Health Care Capital Financing Agencies: The Intergovernmental Roles of Quasi-Government Authorities and the Impact on the Cost of Capital

During the decade 1983-1992, approximately $1.4 trillion of municipal bonds were sold in 87,000 in separate issues, primarily to finance capital projects for education, electric power, transportation, health care, housing, and other public and private purpose activities. Approximately two-thirds of these financings were originated by financing authorities, quasi-government agencies which are the creation of state legislature. Despite the growing role played by quasi-public authorities in capital finance, their impacts have not been studied systematically. We first describe the issuers of tax-exempt debt in the health sector and then derive measures for describing the mix of issuers between state and local levels, and between both government and quasi-government sectors. We present abbreviated test results of the impact that different mixes have on the cost of capital. First, competition is good: using a Herfindahl index analysis we show that states with less concentrated issuers have a lower cost of capital than those with a more concentrated market, including state-level finance monopolies. On the other hand, we cannot assert unequivocally that market deconcentration, in and of itself, should be a goal. For instance, there are economies of scale in the health care finance industry that allow larger (often state-level) issuers to lower the cost of capital.     

In the shadow of the constitutional council: The ‘juridicisation’ of the legislative process in France

This study examines, first, why and how the French Parliament was ‘juridicised’, that, is, gradually placed under the tutelage of the Constitutional Council, and, secondly, the influence of past Council jurisprudence and the threat of future censure on the legislation of the 1986 parliamentary sessions. This influence is greater than has been heretofore acknowledged ‐ indeed, one simply cannot assess the legislative process without understanding the role, direct and indirect, of the Council. Assessment of the legislative effects of Council control of legislation shows that the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of judicial review in France, and the extent to which the Council functions as a gouvernement des juges, is understandable and probably permanent.     

Where Judicial Politics Are Legislative Politics: The French Constitutional Council

Judges on France's ordinary and administrative courts make law and policy by interpreting and applying statutes, but the Constitutional Council is overtly involved in policy‐making. The Council serves as a type of ‘third’ chamber of the French parliament, where it may annul unconstitutional legislation, ‘constitu‐tionalise’ various legal principles, and sometimes even prescribe the precise terms of legislation. This ‘court‐like’ body, thus, plays a significant and growing role in French policy‐making.