Bicameral bargaining and federation formation

This paper takes a political economy approach to fiscal centralisation through federation formation. We analyse a two-region model of federalism with inter-regional policy spillovers. Departing from a state of independence with decentralised provision of public policy, we analyse the proposed formation of a federation to internalise the spillovers. We consider equilibrium allocations under alternative institutional environments involving: simple majority voting, a restriction of uniform taxation, and regional bargaining through a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism facilitates federation formation for the largest set of parameter values of the model, which is consistent with the observation that bicameralism and federalism often appear together.     

From Laggard to Leader: Explaining the Belgian Gender Quotas and Parity Clause

One of the defining features of post-reunified East German political culture has been an enduring affinity for socialism. Although firmly opposed to the pre-1989 one-party state, a sizeable majority of East Germans nevertheless continue to value socialism. Whilst much scholarly research has investigated the strength and depth of socialist values, as well as their sources, comparatively little is known about their consequences, about if and how socialist values matter. This article seeks to redress this by examining linkages between socialist values and political participation, asking whether socialist values are merely passive, romanticised expressions, the effects of which are largely benign, or whether they have real-life behavioural consequences for democracy. Exploring this question using ALLBUS data from East Germany, five hypotheses are tested at the individual level. The results strongly demonstrate that socialist values impact upon social capital and electoral behaviour.     

Horses and hippos: Why Italian government bills change in the legislative arena, 1987–2006

Scholars interested in legislative processes pay relatively little attention to the changes made to bills in parliamentary democracies. On the one hand, comparative research has often described parliamentary institutions as ineffectual vis‐à‐vis cabinets throughout the lawmaking process; on the other hand, for a long time the rational choice literature has focused more on the formal rules regulating amendatory activity than on amendatory activity itself. Hence, very few studies have tried to explain how much government bills are altered in parliament and why. This article investigates the changes made to governmental legislation in Italy. Taking the modifications occurring during the legislative process as the dependent variable, a number of explanatory hypotheses derived from both existing scholarship and original arguments are discussed and tested. This also allows the identification of some usually unobserved aspects of the decision‐making process within the cabinet. The findings can also be relevant for comparative research since Italy has been characterised during the period under scrutiny (1987–2006) by two distinct electoral systems, two extremely different party systems (pivotal and alternational), governments with various ideological orientations and range, and both partisan and technical ministers.     

Putting the ‘rights‐based approach’ to development into perspective

This paper seeks to unravel some of the tangled threads of contemporary rights talk. For some, the grounding of rights‐based approaches in human rights legislation makes them distinctively different to others, lending the promise of re‐politicising areas of development work—particularly, perhaps, efforts to enhance participation in development, that have become domesticated as they have been ‘mainstreamed’ by powerful institutions like the World Bank. Others complain that like other fashions, the label ‘rights‐based approach’ has become the latest designer item to be seen to be wearing, and has been used to dress up the same old development. We pose a series of questions about why rights have come to be of interest to international development actors, and explore the implications of different versions and emphases, looking at what their strengths and shortcomings may come to mean for the politics and practice of development.     

Seniors’ Motivations for Participation in Local Governance: Evidence from an Australian Study

Increasing expectations of citizen involvement as well as demographic changes brought by population ageing make evidence about the factors impacting on seniors’ participation increasingly important for local governments. In particular, knowledge about motivations for involvement can assist local governments in attempting to attract input from more than just the usual suspects, and to determine whose interests are represented. This article reports on an Australian study exploring seniors’ motivations for participation in governance processes, using a two-phase mixed method approach. Findings from this study suggested that seniors’ participation was motivated by both self- and other-directed, and both practical and abstract factors. Comparison of the sources highlighted nuances in the data which reflect questions about representation, representativeness and inclusion. Findings are discussed in relation to these questions, and implications for local government engagement practices are addressed.     

The effects of cognitive distance in university-industry collaborations: some evidence from Italian universities

Universities have long been involved in knowledge transfer activities and are increasing their efforts to collaborate with industry. However, universities vary enormously in the extent to which they promote, and succeed in commercializing, academic research. In this paper, we focus on the concept of cognitive distance, intended as differences in the sets of basic values, norms and mental models in universities and firms. We assess the impact of cognitive distance on university-industry collaborations. Based on original data from interviews with 197 university departments in Italy, our analysis determines whether cognitive distance is perceived as a barrier to university-industry interactions, and estimates its effects on the frequency of their collaborations. Our results confirm that cognitive, albeit not affecting the probability of departments to collaborate with firms, significantly hinders the frequency of interactions.     

State Revenue Forecasts and Political Acceptance: The Value of Consensus Forecasting in the Budget Process

Concerns about political biases in state revenue forecasts, as well as insufficient evidence that complex forecasts outperform naive algorithms, have resulted in a nearly universal call for depoliticization of forecasting. This article discusses revenue forecasting in the broader context of the political budget process and highlights the importance of a forecast that is politically accepted—forecast accuracy is irrelevant if the budget process does not respect the forecast as a resource constraint. The authors provide a case illustration in Indiana by showing how the politicized process contributed to forecast acceptance in the state budget over several decades. They also present a counterfactual history of forecast errors that would have been produced by naive algorithms. In addition to showing that the Indiana process would have outperformed the naive approaches, the authors demonstrate that the path of naive forecast errors during recessions would be easily ignored by political actors.     

Does Decentralization Improve Perceptions of Accountability? Attitudinal Evidence from Colombia

Decentralization is argued to create incentives for local and regional politicians to be more responsive and accountable to their constituents, but few studies have directly tested this claim. We use survey data from Colombia to examine individual‐level evaluations of the degree to which decentralization prompts citizens to view department government as more accountable. We estimate the effect of administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization, controlling for participation, political knowledge, confidence in government, education, and income on perceptions of accountability. Our results indicate that administrative and fiscal decentralization improve perceptions of accountability, while political decentralization does not.     

Failure of auditors: The lack of compliance for business combinations in China

This empirical study investigates the compliance of 344 Chinese listed companies with the Accounting Standard for Enterprises No. 20‐Business Combination, a mandatory reporting standard applicable to companies involved in business combinations. China has recently reformed its auditing sector, enabling private firms to provide auditing services. The results of the study show a low level of compliance by Chinese listed companies. While companies audited by Chinese domestic auditors have significantly lower compliance than companies audited by Big Four auditors on supplementary disclosure that is mandatory under the Chinese accounting standards, compliance remains low even after companies receive unqualified reports from these international auditors. There appears to be a lack of commitment, and possibly expertise, among Big Four auditors, in fully applying the reporting requirements of the business combination standard in a Chinese setting. This raises concerns about the independence of Chinese auditing in disclosing reliable information about business combinations. Broader theoretical contributions of the paper go beyond the Chinese context by problematizing whether well‐resourced international auditors uphold internationally expected standards or succumb to local non‐compliant practices.     

Is Differentiation of Frequently Encountered Foreign Bodies in Corpses Possible by Hounsfield Density Measurement?

Abstract:  The radiological determination of foreign objects in corpses can be difficult if they are fragmented or deformed. With multislice computed tomography, radiodensities—referred to as Hounsfield units (HU)—can be measured. We examined the possibility of differentiating 21 frequently occurring foreign bodies, such as metals, rocks, and different manmade materials by virtue of their HU values. Gold, steel, and brass showed mean HU values of 30671–30710 (upper measurable limit), mean HU values for steel, silver, copper, and limestone were 20346, 16949, 14033, and 2765, respectively. The group consisting of objects, such as aluminum, tarmac, car front-window glass, and other rocks, displayed mean HU values of 2329–2131 HU. The mean HU value of bottle glass and car side-window glass was 2088, whereas windowpane glass was 493. HU value determination may therefore help in preautopsy differentiation between case-relevant and irrelevant foreign bodies and thus be useful for autopsy planning and extraction of the objects in question.