Fairness and competence in democratic decisions

The price system is generally thought to be the epitome of efficiency. In some cases, however, lotteries are preferred to the market as a social decision-making system for reasons of fairness. As recent research has shown, neither procedure is always well accepted among the general population. We analyze the social acceptability of both mechanisms and apply our framework to the allocation of social burdens, namely the siting of nuclear waste facilities. Lotteries are only acceptable if they are applied to a set of efficient options. The market is accepted if the production of fairness precedes the use of prices.     

The life satisfaction approach to valuing public goods: The case of terrorism

Terrorism has large social costs that are difficult to quantify for the well-known problems of eliciting people’s preferences for public goods. We use the LSA to assess these costs in utility and monetary terms. Based on combined cross-section time-series data, we estimate the costs of terrorism for France and the British Isles. We find large negative effects of terrorism on life satisfaction that translate into considerable compensating surpluses for a hypothetical reduction in terrorism, in particular for the serious conflict in Northern Ireland. The effects of terrorism are robust and differ across groups in accordance with prior expectations.     

Camouflaging Facial Emphysema: A new syndrome

Some cosmetic products manufactured in Korea for the treatment of eczema, seborrhea and psoriasis have been suspected to contain anti-inflammatory corticosteroids such as prednisolone, hydrocortisone, betamethasone, dexamethasone and triamcinolone acetonide without these ingredients being indicated on the label. Due to their severe side effects such as permenent skin atopy, these corticosteroids have to be monitored in cosmetic products from a forensic point of view. Many cosmetic product samples (N=65) have been collected from both local and online markets in Korea. The corticosteroid content of these samples was analyzed by LC-MS/MS with diagnostic ions (m/z). Linearity was studied with 0.1-10 μg/mL range in all corticosteroids. Good correlation coefficients (r(2)≥0.997) were found and the limits of quantification were 4.68-7.97 ng/mL for each of the corticosteroids. At three different concentrations spanning the linear dynamic ranges, mean recoveries were 97.2-113.5%and precisions (RSD) for intra-day and inter-day analysis were less than 8.9%. Also, accuracy (Bias %) was less than 11.8%. The results showed that between 0.76-0.94 μg/g levels of prednisolone were detected in four cosmetic products and triamcinolone acetonidewas detected with a concentration in the range of 11.5-272 μg/g in nine samples. This fact reveals that some manufacturers have arbitrarily added these corticosteroids in their cosmetic products without indicating them on the label. Thus, these cosmetic products have to be monitored and if proven illegal preparations removed from the market.     

The “Chinese Dream ”in a World of Nightmares

正Those who visit China with some frequency usually exclaim,in a mixture of surprise and admiration,that it is a country that changes with each passing year.Modernity and development have lightening speed here,and it is a phenomenon that exceeds the observation or simple perception of the visitor.From one of the planet’s poorest and most backward countries,in     

Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy

Gordon Tullock is one of the most important of the founders and contributors to Public Choice. Two innovations are typical ??Tullock Challenges.?? The first relates to method: the measurement of subjective well-being, or happiness. The second relates to digital social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and to some extent Google. Both innovations lead to strong incentives by governments to manipulate the policy outcomes. In general, ??What is important will be manipulated by the government.?? To restrain government manipulation, one has to turn to Constitutional Economics and increase the possibilities for direct popular participation and federalism or introduce random mechanisms.     

Happiness and public choice

Measuring individual welfare using data on reported subjective well-being has made great progress. It offers a new way of confronting public choice hypotheses with field data, e.g., with respect to partisan preferences or rents in the public bureaucracy. Insights from public choice also help to assess the role of happiness measures in public policy. We emphasize that maximizing aggregate happiness as a social welfare function neglects incentive problems and political institutions while citizens are reduced to metric stations. The goal of happiness research should be to improve the nature of the processes through which individuals can express their preferences.     

Regional involvement in peace operations: an analysis of the debate within the UN Security Council

The paper analyses the debates within the UN Security Council on the role of regional organisations in peace operations and examines associated pro and con arguments. The systemisation of the findings is facilitated through the application of SWOT analysis that requires an insight into the unit and system levels of analysis. The first one looks at regional organisations and studies the strengths and the weaknesses that could promote or obscure their greater involvement in peace operations. The second level studies the international political environment that could provide opportunities for greater regional involvement or pose threats (obstacles) to it. The study indicates that there is a clearly established numerical predominance of supporters of greater regional involvement in peace operations over the regio-sceptics. However, the conclusion is that while the permanent members of the UN Security Council continue to endorse such involvement in the field, they will keep avoiding the formalisation and institutionalisation of the role of regional organisations on a political level.