From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England

This article examines the making of monetary policy in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2008 by analysing voting behaviour in the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It provides a new set of measures for the monetary policy preferences of individual MPC members by estimating a Bayesian item response model. The article demonstrates the usefulness of these measures by comparing the ideal points of outgoing MPC members with their successors and by looking at changes over time in the median ideal point on the MPC. The analysis indicates that the British Government has been able to move the position of the median voter on the MPC through its appointments to the Committee. This highlights the importance of central bank appointments for monetary policy.     

Study of fatal burns cases in Kanpur (India)

Epidemiological and medicolegal, including forensic pathological, aspects of 180 cases of fatal burns were studied in Kanpur (India) during the period of one year (October 1985 to September 1986). These constituted 10.79% of the total medicolegal deaths autopsied. Majority of the victims were young Hindu housewives burnt within 5 years of their marriage. The most common source of fire was cooking apparatus like chulha, coalfire, stove or cooking gas. In a substantial number of cases, kerosene oil was poured over the victims and fired with a match stick. About half of the burn cases were accidental, in which cooking on open unguarded flames and loose highly inflammable synthetic sarees of the victims can be blamed. Among the others who died in suspicious circumstances, i.e., burnt alive or forced to commit suicide by fire, dowry and family quarrels and marital disharmony were the two important predisposing factors. Illiteracy, arranged and child marriages, joint family structure, oedipal dominance of mother-in-laws, unemployment and economic dependence of the husband on the parents, near complete dependence of women on their husbands and inlaws, and lack of social security amongst Hindu females were other contributory factors affecting the incidence in some way. Male burn deaths were few and usually accidental.     

Access and allocation: the role of large shareholders and investors in leaving fossil fuels underground

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - An under-researched story is how large shareholders (e.g. Pension Funds) and investors (e.g. Export Credit Agencies) whose...     

Access and allocation in earth system governance: lessons learnt in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Researching socio-ecological justice issues in earth system governance can be operationalized through an Access (securing...     

Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral outcomes in Europe. The economic voting literature offers important insights on how and under what conditions economic crises play out in the short-run. However, it tends to ignore the closely connected dynamics of opposition in the two arenas and the role of protests in politicising economic grievances. More specifically, it is argued that economic protests act as a ‘signalling mechanism’ by attributing blame to decision makers and by highlighting the political dimension of deteriorating economic conditions. Ultimately, massive protest mobilisation should, thus, amplify the impact of economic hardship on the electoral losses of incumbents and mainstream parties more generally. The empirical analysis to study this relationship relies on an original semi-automated protest event dataset combined with an updated dataset of electoral outcomes in 30 European countries from 2000 to 2015. The results indicate that the dynamics of economic protests and electoral punishment are closely related and point to a destabilisation of European party systems during the Great Recession.     

Role of municipal councillors in the implementation of social protection schemes for children—A case of Ahmedabad,India

The 74th constitutional amendment paved the path for strengthening of local governments in India, by devolution of functional and financial powers. The elected local representatives (municipal councillors), as the closest link of the Government to the citizenry, are expected to be the bearers of information regarding the needs and priorities of the people they represent. They can become the champions for effective implementation of service delivery schemes designed locally or at higher levels of governance. This study examines the designated and perceived roles of municipal councillors in the context of the implementation of social protection schemes for children in the city of Ahmedabad. Based on the information collected through personal interviews with a sample of 18 municipal councillors over 4 months, the study brings out the stark absence of designated roles for councillors and the limited perceived role in information dissemination. Councillors’ political ambition, experience, and access to the executive machinery come out to be the most critical determinants of the effectiveness of limited mediation role played by councillors to ensure faster delivery of benefits or inclusion of beneficiaries. The need for institutional strengthening and capacity building at the local level also gets substantiated by the analysis.