To fight or not to fight?

Public Choice - This paper considers the players' behaviour in an asymmetric two-player contest. When do they decide to “struggle” and when to “subjugate”? Analysing...     

Electoral Success Versus Party Maintenance: National, State, and Local Party Contributions to Illinois Legislative Races

The need for political parties both to expand their legislativebase by winning elections and to maintain their organizationbetween elections is translated into two kinds of campaign contributionstrategies. Federalism affects how political parties choosebetween the two objectives and their related strategies. Contributionsto Illinois legislative races reveal that expansive strategiesaimed at candidates with reasonable chances of winning are mostprominently used by state organizations. Maintenance strategies,concerned with ensuring a continued party presence, are mostconsistently pursued by local parties. In general, except forthe national parties, differences between Democratic and Republicanorganizations are comparatively minor.     

The State of American Federalism, 1993-1994

National political energies in 1993–1994 were focusedon major initiatives promised by the Clinton administrationduring the 1992 presidential campaign, especially health-carereform and crime. From the perspective of the states, federalgovernment action in these (and other) policy areas raised seriousquestions about preemption and mandates. The administration'sofficial pronouncements on federalism have suggested a strategyof decongestion and decentralization. Thus far, its actionshave fallen short of empowerment, taking instead the path ofregulatory waivers. Frustrated with the federal government,states and localities continued to engage in policy experimentation.     

Market-based incentives and residential municipal solid waste

Coalitions of free-marketeers, politicians, and environmentalists increasingly are turning to the use of market-based incentives in formulating environmental policy. One promising application of market-based incentives is in the management of residential municipal solid waste. This article focuses on unit-based pricing programs established in conjunction with community recycling programs. Using data gathered through telephone and mail surveys of 21 cities, we demonstrate the strong potential for unit pricing to improve the efficiency of residential solid waste management.     

Freedom and growth: Do constitutions matter?

This paper uses an augmented Solow model, with cross section data, to measure the effect on per-capita income of a) the entrenchment of various rights in a country's constitution and b) the level of economic freedom in a country, broadly construed. The results suggest that entrenchment,per se, of any single right seldom has a significant general economic effect, while the effect of economic freedom is significant and substantial. The paper then considers whether such evidence could support the proposition that “constitutions do not matter.” While it concludes otherwise, it does caution against incurring excessive negotiation costs to obtain entrenchment of a comprehensive “wish list” of rights.     

Rent seeking and the welfare cost of trade barriers

This paper estimates the potential social cost of trade barriers using the Harberger and the Tullock/Posner approaches for a sample of U.S. food and tobacco manufacturing industries. In addition, it tests the relationship between the computed welfare losses and special-interest political activity (PAC contributions). If all rents were dissipated through rent seeking, the social cost of trade barriers would be about 12.5 percent of domestic consumption and would be particularly large for sugar and milk products where quotas are the main instrument of protection. Furthermore, the results indicate that welfare losses are positively associated with industry lobbying but the strength of such association is strongly dependent on industry concentration.     

Explaining differences in productive efficiency: An application to Belgian municipalities

The purpose of this paper is to measure and explain variations in productive efficiency of municipal governments in Belgium. Technical efficiency is evaluated using a non-parametric method based on the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) reference technology. We first calculate input, output, and graph Farrell efficiency measures for a cross-section of all 589 Belgian municipalities. In a second stage of the analysis we explain the calculated differences in efficiency in terms of variables related to the structural characteristics of municipalities and to the institutional environment.     

The median voter hypothesis: Evidence from general purpose local governments

The median voter hypothesis (MVH) represents a much-used as well as much-criticized tool in the hands of public finance economists. To evaluate the MVH, this paper applies the Cox specification test using data from general purpose municipal governments. The Cox test allows for possible simultaneous rejection of the MVH and all tested models, thus providing stricter criteria than applied to date in empirical MVH analyses. The test results reveal that the MVH is appropriate for explaining the aggregate behavior of municipal governments, but not specific services. Further, the single service and single tax base assumptions are not critical to the empirical MVH performance.