The experimental search for free riders: Some reflections and observations

Public Choice - The presence of the incentive to free ride in ‘pure situations’ has not heretofore been contested, and we would have expected that choice settings could be designed in...     

State budget stabilization fund adoption: Preparing for the next recession or circumventing fiscal constraints?

The high rate of budget stabilization fund adoption during the 1980s is often attributed to the 1980–1982 recession. In this view, states adopted funds to prevent a recurrence of the fiscal crises experienced during that recession. An alternative hypothesis is that some funds adopted during this period were intended to circumvent tax and expenditure limit laws. We find that states with TELs in place were significantly more likely to adopt statutory funds, but were significantly less likely to adopt funds with stringent deposit and withdrawal rules, suggesting that some funds were adopted to circumvent existing fiscal constraints.     

Self-interest,public interest,and public health

Although the activities of physicians, as represented by the AMA, have long been viewed from a self-interest perspective by economists, public-health processes have not been subjected to such an examination. But just as the conduct of ostensibly charitable hospitals cannot be examined independently of the interests of the physicians who staff them, so too, we think, the conduct of public-health bureaus should not be examined in isolation from the interests of the medical community that they represent. An interest-group interpretation of public health would look to the ways in which public-health processes increase the aggregate demand for medical services, thereby generating quasirents for specialized input suppliers. We have explored in preliminary fashion some ways in which public-health agencies may advance the collective interests of physicians, though we would be the first to acknowledge that much work remains to be done on this topic.We are grateful to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for financial support.     

Traditional Versus Internet Media in a Restricted Information Environment: How Trust in the Medium Matters

Political Behavior - We use original survey data from Malaysia to explore differences in how traditional and digital media shape the attitudes and behavior of citizens. In closed, and even...     

Breaking the mold: a new type of multilateral sustainable development negotiation

Participants in the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were reminded time and again that there is no model for the process to develop the SDGs. They resolved to not repeat the closed process used to develop the Millennium Development Goals, but the OWG began work when failures to reach consensus and fatigue with multilateral environmental negotiations dominated delegates’ minds, rather than examples of successfully negotiated outcomes. The OWG Co-Chairs were faced with the daunting task of guiding delegates’ efforts to develop a proposed set of crisp SDGs and targets that all could agree to, and thus, had to accomplish the following goals: (1) reduce delegation rigidity, both of individual Member States and within coalitions; (2) maximize the sense of participation, transparency, and ownership to get the most buy-in at the end; and (3) develop a sense of trust that would change the relationship between Member States. To do this, the OWG Co-Chairs broke the mold of UN multilateral negotiations that Member States and observers had become familiar with and created a different approach. This article examines how the OWG accomplished these goals and overcame the shortcomings of other multilateral negotiating processes on sustainable development to produce a widely supported consensus outcome at a time when governments have struggled to achieve agreement in many multilateral negotiation tracks.     

Anforderungen an die Erfassung, Bewertung und Sanierung von Biodiversitätsschäden nach dem Umweltschadensgesetz

Zusammenfassung  Durch das Umweltschadensgesetz wurde eine ?ffentlich-rechtliche Verpflichtung zur Kompensation für gesch?digte natürliche Ressourcen und Funktionen implementiert, die unabh?ngig von der Vorhabenzulassung oder dem Vorliegen eines Eingriffs ist und damit deutlich über die Verpflichtungen aus der naturschutzrechtlichen Eingriffsregelung hinausgeht. Bisher herrscht eine gewisse Unsicherheit im Umgang mit dem neuen Instrument. Vollzugshinweise in den L?ndern fehlen weitgehend. Auch sind F?lle, in denen das Umweltschadensgesetz zur Anwendung gelangte, bisher nicht systematisch erfasst, Rechtsprechung liegt noch nicht vor. Der Beitrag gibt daher Hinweise zur rechtlichen wie naturschutzfachlichen Operationalisierung der zentralen Regelungen zur Erfassung, Bewertung und Sanierung von Biodiversit?tssch?den und bietet Unterstützung für die Umsetzung und den Vollzug des Instrumentariums in den L?ndern.