Books in review

He has also served as research director of the Guggenheim Foundation from 1972–1984. Among his books are Men in Groups; The Imperial Animal(with Robin Fox); The Manufacture of Evil;and The Pursuit of Pleasure.     

Rent-seeking,political influence and inequality: A simple analytical example

A simple model allowing an analysis of the interaction between economic policy decisions and rent-seeking by private agents competing for political influence, is developed. Rent-seeking may be of the directly unproductive type, requiring resources that are withdrawn from productive activities, or it may manifest itself as income transfers (corruption) to political decisionmakers. In the political-economic equilibrium of the model the extent of rent-seeking, economic policy decisions, income inequality, etc. are endogenously determined.     

The influence of state-level economic conditions on the 1992 U.S. presidential election

Evidence is found that state-level economic conditions played a significant role in the defeat of George Bush in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. Evidence is also found which indicates that the entrance of Ross Perot into the race as an independent candidate was not instrumental in the Bush loss.     

Heterogenous demand for public goods: Behavior in the voluntary contributions mechanism

Numerous laboratory experiments have investigated the performance of several processes for providing public goods through voluntary contributions. This research has been able to identify features of the institution or environment which are reliably likely to produce outcomes “close” to the free riding outcome or “substantially” greater than the pessimistic prediction of standard models. One such feature is the “marginal per-capita return” (MPCR) from the public good. Various authors have altered MPCR between groups or for an entire group at the same time. The experiments reported here address a different question, “What would happen if, within a group, some persons faced a ‘high’ MPCR while others faced a ‘low’ MPCR?”     

THE WELFARE COSTS OF SUPPLY RESTRICTIONS IN THE GENERAL PRACTICE LABOUR MARKET

Abstract: This paper examines policy arguments for further restricting supply to the Australian General Practice profession by immigration and medical school policies. It uses economic analysis to assess the costs and benefits of supply restrictions. The effects of Medicare and GP income-targeting on policy design are analysed. Restrictions are shown to impose net costs on the community as a whole and on government. Even with Medicare subsidies, the inefficiency costs of the current health system are minimised with liberal policies for accepting foreign- trained GPs.     

A comparative modeling of tax reform before and after the legislative process

This research modeled the extent to which the normative goals of equity and efficiency are embodied in three seminal tax reform proposals (Bradley-Gephardt, Kemp-Kasten, and the Treasury Department proposals) relative to the extant regime. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) is also modeled in the same manner. The objective of this study is to compare the equity and efficiency of the initial proposals with that of the final tax reform law. This before and after analysis is designed to ascertain the degree to which the legislative process undermined the normative goals of the tax reform movement. The National Tax Model was applied to model each regime and to measure the distributional and redistributional effects on tax burdens and wage efficiency costs associated with each system across ten income classes. The reform models, including TRA86, are shown as superior to the pre-reform system with respect to the normative criteria. The legislative process did not substantially compromise the goals as reflected in the seminal reform proposals in the development of a more politically acceptable tax reform law. This exercise demonstrates that it is possible for sound legislation to survive a political process that frequently permits the sacrificing of normative goals in favor of special interests.Financial support provided by the Arthur Young Foundation Tax Research Grant Program and The Ralph E. Kent Fund. The helpful suggestions of Jim Curtis were sincerely appreciated.     

Diversity in the American States: Updating the Sullivan Index

The index of socioeconomic and cultural diversity among theAmerican states formulated by John L. Sullivan for 1960 is recreatedfor 1980. Comparisons are made between the index for the twotime periods, and changes among the states are examined overtime. Significant differences continue to exist between northernand southern states, mainly because of cultural rather thansocioeconomic factors. The diversity index remains a relativelypowerful predictor of policy variation among the states and,as such, might be considered as a substitute for geographicregion in comparative state policy research.