Politics and the pursuit of fame

Humans strive after fame, especially in politics. We construct a model in which the executive is motivated by fame as well as the desire to hold office. The fame of an executive is based on his or her achievements relative to all prior executives. Periods of great uncertainty for a nation make politicians more likely to pursue fame rather than reelection. We show that fame incentives weaken as a country ages. If politicians are wiser than the median voter, then the pursuit of fame by politicians improves welfare, and the diminution of fame incentives over time causes national decline.     

Constitutional Prohibitions in a Rent Seeking Model

I extend the standard rent seeking model to allow lobbying fora constitutional prohibition on wealth transfers. I examinetwo issues: (1) the ability of special interests withsignificant political capacity to block constitutional change;and (2) the effect of adding a constitutional stage on totallobbying expenditures. Defeating a prohibition on wealthtransfers is a public good for rent seekers; success inconstitutional politics merely allows them to lobby for wealthtransfers. The resulting collective action problem for rentseekers in constitutional politics offsets the generalinterest's free rider problems, reducing the probability oftransfers and expected total lobbying expenditures compared tothe traditional rent seeking contest. Introduction of aconstitutional stage also reverses several comparative staticsresults from the rent seeking game. An increase in the numberof rent seekers or the general interest's (consumers') abilityto organize increase lobbying in the rent seeking game butgenerally reduce expected lobbying in the constitutionalprohibition game.     

China's good neighbor policy and its implications for Taiwan

Chinese leaders in recent years have been following a coherent policy toward Asia that emphasizes moderation and accommodation while preserving core PRC interests. China's prevailing ‘good neighbor’ policy approach—backed by improvement in US–China relations—provides important opportunities and challenges for Taiwan. It clearly inclines the PRC leaders to avoid more aggressive or harder‐line tactics in the mix of carrots and sticks that makes up China's recent approach toward Taiwan. To follow a more disruptive course would undermine the influence and advantage Beijing has been seeking with its ongoing moderate approach toward the United States and other Asian powers. The main challenge for Taiwan is how to deal with the current balance of carrots and sticks in China's policy. Much depends on the ability of Taiwan's leaders and populace to turn the prevailing balance in PRC policy to Taiwan's advantage. This presumably will involve reviving their economy, promoting effective governance and prudent defense, while consolidating relations with the United States and managing tensions in cross‐Strait relations to the advantage of Taiwan's future security and development. Unfortunately, there is no political consensus on Taiwan to mobilize domestic resources and opinion in a concerted effort to protect Taiwan's future as an entity independent of PRC control. Those outsiders who have followed with positive interest Taiwan's remarkable development over the past decades hope that Taiwan makes good use of the opportunities posed by China's good neighbor policy to adopt prudent and concrete measures beneficial to Taiwan's long range prospects.     

American policy toward Beijing, 1989–1990: The role of president Bush and the White House staff

The Tiananmen massacre of June 1989 created a major crisis in U.S. policy toward China. President Bush and his aides on the National Security Council staff took the lead in formulating the U.S. response to the crisis. The president took charge personally in dealing with various issues during the next two years. He strove hard to maintain a balanced policy that would allow for continued U.S. involvement with the people and leaders of China. In the crisis atmosphere of 1989–1990, the president appeared to judge that it was important to narrow sharply the circle of officials who would manage U.S. policy toward China. In part, this was because the president was attempting to strike a difficult balance in U.S. policy. On the one hand, he was attempting to elicit positive gestures from Beijing's beleaguered leaders in the wake of Tiananmen. On the other hand, he was attempting to avoid what he judged were overly punitive and counterproductive U.S. measures against China, which were being pressed on the administration by U.S. leaders in the Congress, media and elsewhere. The president and his close advisors took steps to ensure that State Department and other U.S. officials avoided comment on the most sensitive policy issue of 1990—the extension of most-favored-nation tariff treatment to China. By the end of 1990, however, the president's policy efforts had not stilled congressional debate or restored a consensus in U.S. China policy. President Bush still labored under the misperception in many quarters that he was less interested than others in human rights in China, was overly attentive to the interests of Chinese leaders, and stressed excessively China's alleged strategic importance for the United States. In fact, the Chinese government's relatively constructive role in world affairs, especially over such vital issues as the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf crisis, appeared to do more to win U.S. support for the president's carefully balanced approach to China than the efforts by administrative leaders to explain the policy.     

Media scrutiny and the quality of public officials

I investigate whether attempts by the media to determine a candidate's fitness for office lowers the average quality of public officials, what I call the media scrutiny paradox. Media scrutiny imperfectly signals heterogeneous candidates' type, but imposes privacy costs and reputational costs on politicians. The quality of office holders falls if the selection effect is adverse and outweighs the screening effect. A low quality information signal, which could result if the media focus on irrelevant aspects of behavior, makes the screening effect small and the media paradox more likely to hold. Individuals of good character might invest more in their reputation and have more at stake from being (falsely) identified as a rapscallion. The actual malice standard established in New York Times v. Sullivan likely increased (relatively) the cost of candidacy for good people and lowered the quality of officials.