Do Formulas Reduce Political Influence on Intergovernmental Grants? Evidence from Tanzania

Sub-national governments usually depend on the central government for a large share of their revenues. Therefore, a fair allocation of intergovernmental grants is essential for financing vital local services like education and healthcare. In Tanzania, and many other countries, regions that are better represented in the national parliament receive significantly more funds than others. Recently, Tanzania replaced the previously existing discretionary method of grant allocation by allocation formulas. We study whether this has reduced the effect of malapportionment on grant allocation. Surprisingly, we find that formula allocation does not significantly change this effect. This has important policy implications.     

Partisan Influence on the Local Tax Burden in the Netherlands

This paper analyses the role of partisan politics in determiningthe local tax burden. Property taxes are the most important revenuesource which municipalities in the Netherlands can decide uponthemselves. Using a new data set on Dutch local property taxes in1996, it is concluded that municipalities with a council dominatedby left wing parties have a higher tax burden. We also find thatlarger coalitions have lower levels of taxation. Finally, taxexporting increases tax rates.     

Intermunicipal cooperation,municipal amalgamation and the price of credit

In many countries, local government size is increasingly thought to be insufficient to operate efficiently. Two possible solutions to this problem are amalgamation and intermunicipal cooperation. This paper applies a novel methodology to shed light on the efficiency implications of this choice. Using a unique and rich micro-level dataset, we find that intermunicipal organisations (IOs) in the Netherlands consistently pay higher interest rates than municipalities, while there is no economic reason to do so. We interpret this as a form of inefficiency. Municipal amalgamation, on the other hand, does not result in higher interest rates. Our analysis eliminates one possible explanation, dispersed ownership of IOs, as the number of partners cooperating in an IO does not affect interest rates (no ‘law of 1/n’). This leaves the introduction of extra hierarchical layers as a result of cooperation, and the ensuing reduction in monitoring, as the most probable explanation.     

Armani found to infringe copyright of Dutch shoe designer

In preliminary relief proceedings against the Italian fashionhouse of Armani, the Dutch court allowed copyright protectionfor a shoe ‘that is almost no shoe’, but deniedthe requested rectification because of the publicity alreadygenerated by the case.     

FORENSIC ECONOMICS IN COMPETITION LAW ENFORCEMENT

This paper delineates the specialty field of forensic industrialorganization (IO) as the application of theoretical and empiricalindustrial organization economics in the legal process of competitionlaw enforcement. Four stages of that process that can benefitfrom forensic IO techniques are distinguished: detection andinvestigation; case development; decision-making and litigation;and remedies, sanctions, and damages. We survey the use of economicsin such aspects as identifying potential forms of anticompetitivebehavior, screening markets for competition law violations,determining causality, advising on appropriate remedies, andassessing antitrust damages. The paper discusses the role ofexpert economic witnesses in competition cases. It calls foran organization of forensic IO within the context of existingforensic institutes.     

Privacy and social networks

This article discusses the complex relationship between social networks and the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). After a concise introduction to the general privacy impact of social networks, it discusses how the Directive applies to users and operators of social networks and social network applications. Particular attention is drawn to the scope of the Directive (including the “household” exception), the obligations imposed on data controllers, the interpretation of the Directive by Working Party 29, as well as the difficulties that are encountered when applying the aging Directive to the technological reality of today’s social networks.     

Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void

How should policy analysis respond to the changing context of policy making? This article examines three aspects of policy analysis in this changing context: polity, knowledge and intervention. It argues that policy making now often takes place in an ‘institutional void’ where there are no generally accepted rules and norms according to which politics is to be conducted and policy measures are to be agreed upon. More than before, solutions for pressing problems transgress the sovereignty of specific polities. Furthermore, the role of knowledge changes as the relationship between science and society has changed: scientific expertise is now negotiated rather than simply accepted. And, with the weakening of the state, it is far less obvious that the government is the sole actor to intervene in policy making. This article calls for a reconsideration of the analysis of policy making in the light of this changing context. Based on a contextual perspective it calls for a revitalization of the commitments of Harold Lasswell toward a policy science of democracy by proposing a new ‘deliberative’ policy analysis.