The Interenterprise Arrears Crisis in Russia

Two American economists discuss in considerable detail the critical problem of interenterprise arrears (overdue payments for goods and services) in Russia that undermines the transition to a market economy and privatization. The study is based on interviews involving directors of 32 industrial enterprises, managers of commercial banks, and Central Bank officials in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Sochi from May to mid-November 1992. In addition to analyzing the causes of the mounting accumulation of debt and highlighting the financial problems of enterprises coping with the crisis, the authors examine the anatomy of present-day banking and extension of credit to finance production in the former USSR. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P21, Ol7, G20.     

Roadblock to Economic Reform: Inter-Enterprise Debt and the Transition to Markets

Two American specialists on Soviet and East European economies examine the relationship between inter-enterprise payments for goods and services and economic reform in Russia. Based on extensive interviews with Russian governmental officials and enterprise directors, as well as unpublished documents, the authors trace and discuss the unsuccessful policies of the government and Central Bank of Russia to eliminate arrears during 1992-93. They also explain why financial underdevelopment poses a serious obstacle to economic reform, and why an effort to sharply tighten credit in 1993-94 could lead to cascading enterprise failures. The analysis includes references to the change after October 1993. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: P21, O17, G20.     

Surplus Expenditures: A Case Study of Colorado

In this study the concept of surplus expenditures is introduced, and a theory of surplus expenditures is explored. The study examines the disposition of surplus revenues that emerged from the imposition of a binding tax and spending limit in Colorado. The study concludes that the accumulation of surplus revenue requires a major overhaul of budgetary reporting and decision making to reflect the impact of binding tax and spending limits on the budgetary process. The reporting recommendations are designed to make the budget more transparent and provide both taxpayers and legislators the information they need to make more rational decisions. The policy recommendations explore options for a more efficient and equitable disposition of surplus revenue.     

The Contingent Effects of Candidate Sex on Voter Choice

Political Behavior - A prominent explanation for why women are significantly underrepresented in public office in the U.S. is that stereotypes lead voters to favor male candidates over female...     

Taxing Fracking: The Politics of State Severance Taxes in the Shale Era

States producing gas and oil have long levied severance taxes at the point of extraction, commonly placing most revenues into general funds. These taxes have assumed new meaning in many states amid the expansion of gas and oil production accompanying the advent of hydraulic fracturing. We reviewed all major statutes and constitutional amendments related to severance taxes that were enacted at the state level during the first decade of the “shale era” (2005–14). There have been only modest adjustments in statutory tax rates and some evidence that states have attempted to reduce these rates, possibly in response to growing national production. In turn, there is also evidence that states have begun to pursue more targeted strategies for revenue use, including some expanded focus on responding to the negative externalities linked to drilling, expanded revenue sharing with localities, and increased long‐term protection of resources through state trust funds.     

Kantian cosmopolitanism and its limits

The cosmopolitanism of the European Enlightenment was mostly a limited matter of a Eurocentric anti-nationalism promoting the ideal of Europe as an harmonious system of balancing states. Against this background, Kant’s cosmopolitan vision stands out as more inclusive because, far from restricting its concerns to Europe, it proposes to bring all of humanity together by locating its different sections in a developmental framework that runs from the most primitive of human conditions to the fullest development of Man’s moral and intellectual capacities. Like the developmental schema posited by Voltaire and the Scottish Enlightenment, this vision locates most of humanity at some distance behind Western Europe. It produces the appearance of a cosmopolitan inclusiveness by means of an equally cosmopolitan differentiation.