Budget Deficits in the States: Massachusetts

Massachusetts entered the current recession carrying a structural deficit counterbalanced by a healthy, $2.1 billion stabilization fund, equal to 10 percent of total tax revenue. Like most states, Massachusetts only dimly realized the depth of the current recession in October 2008 when revenue collections began to slip and welfare caseloads began to increase. By May of 2009, a total FY2009 budget gap of $4 billion had been identified, the combined effect of plummeting revenues and increased costs for welfare and medical assistance. The Commonwealth closed the FY2009 budget gap through a combination of budget cuts, stabilization fund transfers, and federal stimulus funds. The Commonwealth faced an even larger $4.8 billion budget gap in FY2010. With the stabilization fund severely depleted, the FY2010 budget gap was closed primarily by budget cuts, federal stimulus money, and a sales and use tax increase. Because of the Commonwealth's reliance on one-time money to close current budget gaps, a significant budget gap of at least $2.8 billion for FY2011 was identified soon after passage of the budget. In this paper we discuss the political and historic context in which the budget gaps occurred, outline the causes of the budget gaps, and evaluate the strategies employed to close them.     

Towards an International Antitrust Authority? Key Factors in the Internationalization of Competition Policy

Negotiated access to markets through the internationalization of business framework rules is of increasing importance. The article examines the political-economic factors that are contributing to, but also setting limits on, the greater internationalization of one such aspect of policy—competition policy. It analyzes whether internationalizing forces are likely to transform existing international arrangements in competition policy matters from those of a loose regime to that of a fully fledged international institutional system. The latter could be represented by recent proposals for an International Antitrust Authority. The four factors examined are: conflicting ideas about competition policy; the exercise of political power by nation states and business; the roles and stances of international agencies; and democratic concerns about the accountability, representativeness, and transparency of competition policy institutions.
The analysis concludes that future forms of institution-building at the international level of competition policy are important. This is so because, if lejt totally as a set of international regimes, competition policy may be arranged to an excessive degree in the interests of business power or in the interests of one or more dominant countries.     

REDUCTION IN DRUNK DRIVING AS A RESPONSE TO INCREASED THREATS OF SHAME,EMBARRASSMENT, AND LEGAL SANCTIONS*

In a recent paper we proposed a strategy for incorporating threats of shame and embarrassment, along with the threat of legal sanctions, into a rational choice perspective on illegal behavior. In this paper we use that approach in an attempt to account for a reduction in self-reported drunk driving observed in a community between identical surveys conducted in 1982 and 1990. The interval between the two surveys was a period of intense legislative activity and moral crusading at the national and local levels. Our analysis indicates that the reduction in self-reported drunk driving in the community is primarily attributable to an increase in the threat of shame for this offense.     

From Sectoral to Macro Green Governance: The Canadian Department of the Environment as an Aspiring Central Agency

Through a case study of the Canadian Department of the Environment, the article examines three conceptual issues involved as governments seek to institutionalize sustainable development concepts and practices into the center of executive decision-making. The conceptual issues examined in the dynamics of moving from sectoral to macro green governance are: the dynamics of transforming a latent policy paradigm into an operational one; the organizational and concrete resource base needed for environment departments to become and remain a central agency in executive government; and the importance of viable policy communities to sustain new paradigms and make them workable in a day-to-day sense. Five practical constraints are also examined in the Canadian context: the different types of decisions and varying statutory capacities involved; the volume of decisions; the relationships with other departments; the need to mobilize and manage the green policy community and network; and the problems of analytical and scientific competence.