Determinants of government size: evidence from China

This paper investigates the determinants of government size at the provincial level in China. We employ the panel data model as a platform for empirical analysis and control for endogeneity in the study. Our study shows that openness to trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) may curtail government expansion, and that the provincial-level public sector is characterized by economies of scale. This study also documents that Wagner’s law does not hold true for China. Moreover, both expenditure decentralization and revenue decentralization contribute to the expansion of China’s government.     

Individuals,Parties and the Parliamentary Record in the 1690s

SUMMARY

In this article Colin Brooks reviews the historical writing of the last thirty years on British history between 1688 and 1714. This has offered a variety of interpretations which give priority to a number of different factors. The problem now facing historians is how to synthesize these interpretations into a coherent account. The article suggests that while it is possible to reconstruct from the surviving source materials what happened in the House of Commons, the incompleteness and the ambiguities of the evidence make it much more difficult to determine why it happened, or what were the motives of the individuals taking part. The nature of the source materials requires that they be interpreted with more caution than they have often received: they have as much to tell about individual perceptions as about what actually happened.     

Les députès du centre aux origines de la Troisième République française

SUMMARY

In this article Lothar Höbelt compares the political role of the Liberal parties in the Hohenzollern and Habsburg empires after 1867. Both started from a similar position, by granting a retrospective indemnity to their governments for their unconstitutional actions prior to 1866, in the expectation of reinstating constitutional government in which they would have an active role. The article then analyses the reasons why, by 1879 these expectations had been disappointed, but this led to different outcomes in the politics of the two empires. In the Hohenzollern empire, the Liberals eventually split permanently into a party of National Liberals, prepared to cooperate with government, and a progressive wing that tended to be in opposition. In the Habsburg empire, the Liberals remained united in a largely unsuccessful attempt to enforce parliamentary responsibility on the government. It is then shown how this outcome relates to the different ethnic and political structures of the two empires.