Environmental Regulation in New Jersey: Innovations and Limitations

New Jersey demonstrates the growing capacity of American statesto devise sophisticated regulatory systems in response to environmentalproblems. The state has erected a complex regulatory structureover the past decade that has served as a model for other statesand the federal government. It has proven particularly innovativein addressing toxic substance and hazardous waste problems andin forging cooperation among departments. At the same time,New Jersey serves as a reminder of the inherent limitationsof environmental regulation by one state in a federal system.Despite its regulatory rigor, New Jersey continues to encounterproblems in interstate regulatory coordination, depends heavilyon the federal government for funding to implement ambitiousprograms, and relies increasingly on export of pollutants andwastes rather than managing them within state boundaries.     

Rent-seeking and optimal regulation in replenishable resource industries

In this paper, wasteful rent-seeking behaviour has been shown to have important implications for the determination of the welfare maximizing regulatory policies of replenishable natural resource industries. In general, the incorporation of wasteful rent-seeking activity into the analysis leads to policies which suggest a greater level of industry output than has been advocated by tradition policies that do not take rent-seeking into account. Our analysis therefore supports a more laissez faire policy than has been recommended in the literature.Specifically, we find that when rents are completely dissipated by wasteful rent-seeking activity (t = 1), the role of the regulator is simply to guarantee biological efficiency, should this be threatened by the economic equilibrium achieved by the free-access of firms. One of two possibilities can occur. In the first, the economic equilibrium determined by the free-access of firms is biologically efficient, i.e., the equilibrium steady state of the replenishable natural resource exceeds or is equal to the maximum sustainable yield stock size (x _MSY). If this occurs, the regulator needs to take no action whatsoever. In the second case, the economic equilibrium generated by the free-access of firms does not yield biological efficiency. The equilibrium is characterized by a steady state stock of the natural resource that is smaller that the maximum sustainable yield stock size, namely (x _MSY <>x _MSY). In this case, therefore, the regulator does need to intervene, but his best policy takes the simple form of setting the total quota equal to the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the resource. Thus, while the results are to some extent consistent to those derived by Buchanan for the regulation of externalities, the fact that we are dealing here with replenishable resources adds a further dimension to the issue and changes some of the policy implications.     

Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies

Though the overreporting of voter turnout in the National ElectionStudy (NES) is widely known, this article shows that the problemhas become increasingly severe. The gap between NES and officialestimates of presidential election turnout has more than doubledin a nearly linear fashion, from 11 points in 1952 to 24 pointsin 1996. This occurred because official voter turnout fell steadilyfrom 1960 onward, while NES turnout did not. In contrast, thebias in House election turnout is always smaller and has increasedonly marginally. Using simple bivariate statistics, I find thatworsening presidential turnout estimates are the result mostlyof declining response rates rather than instrumentation, questionwording changes, or other factors. As more peripheral votershave eluded interviewers in recent years, the sample becamemore saturated with self-reported voters, thus inflating reportedturnout.     

Teenage pregnancy and neonatal behavior: Effects in Puerto Rico and Florida

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between neonatal behavior and prenatal and perinatal risk factors in infants of teenage and older mothers in Puerto Rico and Mainland United States. The sample included approximately 300 newborn infants;half were examined in Puerto Rico, the other half in Florida, using the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. Comparisons by maternal age and the number of obstetrical complications showed that for the Puerto Rican group, infants with fewer obstetrical complications were better able to regulate their crying and active states. Infants of teenage mothers with fewer complications had a higher level of arousal than infants of older mothers with fewer complications. Infant behavior in the Mainland sample did not vary by maternal age or complications. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the combination of biomedical variables significantly predicted neonatal behavior in both cultures. Mother's age was not separately correlated with neonatal behavior, but was repeatedly combined with other variables in the significant regressions. The findings suggest that infants of teenage mothers may differ from infants of older mothers, particularly in the organization of state behavior, and that the effects of maternal age on neonatal behavior are increased in the presence of biological outcome factors.This article is based on a final report to the NICHD Center for Population Research, Contract N01-HD-7283.Received Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Main research interests are determinants of neonatal and infant development, assessment of preterm and at risk infant.Received Ph.D. from Harvard University. Main research interests are sociocultural aspects of development, teenage pregnancy, infant temperament and psychophysiology.Received M.A. from University of Florida. Main research interests are prenatal and prenatal factors on development, maternal obstetric medication, and behavioral teratology.     

Delinquency and learning disabilities: Evidence for compensatory behaviors and adaptation

There has been a great deal of debate as to whether or not there is a direct relationship between learning disabilities and delinquent behavior. While the relationship was well established for adjudicated youth, it was more uncertain for adolescents not actively involved with the juvenile justice system. There are indications, however, that the relationship is more complex, with learning disabled (LD) adolescents more likely to develop severe delinquent behaviors than are their nondisabled peers, but unlikely to exhibit a middle ground between delinquent and nondelinquent behavior. It is hypothesized that this difference is due to the ability of most LD children and adolescents to adapt through developing skills that allow them to compensate for their handicapping conditions. Implications for future research are discussed.Partial funding for research support provided by Texas Christian University Research Fund.This article was written by a member of the editorial board of theJournal of Youth and Adolescence as a response to the article by Daniel B. Pickar and Christopher D. Tori, entitled The Learning Disabled Adolescent: Eriksonian Psychological Development, Self-Concept, and Delinquent Behavior, which appeared in Volume 15, Number 5. —Daniel Offer, M. D., Editor-in-Chief.Received Ph. D. in personality and abnormal psychology at Northwestern University. Current research interests include social development and social skills training of both learning disabled and nondisabled adolescents.     

The environments of U.S. R&D laboratories: political and market influences

R&D laboratories in the United States have during the past decade undergone much structural and environmental change. Much of this change has been in response to public policy initiatives and changing markets. One result of the changing environments of R&D laboratories is that traditional sector-based (government, industry, university) classification of laboratories tells us little about their structure and behavior. This study based on survey data derived from 966 U.S. R&D laboratories, develops an environmental input taxonomy, based not on sector but on the mix of political and market influence on laboratories. This taxonomy is examined in connection with three central policy issues: amount of cooperative research, red tape and bureaucratization, and laboratory output. Traditonal sector classification accounts well for red tape, but the environmental input taxonomy provides additional insights into laboratories' scientific and technical output and cooperative research.     

Bringing the Company Back In: A Firm-Level Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment

The industry standard for studying multinational corporations (MNCs) has been to evaluate patterns in aggregate country-level measures of foreign direct investment (FDI). Though certainly related, these data are at best a proxy for the actual commercial and productive activities of multinationals that most political scientists purport to be interested in. Simply put, this is a very indirect way of testing theories about the sociopolitical and economic factors that motivate MNCs’ choice of host countries. This article introduces a new firm-level data set designed to get around this problem by permitting more direct analysis of multinationals’ foreign operations. It then revisits the relationship between regime type and direct investment, finding evidence that MNCs are more likely to establish new subsidiaries in democracies than in nondemocracies. However, further analysis reveals that the strength of this relationship varies by context. Specifically, MNCs rely on regime type as an indicator of political risk when they lack an existing relationship with the host state. In addition, those operating in extractive industries are generally less responsive to political institutions than those operating in manufacturing or services. These results suggest that firm- and sector-specific factors deserve greater consideration than they have been given in the existing literature.     

Voluntarism and its limits: Canada's search for radioactive waste-siting candidates

Abstract: A growing body of evidence suggests that extensive public involvement can play a constructive role in the cooperative resolution of waste-facility siting decisions. The Canadian experience in pursuing a voluntary strategy for siting of a low-level radioactive waste facility provides some support for this consensus view, in light of its early stages of deliberation and public participation. However, a number of factors have served to limit the effectiveness of a voluntary strategy in this case, more generally, as well as undermine the prospects for a cooperative siting agreement in Deep River, Ontario. This article considers the recent experience in this case and attempts to draw lessons for future use of voluntary siting strategies. The article concludes that extensive public involvement remains an important element of siting but must be viewed as one component of an integrated process of waste-facility siting and management. Sommaire: Les preuves s'accumulent à l'effet que la participation du public peut jouer un rôle constructif dans la prise collaborative des décisions concernant l'emplacement des dépôts de déchets. La stratégie canadienne d'emplacement volon-taire d'un certain dépôt de dechets faiblement radioactifs favorise dans une certaine mesure cette approche collective, au vu des premières étapes de délibération et de participation du public à cette stratégie. Cependant, plusieurs facteurs ont limité l'efficacité d'une stratégie volontaire, dans ce cas particulier ainsi que plus générale-ment, et ont sapé la possibilité d'un accord collectif d'emplacement à Deep River (Ontario). Dans cet article, on examine l'expérience récente de ce cas et on s'efforce de tirer des lecons générales pour l'emploi futur de stratégies d'emplacement volontaire. En conclusion, une participation extensive du public demeure un élément important de la localisation, mais elle n'est qu'une composante d'un processus intégré de localisation et de gestion des dépôts de déchets.