though useful, it does not radically transform political engagement. Therefore, the capacity of SNSs to shape opinion and influence political preferences is limited but internet based political activities like posting and distributing campaign information and consumption of political content have a bearing on political participation. The study concluded that while SNSs do not seem to have a major direct impact on political choices among users, politicians and other campaign actors cannot ignore the opportunity provided by these platforms in the voter mobilisation process.     

Platforms for institutional change: assessing the potential of livelihood enhancement groups as community entry points in Zambia

To address the livelihood problems faced by the poor and vulnerable in Northern Province of Zambia, a novel collective action approach called livelihoods enhancement groups (LEGs) was used as a platform for facilitating research on development initiatives to generate change. Using focus group discussions and key informant interviews, this article assesses the potential of using the LEGs approach in generating change. The livelihood changes observed arose with the LEG as a platform through which different knowledge nodes interacted. Livelihood areas that LEGs affected included crop production, livestock production, nutrition, and access to credit.