On the pricing and benefit structure of a private club or public utility

In this study the structure-induced equilibrium approach for modeling democratic institutions is extended to allow for the added structural features of executive veto and legislative override. A multidimensional model is presented for a budgetary process involving three actors — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive. In order to focus attention on the role of the veto and override possibilities, simplifying assumptions are made with regard to other aspects of the agenda formation process. In particular, the committee has monopoly agenda power, a closed amendment control rule is operative, and perfect-foresight expectations are held by the committee and the executive. Given these assumptions, utility maximization by the several actors generates a budget outcome characterized as a structure-induced equilibrium. The general model is illustrated geometrically with a two-dimensional example, permitting budget outcomes to be analyzed for various combinations of veto rules and override provisions. The analysis demonstrates that budget outcomes are sensitive to alternative specifications of veto rules and override provisions. In the illustration, executive veto power is shown to vary directly with both the permissiveness of the veto rule and the stringency of the override provision. Similar relationships, however, are not found to exist for total budget expenditures.     

When Pivotal Politics Meets Partisan Politics

Recent years have witnessed many efforts to understand legislative productivity and gridlock. However, despite theoretical and empirical contributions to how preferences and institutions shape political gridlock's level (e.g., Krehbiel 1996, 1998 ) and empirical evidence about how parties may affect political gridlock (e.g., Binder 1999 ; Coleman 1999 ), we lack a comprehensive perspective theoretically and empirically examining preferences, institutions, and parties. We overcome this deficiency by modeling conditions for gridlock as a function of preferences and institutions—incorporating bicameralism and presidential influence—and of parties. By generating equilibrium gridlock intervals for empirical testing using Poole's (1998) common space scores, and showing that gridlock intervals associated with models in which parties have no effect or an agenda-setting role do not explain policy gridlock but that those linked to models with party-unity effects and strong presidential leadership do, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for party and leadership roles in explaining legislative choices.     

Welfare policy: The administrative frontier

The process of national welfare reform has been overtaken by local reform as states implement experimental programs under federal waivers. Most of these initiatives attempt to enforce work or otherwise control the lives of the dependent in return for support. Research, which traditionally stressed the social and economic aspects of welfare or poverty, must be reoriented to address the administrative issues raised by the emerging paternalism. A combination of field interviewing and analyses of reporting data can track implementation and connect program operations to outcomes. Such research assesses program performance less definitively than experimental trials do but is more useful to operators and more relevant to current program goals. The frontiers of welfare research, like welfare policy, are institutional.     

The Time to Give: PAC Motivations and Electoral Timing

There has been much discussion about how members of Congressdesire money early in the campaign season. However, theoreticalmodels of how contributions are allocated during the electoralcycle have been lacking. Our analysis attempts to remedy thisgap by providing and testing a model which specifies how theprocess of bargaining between members of Congress and organizedinterests produces the pattern of donations observed over thecourse of the electoral cycle. Most notably, our results suggestthat strategic incumbents can receive money early in the campaignif they desire but that they are generally unwilling to paythe price of lower aggregate fundraising and greater provisionof access. These findings buttress earlier empirical findingsthat question the instrumental value of early money. In addition,our results highlight that contribution choices are fundamentallyinfluenced by short-term factors, especially electoral conditions,that do not lend themselves to the routinized behavior necessaryfor contributors to invest in incumbents for long-run payoffs.