Canada and the Honduran Coup

The purpose of this article is to expose the part played by Canadian imperialism in Honduras before and after the military overthrow of democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on 28 June 2009. It draws attention to the neglected role of the Canadian state's efforts to protect the interests of Canadian capital in Honduras and Latin America more generally through the constant undermining of Zelaya's attempts to return to his legitimate office, and in the ultimate consolidation of the coup under Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo in early 2010. The article simultaneously develops a critique of what has become the standard account of the Honduran coup of 2009. We show how Zelaya was neither a puppet of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, nor an autocrat seeking to entrench his power indefinitely through illegal constitutional reform when he was violently tossed out of government.     

The multiple faces of the entrepreneurial university: a review of the prevailing theoretical approaches

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The importance and the definition of an entrepreneurial university (EU), together with the factors that lead to its existence, have been widely discussed in the...     

Legislative Transparency and Credit Risk

Open governance requirements are designed to improve accountability, which implies that transparent governments are more trustworthy stewards of their publicly invested power. However, transparency may also reduce institutional effectiveness and inhibit political compromise, diminishing the capacity to manage resources responsibly. We assess empirical support for these competing perspectives in the context of American state legislatures, many of which have become exempt from state sunshine laws in recent decades. We leverage variation in the timing of these legislative exemptions to identify the effect of removing transparency in a crucial governing institution on investors’ risk perceptions of states’ general obligation bonds. Our analysis of these data during the period 1995–2010 suggests that removing legislative transparency reduces state credit risk. We conclude that while openness in government may be normatively desirable, shielding legislative proceedings from public view may actually be better for states’ debt repayment capacity, improving their overall fiscal health.     

Repairing the safety net: Is the EITC the right patch?

Using data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article estimates the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on economic risk. Risk is measured through the variance of full income (income holding labor supply constant). The results show that the EITC significantly reduces economic risk, but its effects are weaker dollar for dollar than traditional means-tested programs like Food Stamps. The difference is not statistically significant, however. Moreover, for many middle-class people, the risk-reduction benefits of the EITC exceed the tax burden it imposes. This is less true of means-tested transfers. These results are significant for the politics of antipoverty policy. They show that a real-world antipoverty program can generate enough middle-class economic security to build for itself a solid base of political support.